Howdy y’all! I’ve finally done it. After a vague idea of starting a beer blog, reserving brittantley.com nearly 5 years ago (it’s still just a shell), countless beer adventures since then, and some final prodding from friends over beers (of course), I’ve decided to create a hub for sharing my love of beer with the world. In the days, months, and years ahead I hope to give you a glimpse into my life and the ridiculous things that my totally healthy love of beer leads me to do.
So why call my website BrittskiBeers? Well ThatBeerGuy and TexasBeerSnob were already taken, and ThatGuyWhoClogsUpYourUntappdFeed isn’t a very practical name. Unfortunately BrittBeers was also already taken on multiple social media platforms, so I had to think of something else. I’ve been called by the silly nickname Brittski since at least high school, and considering I aim to keep this a light-hearted affair, I thought this was appropriate. As for Beers, it has a very obvious meaning: it’s a noun, and it’s that thing that we love drinking. Beers can also be used as a verb or adjective: “Brittski beers around the world” or “I plan on beering pretty hard tonight.” It’s this latter definition which my website will revolve around. I beer a lot in my life, and I want to have a platform to share that with people.
Now why start a website to talk about my beer adventures? As I’ve drilled into your head in the preceding paragraphs and as anyone who knows me in real life can attest to, I love beer. I love the taste of it. I love the aromas with which a freshly poured glass caresses your nostrils. I love the rainbow of colors beer can present from a light yellow pilsner to a vibrant red raspberry sour to a motor oil black imperial stout. I love the warm feeling a beer produces as it sloshes around your mouth and down your gullet and settles into your belly. I love the social aspect of beer as it has become a worldwide common denominator for uniting people over a shared goal: relaxing and sharing some suds with long-time friends or making new ones saddled up to an unfamiliar bar. I love craft beer and the thousands of locally owned and operated breweries that put innovative and hard-working people to work and give back to their local communities. I even love shitty macro beer despite its lack of flavor and all its corporate profit-seeking flaws.
I also love sharing my love of beer with others. I obviously drink quite a bit of beer, and I love to share my knowledge of beer with friends. I’m by no means an expert on beer or anything approaching a cicerone, but I love when I can explain something about beer and expand someone else’s knowledge. I love winning people over to good beer. There are few experiences more rewarding for me than to see someone enjoying a beer I recommended them and then having that person become more attuned to what good beer is. Beyond this personal sharing, I also love to share my beer adventures. I go on beercations pretty often, and I love telling people about these. My stories are frequently met with a look that says “you’re a crazy drunken bastard,” but hopefully I can convince the occasional person that a vacation revolving around beer isn’t the most insane thing to do. I typically create beer maps for the places I visit, and I want to share these with people. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even join me on one of my adventures some day.
Lastly I created this website as a way to interact with the beer industry. Through my beering about the world, I meet a lot of people connected to the industry in various ways, and I want to have an official means of interacting with these people and becoming more connected in the industry. Although I don’t personally work within the beer industry, I am invested in a startup brewery (shout-out to Apogee!), and I would like to become more involved within the industry in an official manner. Hopefully having my fledgling website will provide me with opportunities to meet more industry folk and make some awesome connections.
A quick word on the logo for Brittski Beers: it was designed by my awesome and amazingly talented friend Cristina Tortarolo (visit her website!), and I am very happy with it. I wanted something with a modern feel but also not too serious. The overlaying types of glassware hint at the many types of beer to be enjoyed, and their combined effect along with the double B’s gives an impression of double vision or blurriness. As will be witnessed through my beerventures, this will be a common theme.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for visiting my website and reading my first post. I hope you’ve gained a feel for what I’m looking to accomplish here, and I hope you stick around to follow me on my beerventures. Stay tuned for what comes next! There was some adventure about some Massachusetts breweries making hazy IPA’s recently…
