A Year in Review

Its officially 2015, so happy brew-year everyone! I thought I’d use my first post in 2015 to look back at 2014…

The good…
Lots of good things happened this year. My wild yeast collection activities and yeast identification methods are up and running smoothly. I had a number of rather successful brews this year – most of which I posted here. Both my blog and youtube channel are getting a lot more hits – 75,000 and 10,000 hits respectively last year.

The bad..
2014 was not as busy a year for me as 2013. A rather pathetic 15 batches were brewed this year – 18 if you count the wine kits I did along the way, 16 (or 13 if you discount the wine) if you subtract the two infected brews I had this year. My blogging was also down – 11 fewer than 2013. Hopefully we can pick up both those numbers this year.

The ugly…
As mentioned in “the bad”, I had my first (non-deliberately) infected beers this year in over a decade. That sucked…and it hurt even more as the infection was something I brought home from work with me. In addition, for the first year since 2008, I failed to hit the 400 liters of brewed goodness mark (roughly equivalent to 100 US gallons).

Some quick stats:

• Most popular posts of 2014:
  • #1: This months post on how Brettanomyces trois (WLP644) is likely a Saccharomyces, not a Brettanomyces. 5900 hits in three weeks.
  • #2: 2013’s post on identifying yeast by  ribosomal sequencing.
  • #3 & 4: 2013’s posts on making Belgian candi sugar (Posts 1, 2).
  • #5: 2013’s post on making a sour-mashed Beliner weiss.
• Top Traffic Sources: Google (7%), Reddit (4%), Home Brew Talk (2%), Jeffrey Cranes Blog (1%), Bootleg Biology (1%) and Canadian Homebrewers (0.5%).
• Top Viewing Countries: #1: USA, #2: Canada, #3: Ukraine, #4: Germany, #5: UK
• Top Youtube Videos:
  • #1: Growing Yeast from the Yeast Bank
  • #2: Making Belgian Candi Sugar At Home
  • #3: Budget Yeast Starter System
  • #4: Your Home Yeast Lab Made Easy – Streak Plates
  • #5: Your Home Yeast Lab Made Easy – DIY Alcohol Lamp