Beer rating is an interesting obsession -- if I'm not careful, I end up avoiding beer I know that I love because I've already rated it, in order to drink beer I don't think much of. Lately I've been trying to make more of an effort to balance my drinking so I can drink more old favorites (like this one, which I'm drinking right now). This time of year I'm more likely to drink old favorites, as I think that overall, winter seasonals are the most enjoyable. They're richer and bolder, or spiced, in a manner that goes well with the winter chill. I've already tried this year's Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, always one of the first winter seasonals to be released, and yesterday I picked up this year's Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, an annual favorite of mine. Truly, winter is my favorite time of the year beerwise.
On the subject of beer rating, I recently found out that I am being used. To be more accurate, a beer review of mine is being used by Great Divide Brewing on its website. Perhaps this will be the first step toward becoming a professional reviewer, a dream job if ever there were one. Not so coincidentally, the beer reviewed is Yeti Imperial Stout, the Great Divide beer to which I've given the highest rating. Yesterday while out beer shopping, I decided to pick up a bottle, to see if I still like it as much (or perhaps even more) as when I rated it, over 1 1/2 years ago. It is, after all, an old favorite.
