Our Life in Beer 2008

By on February 2, 2009 @ 11 PM (2 Comments)

Apparently we blacked out during the month of January because we’re just now getting to our 2008 year in beer review. And what a year it was! We wanted to go back through 2008 and see what we learned, what we liked and how we grew. We had 113 posts last year – 64 of which were beer reviews (that’s better than a beer a week!). That’s a lot of beery goodness and we were happy to share it with you – our beer love community. So here are our thoughts on our life in beer in 2008 (note: these beers were new to us in 2008, not necessarily new beers that came out in 2008):

  • Best New Beer Style of 2008: Milk Stout
    The BeerFathers had their first milk stout in 2008 and man oh man was he impressed. Where had this been all our life? The malty, coffee, roasty flavors gripped our palate and left us wanting more. The new rule in the Beer Love household is “When you find a milk stout you must buy it” (and yes that should be sung to the tune of Devo’s “Whip It”). We’ve got several milk stouts in the queue for ratings in 2009, in case you’re wondering why we have so few on the site.
  • Best Beer of 2008: Foothills Sexual Chocolate
    2008 gave us a beer that delivered both in name and in experience – the Foothills Sexual Chocolate Stout. On tap, in the bottle and any other way we could get it – we got it and made sweet chocolaty love to it. It’s a terrific beer that you should get while you can, because it’s pretty limited in release. As a matter of fact it comes out this month (February)!
  • Best Non-Stout of 2008: Aventinus Doppelbock
    “Non-stout” seemed like a much more elegant way of saying “lager” so we went with that. The reason this category exists is because we love stouts – more malts, more flavors, heartier – whatever the reason we really prefer them over lagers. We know that’s a sweeping generalization to make but we feel it’s important to note our bias. That said, the Aventinus Doppelbock was by far our favorite non-stout of the year – one we’d put head to head with any stout in terms of sheer enjoyment.
  • Best Fruited Beer of 2008: Abita Strawberry Harvest
    We went a little nuts with the strawberry beers this past year, but no matter what the Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager continued to rise to the occasion. We labeled it perhaps the most perfect spring beer on the market today.
  • Best IPA of 2008: Dogfish Head 90 Minute
    We’re admittedly not big hopheads, but when we found this IPA we knew it was special. And that’s just what the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is – special. It’s got wonderful balance to it – plenty of malts to balance out the hops, and a nice strong 9% ABV to boot. We would never turn this beer down.
  • Best Beer Review of 2008: Michelob Amber Bock
    The review for Michelob Amber Bock will always be special to us for several reasons – it was a review of the breakout beer that got us into good beer, it was our 100th beer review and it was one that we put a lot of time into (we started writing this months before we posted it). It embodies everything we wanted to do with our beer reviews – namely documenting the “experience” of the beer above and beyond the beer itself. We only wish we had the time to do this with all the beers we try.

Looking back on 2008 it’s easy to see it was a good year for beer for The BeerFathers. It was also an epic year for the The BeerFathers web site – we had all of 444 unique visitors in the month of January 2008 and we set a goal of breaking 1,000 visitors a month over the year. Well, for the month of January 2009 we had 4,175 unique visitors. That’s an 840% increase in beer loving visitors. That’s a lot of beer love! Thanks to everyone for loving the beer with us – here’s to beer in 2009!


2 Comments (Add Your Comments)

  1. Cool sum up. I think I will do one next year. The 2008 was just a start for me so there wasn’t much to sum up:)
    I hear good things about Michelob brewery and it makes me really sad I cannot try their beer. Haven’t seen it anywhere in my country.
    I guess I have to open a beer of the world pub and import it:)

  2. Congrats on a great year, and I wish you much beer success (and success in general) in 2009!
    I too discovered Milk Stouts in 2008, and was also disappointed that I had gone all these years without it! I am going to also adopt your house rule!
    Its a great style, but seems a bit hard to find! I really liked the Keegan Ales ‘Mothers Milk’ and there’s one from Lancaster Brewery in the fridge as I type this.

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