I normally don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I figure that if there’s something that you really should do, you should do it now rather than wait until some arbitrary, future date. New Year’s resolutions seem a form of procrastination (which I am also very good at). So this resolution isn’t actually a New Year’s resolution, it just a change I plan to make that happens to coincide with the end of year period. Clear?
That out of the way, my resolution is to be more positive about beer on this blog.
This comes about because I have been flat out for the last two weeks and have been too busy to write, but it has given me plenty of time to reflect on the past year of writing. I realised that I work in beer because I love it, but that if the only contact someone had with me is this blog you might wonder.
It’s funny really, I spend so much of my time presenting beer appreciation classes, hosting corporate tastings, hosting the 4BC beer show and writing about beer. Through all of that I’m pretty much a huge fanboy for beer, raving about it and trying to show how exciting, interesting and dynamic beer is. This blog was planned as an adjunct to all of that, but something happened along the way. I don’t get paid for writing it and don’t sell advertising, it’s something that I started to do because there’s a lot that I think should be said about beer and the Australian beer industry that doesn’t really find a place in print. Unfortunately, because it’s something that I do around real work and only write here when motivated rather the need to earn a dollar, I seem to have been most motivated to write when stuff pisses me off. This has seen the blog tend towards beer bile rather than a site that celebrates beer the way I want to. So I resolve that will change. From the site traffic stats, I am frankly amazed at how many people (apparently you are ‘uniques’ in the jargon of the web) stop by to read these self-indulgent rantings and I think I owe it to you be a little more enthusiastic here. I will still vent, but I will also use the site to to celebrate all of the beery goodness in the world, not just the bad.
Just like the quitting smoker, I expect to have you hold this resolution up to me if I lapse…