Welcome to The Beer Tour

 

Big Bark: Tastes as Big as Texas

 

A few months ago I posted about my experiences at South by Southwest, highlighted by the Beers of Texas Tour that Amanda Rykoff and I put together. Our resulting Twitter account, @BeersofTexas, has not yet become the Internet phenomenon that I had anticipated at the time, but nonetheless, it provided me with inspiration: to tweet about the new beers I discover and tag them #beersof with the state that they are brewed in (e.g, #beersofpenn for Yuengling, #beersofnewyork for Brooklyn and Sixpoint, etc.). Thanks once again to Dave Kerpen of Likeable Media for the suggestion. I’ve become much more active in trying new beers than I was prior to SxSW, so if nothing else, I credit the 6-day conference with that. Thankfully, there have also been many other benefits of that week.

My #nowdrinking and #beersof tweets have become a regular addition to my Twitter conversation. Not only do they allow me to share the experience of the beer I’m discovering, but it adds a fun context to the tweet. I’ve since added “beer tourist” to my Twitter bio, and I created multiple Twitter lists to highlight beers from all corners of the U.S. of A through Beers of Texas. So I’ve thought over the last few months what else I could do with #nowdrinking and #beersof. I’ve posted here and there from @BeersofTexas, but ultimately, I can’t post very much about Texas beer. I don’t have extensive knowledge other than those I have tried, nor can I find any Texas beer in Brooklyn to talk frequently enough about. And I don’t think a Twitter account is valuable if only posting occasionally and not truly knowledgeable about its core topic. I reserved a @beertour account, but I don’t know yet that I want to maintain another account when I’ve essentially made it part of my own personal brand.

But I do want to expand my beer tourism series and see if I can really grow this into something. And that means <drumroll please>, I’ll be adding a feature here where I highlight different beers I enjoy or newly discover, where they are from and information about the beer and its brewery parent. Hopefully, it will inspire you to discover new beers and perhaps even, when you are passing through Ohio and looking for a good local beer, you might remember to look this blog up and see that post I’ve written about Hoppin’ Frog’s Hoppin to Heaven IPA. I’ll also blog about any fun experiences that involve beer, including the upcoming tour of the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg that Amanda and I will be doing later this month. I look forward to keeping this up as a regular feature and providing you with more insight into my beer experiences.

Welcome, readers and friends, to The Beer Tour.