#NoMoFOMO

When I first started out on my Beery journey, Twitter was my way of learning and seeing. As I’ve mentioned before I would follow what I saw as Beery messiahs and become intrigued by the beers they were raving about and as a result I would seek out those beers to try for myself.

At that stage it was a journey and I felt very much like I was learning with every beer I had. This was an explosion of new terms to me that made me so curious that I felt the only way to truly understand the language was to try the beers.

But that was a very different era. There were far fewer breweries around back then. Distribution networks were far less advanced which meant a beer brewed outside the region was very difficult to get hold of and if you did it was usually long after its initial release date.

There were also far fewer special releases. I think many breweries were in their infancy and were very much focussed on establishing their core ranges. Core beers were relatively young in their development so Brewers were fine tuning and honing them to get the best out of them.

This sounds like I’m talking of a very different era, I sound like my dad talking about his childhood! But this is only a few years ago.

Annual releases were UnHuman Cannonball and erm, well the likes of Good King Henrys Special Reserve and Fullers Vintage, but as I wasn’t really aware of ratebeer I didn’t know of these beers. There simply wasn’t many big releases.

Unhuman Cannonball may well have started all this off, but it was a very unique event in the calendar back then. This is pre-websales, if you were lucky enough to get hold of one in your local shop, you were very very lucky.

But once that clamour was over, we all just went back to drinking the best of our locally produced beers, while exploring the brewed out the region imports that appeared as and when.

I drank more of the same beer back then, that’s not quite true, I drank less but there were more regular beers supped, fewer new beers tried.

Roll forward to 2016. The year started with me seeing my timeline swamped with the first of Wylam Brewery’s collabs, WxY. A lot of profile for this beer, it was a short run beer so demand was high and availability low. And the rest of the year followed suit. There was a new must have beer every single week. Let’s just remind ourselves of some of the main ones, Fourpure Juicebox, UnHuman Cannonball, Human Cannonball, Cloudwater DIPA V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, V8, V9, V10, Beavertown Dy Jekyl & Mr Hyde, Rainbow project boxes, Buxton Yellow Belly, Buxton Yellow Belly Desert edition, Magic Rock Hypnotist and Wayniac, Brew by Numbers 55:03. I could go on, but I won’t. It serves no purpose does it. Isn’t reading that list, well, erm just abit boring? That’s how those outside the industry feel about the weekly clamour for that weeks buzz beer.

I think I stepped back from ordering a box of Cloudwater DIPAs when they announced that it was to be a monthly release. I just felt that £25 a month for the quantity to be delivered was getting abit daft when the availability was improving. Why pay postage when it was becoming more available in the local shops.

FOMO the Fear Of Missing Out.
Was my life better for trying some of those beers listed above? Well in some instances it was, but through circumstances rather than the getting of said beer.

What is it that you don’t want to miss? Ask yourself that. If it’s simply trying a beer so that you have a gauge of what is good, then fine. But how many of us have that need to be seen trying a particular beer, or being the first to try a beer, or being the first to post a picture of a beer. Basically bragging right seekers spoil it for me.

Bragging rights seekers need a steady stream of new releases to give them momentum, they need that special beer every single week to let the world know that special to them is the norm. To demonstrate that they have their finger on the pulse and are in the know. And what I find is that every beer is judged in black or white. It’s either amazing or it’s shite, there is no middle ground, you rarely get why and often the amazing beers aren’t quite as good when I try them.

That does my head in. The arse licking. Gauge the motive of those posting on such beers. Are they giving an independent and subjective view or are they buttering up some other person of influence for whatever reason.

I digress, but this is the biggest influence on me stepping back from those much talked about beers (avoiding the ‘H’ word). I’m not saying these beers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, more that there are a gazillion other beers out there that can give you the same feeling of refreshment and enjoyment.

So that’s my mission this year. To boldly go where a great many have gone before and to get back to enjoying those beers that have been round for years but are amazing, and yet because they don’t have one particular Friday night to get everyone talking about them online, fall under the radar.

A great example that springs to mind, Buxton Axe Edge. As bangin a beer as a brewer can brew (my new tongue twister, try saying that when you’re hammered).

So 2017 is my year of #NoMoFOMO get onboard folk! Tell us about a new beer, not simply the beer everyone is drinking. Imagine if you turned up to a bottle share and everyone had the same bottle? It would be rubbish! Well Twitter can feel like that these days, entice us to try something new and we’ll do likewise.  Bring something different to the table, let us discover a broader range of beers and we’ll all be far better for it. A rich tapestry has more than one thread.

Remember the hashtag! #NoMoFOMO