Draught Diversions: The Tap Takeover’s 1st Beerthday

Draught Diversions is the catchall label for mini-rants, think-pieces, and posts that don’t just focus on one beer here at The Tap Takeover. We hope you don’t grow too weary of the alcohol alliterative names we use…

Today, the Tap Takeover is officially one year old. Or rather, only 20 more years since the beer blog I started can consume the products featured on it. From a beer perspective, it has of course been an interesting year. About a dozen or so new breweries opened in New Jersey alone since I started The Tap Takeover, bringing the total as of this post to 88 production breweries in New Jersey.

According to untappd, I had over 400 unique beers over the last year (May 22, 2017 to May 22, 2018). Of course, many of those (about 80) were tasters or part of a flight, so that’s a little over 300 different bottles/pints/cans of beer. A rough breakdown shows (again, via my untappd account) about 59 Stouts, 56 IPAs, 25 Porters, 20 Dubbels/Tripels/Quads, 19 Hefeweizens, 17 Pale Ales, and 17 Pilsners. If I were to tell the Rob Bedford who started this blog in 2017 that he would have (and mostly enjoy) more than 50 IPAs over the next 12 months, second only in style count to Stouts, he wouldn’t believe me.

That speaks to the biggest change in my beer consumption habits over the past year, I seek out IPAs and find myself buying IPAs more than any other style lately. Tangentially, I’ve also come to truly appreciate Dogfish Head Brewing more than I have since I first started enjoying craft/independently brewed beer.

In one year, I published over 100 posts, this is the 52nd Draught Diversion and Thursday’s beer review will be the 52nd Beer Review. As a little tease, I’m reviewing a beer from the brewery whose beer was the subject of the very first review here at the Tap Takeover. In terms of reviews of styles, the big three were Stout – 8; Porter – 6; and IPA – 5.

I visited a few more breweries over the past 12 months, too. The Hackettstown Trio of Czig Meister, Jersey Girl, and Man Skirt Brewing; Angry Erik Brewing in Lafayette, NJ; Ramstein in Butler, NJ; Jughandle Brewing in Tinton Falls, NJ; Free Will Brewing tap room in Peddler’s Village, NJ; Iron Hill Brewery (Brewpub chain) in Pennsylvania; Wet Ticket Brewing in Rahway, NJ (I plan on visiting them again); and Doylestown Brewing Company in Doylestown, PA. I also returned to favorite local breweries Conclave Brewing in Raritan/Flemington, NJ; Demented Brewing Company in Middlesex, NJ; Flounder Brewing Company in Hillsborough, NJ; Carton Brewing in Atlantic Highlands; and of course Lone Eagle Brewing in Flemington for the monthly board game night.

One other change about the blog that has probably been noticeable since the calendar changed to 2018. I went to a new format for my monthly tally/recap. Rather than going exhaustively over 95% of the unique beers I had per month I thought, why not whittle that down. So the Monthly Six Pack was born, an obvious framing device, I would think.

I would like to thank the readers of the blog and folks who have supported my little hobby by spreading the word and simply chatting up with me (virtually or in meatspace) about beer. I’d especially like to thank Mike K. of NJ Craft Beer, Al Gatullo, Mike Martinez (who homebrews a tasty saison!), John Anealio, Chuck of NJ Beer and Wine, of course my wife for supporting my enjoyment of this delicious liquid and my dad who has checked in here regularly. Both my wife and my father have given me beers that were the subject of a handful of these reviews, and my wife was the designated driver to many of the breweries featured.

I don’t know that there’s much else for me to say, I don’t want to sit here and stroke my own ego (any more than I already have). If nothing else, I hope I showed some folks good beer they should try and in some cases, some not-so-good brews to avoid.

Cheers to another great year!