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What is Beer Bowl? What are these ratings for? What's the point?
What started as an interesting experiment turned in to a hobby, and it's damn near outgrowing that. My wife probably hates it. I'm sure there's other spouses I've pissed off with this... A seemingly endless reason for folks that like beer to spend money on such a wide variety of beers - all in a quest for variety beyond the big three beers in the beer stores.
Why drink those? Why drink Miller Lite? Bud Light? Coors? Corona, Heineken, Busch, Michelob, etc etc etc.. The list goes on and on.
There is such a fantastic variety of beers available out there!
I created Beer Bowl 9 years ago. Hell - more than 9 years ago - created it back in my ol Army days - it was a gimmick - "let's see if Aaron can tell the difference between Coors Light and Bud Light." He couldn't, even though he was adamant about his Bud.
9 years ago it became something more. During half-time of some big sporting event (I won't say their trademarked name if they don't say mine!), a few friends and I sampled a few random beers in my basement to see which one we liked better. Huh. That was pretty fun. Let's do it again.
Beer Bowl II took place the same Sunday the next year. 13 different beers, about 5 of us as "judges," with a few others as on-lookers. We introduced the head-to-head blind taste testing bracket.
Beer Bowl III - we decided it needed it's own day - Saturday before the big game. 20 different beers. 7 judges - still in my basement. Interesting to note - I had a homebrew win each of the first three. Imagine my encouragement. 
Beer Bowl IV - Overkill! 38 different beers, 14 judges in my basement, and a main floor full of pissed off spouses. "What is taking so long!" I had a "staff" for the first time. I had two home brews in the field, and both got knocked out in the final 8 (one lost to the eventual winning beer!)
Somewhere between BBIV and the next one, we created the website, and we started tracking beer ratings and keeping them in standings, so we'd narrow a wide field down to the top 20 or so beers for Beer Bowl itself. Little bit of MS Access, some Excel, a few formulas, the ratings and standings were simple.
Beer Bowl V - I had decided it had outgrown the basement (or was it me that decided that??). Good thing my neighborhood had a clubhouse. In we went with 33 judges, 21 beers, and about 20 on-lookers (or call them the "drivers!")
Beer Bowl VI - another one for the clubhouse - 20 beers, 47 judges, about 20 drivers. Started to get cramped in there...
Beer Bowl VII - what to do, what to do? I now had a following of over 100 judges that were throwing ratings. Friends of friends, stuff like that. I couldn't put them all in the clubhouse. Time to move it out. Little Havana became the new home. We decided to throw the extra money at charity for the first time (there wasn't any prior!) and also had a prize raffle. Had it not been for an unexpected 6-8" of snow, we would have had a great turnout! But we fought through it, and still had 62 judges out, sampling 20 different beers.
Beer Bowl 8 - we left the roman numerals at home, had another season of ratings, went a little over-board with 24 beers, and had over 100 judges for the first time. Packed in to Little Havana, we had more raffles, more prizes, more money and canned goods for charity. It doesn't hurt to feel good about drinking good beer!
Beer Bowl IX - it's been a struggle to get to this point! The ratings system has completely outgrown a one-man show. Simple Acess/Excel has been replaced by SQL, and we've got judges out there who LOVE to find new beers. I've got an import list of a few thousand (yeah - seriously), that I need to get in to the database before shutting down the season on 1/31. We're teed up to go in to Little Havana again, bigger and better than ever, on Saturday February 25th.
Looking back at things - I'm quite surprised. I'm quite pleased. I like what I've done. I hope folks have enjoyed the process - getting away from the run of the mill beers, trying something different, broadening your beer tasting horizons.. If you have, my experiment worked. If you still prefer corn in your beer - how'd you get on this site anyway?
So cheers to you! Cheers to the judges who throw ratings on the site, cheers to the others that go to these "tastings" put on by various folks, and cheers to all who have supported Beer Bowl!
And now it's back to work for me - back to updating those standings - I've got to get them set before the end of the season so we can get our field set for BBIX!
Mark your calendar, and I'll see you there!
Cheers!
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Beer Bowl IX is right around the corner!