Tuesday 4 May 2010

A call to action?

Reading Pete Browns Beer Blog this afternoon, feverishly looking to see if I had broken into Wilkio's top 20, alas I had not, no one had, the top 20 were all the same!
Makes me think about why I write the blog, well kinda, I enjoy writing, to me it's a form of expression that is sometimes easier than talking.
It's not that good(my writing I mean) but people take the time out of their busy lives to read it and that in itself is appreciated.

So Pete's blog(if you didn't click on the link) was about the general lack of inspiration in beer blogging at the moment and he has a point, apart from a couple of people there does seem to be a malaise on the beer blogging scene at the moment.
So what IS interesting? what does make people prick their ears up and listen?
Certainly not the crap I was spewing out with beer of the day just to keep my mind ticking over. Safe to say his slap in the chops worked, why be lazy when you can at least try and be interesting.

Pete was very correct in saying that some blogs have become an extended form of ticking and I could certainly point out a few, not going to though, glass houses and all that!
So what if I drank this beer or that beer and enjoyed it or didn't? who the fuck cares??
I would think that the brewer would care, if I was a brewer I would personally enjoy people writing good stuff about my beer, even bad stuff that was praising their beer would/should give a brewer a sense of achievement.
As manager of The Rake I have worked my arse off in the last 20 months to turn around a reputation of knowledge without care and every time I read something good about The Rake I feel a sense of achievement.

So is it really so bad that people are 'ticking' beers on their blogs? I've recently become aware that whenever I used Ratebeer by rating a beer I was critiquing someone's work, isn't that what beer blogging is? Our opinions of other peoples work? Anyway I went from using Ratebeer as a form of ticking to using it as a tool for finding out about beers for work. Why would I do this? mainly I suppose because I didn't think that I was qualified to make such criticism about something I knew very little about, I still don't and I won't 'score' beer in that way until I am arrogant enough to believe my own hype.

So, in summation then, I will continue to write about beer that I enjoy and beer that I don't but I will never again 'rate' a beer as better than another, I mean what's the point, it's all subjective anyway.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice thoughtful post.

At the end of the day you have to ask what blogs are for - the point is that everyone is empowered to write and publish their thoughts. If other people don't want to to read them, they don't have to.

Blogging can be a form of therapy, or just something for self-satisfaction - there's my blog what I wrote.

No one has the right to say what you should and shouldn't write about on your personal blog. But my comments pertain to anyone who wants their stuff to be read more widely. If that's why you blog, that's when you have to try and be more interesting and varied, simply because there are so many people doing it now!

rabidbarfly said...

Cheers for stopping by Pete, I think if you join a rankings system then there has to be an element of self satisfaction to it and certainly for me there is that as well as a theraputic venting process sometimes.
When I joined wilkio it was out of morbid curiosity, I wanted to know how popular it was in the blogosphere now, just having the ranking place on my blog reminds me that I should try and keep it more interesting but posts such as yours which inspired this one are also good to give you a verbal kick up the arse, thanks!

Jeff Rosenmeier said...

Don't worry about the stats, man. Want to increase traffic? Mention the C word. ;)

rabidbarfly said...

@Jeff, Cascade? Chinook? Centennia?

Sid Boggle said...

You don't even have to mention it - just add it to the labels... B-)

Seriously, nice work, lad.

DemonBrewer said...

@ Jeff, forget the C word, surely on a beer blog, given that the Taliban of the Ale world stalk the blogs for new ticking and moaning opportunities, surely (as you well know...) it's the K~# word which REALLY gets em going ;-)
DB

Cooking Lager said...

I love your blog. Keep doing it, fella.

Jeff Rosenmeier said...

@Glyn - my current favourite is Columbus, oh yeah!

I was of course refering to Pete opening a can of whoopass on CAMRA once again! When I write my book they get a chapter for sure.

Keep the blog going man, screw the stats, they are obviously bullshit anyway.

rabidbarfly said...

Cookie - comments like that get you free beers when you're in London! Cheers geez!