A Year in Review

I wasn't planning on doing a "looking back" post, but after looking back at my first entry, it's kind of crazy how far this thing has come. A little history... about two years ago I had the First Annual Bearded Brewfest. My friends knew I was a homebrewer and my closest friends had drunk my beer, but the large group of friends had not. The party was a big success and I introduced a lot of my friends to my beer and the self indulgent dorkiness that is the Bearded Brewing Company. This was the birth of the original Bearded Brewing website. My friends wanted to keep tabs on what I was brewing and were interested in possibly buying some. My friend Jeff was good with computers and such and helped me design the website and buy the domain Beardedbrewing.com. The website was fun, but expensive and after having some software problems, we decided to scrap it.
I decided to look into blogging, and the Bearded Brewing Blog was born. It has become much more than I ever thought it would be. Like my website, I envisioned this as being a self-indulgent thing that would allow the few friends who had been checking it out, to continue to monitor my brewing. What I wasn't expecting was the large community of like minded people, brewing and blogging. That connection has made this the most rewarding experience. Getting over the initial "who cares about what I'm writing" and finding this world of people who not only enjoy what you write, but connect with it, and have their own blogs with their thoughts is immensely cool.
To break it down, here's what I never expected, but has been so positive about the "beer blogging" experience.
1. As mentioned, the connection to brewers and beer geeks. I've exchanged homebrew and local beer with people in Oregon and Pennsylvania, and soon to expand. So much fun to have other people review your beer, drink other great homebrew or commercial beers otherwise not available to you.
2. I'm a better brewer, period. The advice I get from reading other blogs, or comments posted on my own posts, or even questions raised that make me think more about what I'm doing. This has all helped me improve.
3. Creative outlet. This is what brewing has always been for me, and this is a great forum to share recipes, artwork, reasons behind the names and labels, etc.
4. Interviewing breweries. Something I never thought I would do, but I thought "why not just email them." It gave me an avenue to say "I have a blog, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions." The interviews came out of nothing more than my own curiosity and it was great to be able to get responses to questions I have about the industry.
5. Organic/sustainable growth- I was dabbling in this area a year ago. But after putting up my logo with the tag line of organic brewing and socially responsible, I felt like I needed to make a commitment to myself to become more educated and "practice what I preach." I have learned SO much more than I imagined in that area by blogging, interviewing, and reading other blogs about that topic. Plus a lot of positive feedback, which has encouraged me to continue to try to brew organically and sustainably.

So a great year, and a special thanks to those of you who read and post and email, etc. It doesn't feel quite so self-indulgent when you know people are into what you're doing.
As mentioned before, I will be posting some thoughts on my recent trip to Pittsburgh (a formal apology to Dave @ Muckney for not letting him know I'd be in Western PA...it was a short, family oriented jaunt.) Also my final thoughts on some West Coast Beers sent to me by Rick @ BW Beer Blog.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer