My vacation coincided with some great personal news that prompted me to refocus my time — I’ve hardly even booted my computer over the past few weeks! It’s been refreshing, and I’ve kept up with my one-a-day ritual, but I need to get back to writing.

To that end, let me introduce “North Carolina Beer Week”.

BeerADay.net reader Kevin (@zy1125) helped me obtain a fine supply of North Carolina brews. I’ll be drinking these beers Monday through Sunday — if you’re in North Carolina or have a good NC beer supply, I invite you to drink along!

• Monday: Carolina Brewing Company Pale Ale
• Tuesday: Big Boss Brewing Co’s Bad Penny Brown Ale
• Wednesday: The Duck Rabbit Brewing Co’s Milk Stout
• Thursday: Highland Brewing Co’s Oatmeal Porter
• Friday: Highland Brewing Co’s Black Mocha Stout
• Saturday: French Broad Brewing Co’s Wee-Heavy-Er

Cheers!

Related posts:

1. Carolina Pale Ale
2. Highland Brewing Oatmeal Porter
3. Bad Penny Brown Ale

Why not use this time to peruse the archives? I’ve made some minor updates that have made this easier, such as:

Better Archives Navigation: At the bottom of my site, you’ll find click-able jumps to pages deeper in the archive. Ever wonder what’s on Page 40? Jump right to it!

Search For Your Favorite Beer: There’s a search box on the right-hand navigation panel. Whether you’re looking for an old post or just checking to see if I’ve already written about one of your favorites, the search bar can help you get there. It’s a bit rudimentary so far (if nothing matches your search, it merely says “page not found”) but that will be an easy fix — for a day when I’m not camping!

I’ll be back at the writing and photo-ing soon.

And don’t forget what all the cool kids are doing — sign up for the daily email update and you’ll never miss a beat!

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So let’s give it a try! Since this is American Craft Beer Week, I’ll be focusing on (you guessed it) American craft beers.

Here’s the lineup:

Since I didn’t get my act together quickly enough, my official kick off for the “Drink Along Week” will be on Wednesday and will run through Monday of next week. So it’s a “Drink Along Semi-Week”.

• Wednesday: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Thursday: Flying Dog Double Pale Ale
• Friday: Samuel Adams Imperial Stout
• Saturday: Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen
• Sunday: Avery Salvation
• Monday: Avery India Pale Ale

I’ll be drinking each beer around 8:00 or 8:30 pm Eastern each day this week, posting my initial thoughts on Twitter and writing a post about the beer to go live around 10:30 pm Eastern. To participate, look for any of these beers at your local liquor store, buy one or more, and either follow me on Twitter where you can send me your thoughts, or comment on my daily beer posting with your thoughts on the beer. Or post to this topic (just created) in the Forum. Or post to your own blog or social network… Let’s just have some fun and see what happens!

This will be casual. If you can’t find a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale until Friday, wait until Friday to post your thoughts. Or if you don’t have a bottle of Double Pale Ale but you open up a Flying Dog Kerberos instead, let us know. There are no rules — except the big rules, but those only apply to me (exactly one a day with no repeats for the rest of the year).

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Related posts:

1. North Carolina Beer Week
2. What’s That Goop in my Beer?

Spoils from a recent beer run

In some ways, this challenge has been easier than I thought it would be. I found a great liquor store that has kept me well-supplied with a variety of individual bottles of beer, and the excitement of from all this abundance of new beer has offset the sense of loss that comes with pledging to drink only one beer a day.

Challenges rarely arise from where they are expected. I definitely underestimated how much focus and sacrifice this project would actually require.

You see, I get no time off from this challenge. There’s another beer waiting for me every day. There have been nights — whether tired, sick, or traveling — when drinking a beer was the LAST thing I wanted to do.  Exploring the appearance, aroma, and flavor of a new beer every single day has required more time and mental energy during the few hours I have after the workday has ended than I ever realized it would consume.

But it’s worth it.  I couldn’t keep doing this every day for a year if it weren’t.

Together, you and I have been discovering new beer every day. My favorite comments are from people who have tried a new beer or style after reading about it on this site. So I want to thank all of you who have been reading, commenting, joining the discussion, and sending me beer recommendations!

Most of all, I want to thank my wife for putting up with all of this nonsense. I truly couldn’t put the time, energy, and money into this project without her full support — even if it does turn her into a self-described “beer widow” for a couple of hours every night.

So to my wife: the beer comes and goes, but I’ll always have you.

And yes, that sounded much sweeter in my head.

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Over 1000 different beers at Julio's Liquors!

It’s safe to say the BeerADay.net challenge wouldn’t be possible without Julio’s Liquors, in Westborough, MA.

To explain, let’s go back in time a bit.

When I first socialized the idea of drinking one beer a day only, with no repeats throughout all of 2009, the first question I heard was almost always something such as:

“Are there actually 365 different beers? Won’t you run out of beer to drink after a couple of months?”

That question helped me understand that most people — even many avid beer drinkers — have no idea how much great beer is out there. Hearing people ask if this project was even possible simply rededicated me to the importance of discovering new beer and sharing the experience.

But the question that loomed most ominously in MY mind as I planned this project was: “Where can I buy a robust variety of single bottles of beer?”

You see, if I buy a six pack of beer, chances are very good that most of that beer would go to waste — since I’d be drinking just one. (Not to mention the pocketbook pain of buying, say, 365 six packs.) I looked into buying singles on the web, and through there are some decent web stores, none will ship to my adopted state of Massachusetts. Even if they did, by the time I added in the shipping costs — I’d be going broke one bottle at a time.

With the clock ticking down on 2008, I was getting very near to pulling the plug on the entire project. “A great idea,” I thought, “but just not logistically possible.” And that’s when I received a recommendation to check out Julio’s Liquors.

Julio’s is quite an experience. I scouted out the store in December, walking in during a wine tasting event that somehow ended with my cart heavy from four bottles of great, discounted wine. (Whether you’re into wine, whiskey, beer or cigars, Julio’s is hosting a special event with your name on it nearly every week.)

And the beer — wow, this selection will blow you away. Julio’s has the best selection of American and international beer I’ve ever seen in one place, with at least three long aisles dedicated just to six packs and singles of craft beer. And that’s not counting the rows of big bombers, the refrigerated section, or the cases and cases of beer lining the back of the store.

Such a selection could be intimidating, but Julio’s encourages you to try new beer without being locked into buying a whole six pack. Every beer is available as a single, which means you don’t have to sink $14 into a six pack of the latest extreme beer from Dogfish Head only to discover, belatedly, that the beer is just not for you.

The video below showcases the store nicely — even if you only catch a glimpse of the beer.

The Pièce de Résistance — for my purposes in particular — is the Wild Six program. They invite you to grab an empty six pack holder from the shelves, unfold it, and fill it up to make your own six pack from any bottle you can find. You’ll get 15% off each bottle, and frequent fliers get a punch card to track purchases. Every 36 bottles earns you a free gift — usually a set of beer glasses, but I got a bottle of hot sauce as well as two beer glasses with my last purchase.

The only difficult part of the experience is exercising restraint. I live more than an hour away from Julio’s, so I usually stock up on a least two months’ worth of beer during each trip. After loading down my cart, I can’t resist grabbing a bottle or two of bourbon, scotch whisky, or some hard to find bottle of wine. Let’s just say the 15% beer discount really comes in handy.

So for all of you who have asked me where I source my beer — head on over to Julio’s!

No related posts.