Upcoming Content Changes

Hello fellow readers,

I apologize for my lack of posting. After all a new job & home will do that to you along with all of the hassle that comes with it but they’re good changes nonetheless. So once again, my lack of activity has been hampered by life events, but at least I saw these changes coming.

However, not everything is kittens, rainbows & unicorns. You see, when it comes to family history of various medical conditions, I didn’t exactly draw a great hand. We’re talking high blood pressure, diabetes, depression & perhaps the biggest one of them all: obesity. Case in point,  my recent visit to the doctor. It went something like this:

Doctor: Well all of your blood work came back well, you don’t have diabetes and are, in fact, very far from even being pre-diabetic. Your blood pressure is down from your last visit & On top of that, you’ve been managing your depression quite well!

Me: Gee wilikers, Doc! That’s great news!

Doctor: Wooooah, not so fast there, I’m not done yet. We still have to talk about your weight!

Me: What about my weight?

Doctor: Well, looking at your body fat numbers, you’re higher compared to last year. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that I’m concerned that if this pattern continues, you run a good possibility of running into the same health complications that have been present in your family.

Me: So in other words: I’m fat.

Doctor: What?

Me: ….What?

Alright it didn't exactly happen like that but that pretty much sums my visit. In part, my high carb intake is partially to blame for my weight gain. And it shouldn’t come as a shock that a good portion of my carb intake comes from my consumption of beer.

This creates its own set of problems when it comes to my writing, mainly because I write about craft beer. It certainly puts me in an interesting, if not. compromising position. So what do I do?

Well, remember when I first started this blog back up, I expressed a desire to focus more of my energy on things like wine & spirits? As luck would have it, I found out that not only are both of these drink categories vast and expansive but also they have way less carbs than beer. In fact, spirits have no carbs what-so-ever and wine typically has very little to low carbs, depending on the style of wine that is. Plus all across the country

It won’t be an easy transition but it’s one that I feel will benefit me in the long run. Plus, now I have an excuse to check out wineries & distilleries.

Rest assured that beer will still play an integral part of this website going forward but it will no longer be the exclusive drink that will be reviewed on here.

Oh and I'm also bringing back my old scoring system too!

Again, thank you all for your continued support & I look forward to what the future holds!

Cheers!

- Nick

Changes coming to Nick's Beer Blog

Alright everyone,

I’m in the process of cleaning up and getting back up and running, and with it, there are some changes that are going to occur. I’m here today to explain to you just what is going to change and how I believe each change will be for the better, Without further ado, let's get started:


Wine & Spirits - The biggest change here is that in addition to reviewing beer, I’ll also be looking at craft spirits & wine. My reason for this is that during my time running my old website, I visited quite a few distilleries & wineries and out their stories (and drinks) to be just as captivating as a brewery and their beer. Plus, it gives me a chance to explore other aspects of the craft alcohol industry in ways that would've seen foreign to me just a couple years ago.

No More Scoring System -  The other big change I’m making is that I’m no longer going to include a score at the end of each review. Looking back at my old reviews, I feel that assigning a numerical score to a beer is quite subjective and, in some cases, overshadows the actual review itself. I’ll still be following the same format as before but there’ll be no score at the end; Just a summary of my thoughts on the beer itself.

Layout Changes - It's no secret to those who were once faithful readers that my formatting didn't change much during the four years that I did blogging. That said, I feel the look of the website feels dated and is in need of a face lift. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to proceed with the final look but you'll know it when you see it!

Name Change (or lack thereof) - In my previous post, I mentioned that I was considering changing the name of this blog. I was tossing around names like Nick's Booze Blog or Nick's Boozy Blog. However, I have ultimately decided against this, in spite of the forthcoming of non-beer beverages that are to be featured on here. My reason is because this blog started out as Nick's Beer Blog and the fact that I have already established this website as such. Plus the aforementioned names just don't quite sound as catchy.

There you have it. While I'm looking forward to these changes, the thing I'm most excited about is getting back to writing on this website. It's been a couple of years but it feels good to be home!

Cheers!

- Nick

Major Announcement & New Venture

A couple weeks back, I posted an article about how beer writers can avoid burnout and that still holds true. However in light of recent developments & events in my life, there's going to be some changes made to how I run this blog as well as the future of this website as a whole. Before I continue, I wanted to let everyone know that I will not stop writing about beer but with everything that has been going on in my life, I have decided that change is needed.

The first is that I will not be posting as many reviews as I normally do and there are a couple reasons for this:

1) With my graduate school schedule and coursework going the way they are right now, I need to prioritize and anything related to school is always going to come first. Plus I'm in the planning stages as to what I'm going to do come August when I graduate from a career standpoint,

2) From a health standpoint, I've gained a bit weight and I'm at a point where I can't say that I'm happy with where I'm at. Since I've got a couple vacations coming up, I want to work on what the kids call a "Beach Bod" and just getting in better shape in general.

The last reason, however, is an idea that I've been kicking around for the past six months, and since I won't be dedicating as much time to this blog (due mainly to the above two reasons), I have decided that I want to focus some of my energy into this idea.

The thing is I really enjoy writing and one of my other passions is getting out and exploring, which is why I am excited to announce that I will be starting up a new blog dedicated to travel. My intent is to focus on destinations that are both local and far. The idea would be to start small (local) before branching out to more elaborate ventures like California, Germany, Italy, etc.

As for the future of this blog, I will be doing beer reviews but nowhere near as many as I post right now. I also want to put a greater focus on visiting taprooms since I've gotten a ton of feedback regarding those posts. These changes will be immediate.

For the travel blog, I'm still working on a name, a format as to how I want to present content, and of course, hosting. I will post more details as I move forward with it.

As always, thank you for reading your continued support.

Cheers!

- Nick