After tasting and noting my first 66 beers of #99BeersForTrev, I have reached a conclusion. The work of tasting/noting is enough that I need some extra motivation to do it, so I am going to challenge myself for the last third.
Taking good tasting notes really is work, and I don’t even fill in the journal completely. There is space for ranking/scoring beers, but I only taste. Even with just tasting, it’s surprisingly difficult to write down in words what you are tasting or thinking about while drinking a beer.
When tasting, I tend to use the same descriptors over and over (like “citrus rind” or “citrus juice”). I don’t know if that is a lack of experience or creativity (or lack of a palette?) but I’m never sure what else to write.
Although it is work and I struggle with doing it well, I do enjoy taking the time to do it every now and then. I just need a reason or some form of motivation.
For the last 33 beers of #99BeersForTrev, I’m taking the notebook title “99 Bottles of Beer…” literally! Only beers from bottles for the last notebook. I feel like a lot of beers I drink are canned, so hopefully this gets me to try some new things. I can get fancy bottles from Jolly Pumpkin and Shorts tends to have good beers in bottles too (spoiler alert: my first two beers may already be from Jolly Pumpkin and Shorts…).
Also, I think I will consider growlers to be bottles, but not crowlers. Growlers are just big bottles, right?