Whats in store for 2010?

I realise this is quite a late look back at the year past and ahead to this one and Im sorry for that! To be honest, Ive been travelling back to France and settling back in and just didnt get around to it till now!

Anyway 2009 was a great year of beer for me. 2009 was really the year that I can say I 'got into' beer. Im still a young drinker and I only turned 'legal' in 2008, so 2009 for me was a real year of taste discovery. That discovery ranged from generally trying beers to find out what I liked and what I didnt to making a 320 mile round car journey to see the BrewDog brewery in the North of the place I call home (thats Scotland by the way!!). I think I tried a lot in 2009, from all corners of the globe, some close, some definately not as close.

To have thought 3 years ago that I would be sitting with an American beer that wasnt some mass marketed rubbish in hand would have been crazy. I suppose it shows how quickly the craft beer bug can actually take over. I didnt even drink really before I turned 18 and now only two years later I can pick out flavours, scents and sometimes hop varieties . I always thought beer was 'just a drink', something to wash away a bad day with. How wrong I was!

Beer means so much to me now. I realise that not all of my friends and the people around me understand this (you all just think I like a good drink, which isnt that far off the mark) but genuinely beer has become such a huge thing for me. Bests of 2009, well I named a lot of those in the previous golden pint awards post but if you ask me to name drop; BrewDog, Mikkeller, Stone, Trappistes Rochefort and Westmalle have all been tried and tested with thumbs up in 2009. I realise I am making sweeping generalisations and just naming breweries and no specific beers, but thats what my reviews are for!

Hopes for 2010? Well I have a box of Thornbridge beers to try and I cant wait. Marble is another that is right up there on my must do list. I am also making a trip to Belgium this Feb and I will obviously be making a little search for the holy grail, need I say more? Obviously I will be trying lots of other fantatic Belgian beers there too so I am looking forward to this. Also on my way back to France in mid/late Feb I will be making a stop in London for a few days and hope to check out the much hyped bars I have heard of; The Rake, The White Horse etc. Anyone who lives around the area and would be willing to show me the ropes would be much appriciated (leave comments if you think you can help, or just want a piss up in London). Im back to Scotland in late April and I think I may have something very exciting lined up for the summer, all Im saying right now is that I think I may have a much better understanding of beer when Im done! After that? Who knows? Back to the grind at Uni I suppose, fitting in as many beer trips and tastings in between work.

Finally though, all I can ask for in 2010 is to try as many new beers and breweries as possible. Broadening my horizons has been the challenge for 2009 and I think Ive done it, so I want to make them even broader in 2010. The best of health and happiness to all the readers of the blog, thanks for your support in the first few months of this blog. Its nice to know people are reading! Cheers

M