I’m back for another year! My lazy, lazy holidays are over, and it’s time to get prepped for my biggest year in beer yet. For a start, I’m heading to North America! It’s just for a well earned holiday, but I plan on delving head first into the beer scenes of the USA and Canada while I’m there. This will be my first overseas trip since becoming a beer geek, so I’m just a little FREAKING excited to see what’s out there.
My main goal will be to take a significant chunk out of my epic list of 1001 beers to try before I die. There are 243 beers on the United States portion of the list alone, with another 31 on the Canadian list – a grand total of 274 beers to drink in a 28 day period! This represents 27.37% of my total list, and means that I’ll need to drink a mere 9.78 beers each day of my trip. I don’t think this is an unreasonable total (I’ll be on holiday after all), but I think my issue will be tracking down all 274 beers in such a short timeframe. Firstly, my main priority is to have an awesome holiday with my girl and see the amazing sights of North America, so I won’t be in a position to hunt for amazing beer 24/7. Secondly, anyone who has ever looked at a world map will know that North America is a BIG place, and I’m not sure how widespread some of these brews will be (there are beers brewed in Melbourne that I can’t get in my home city, and that’s a much smaller distance than between NYC and LA). Couple that fact with the seasonal beers and once-a-year efforts that may not be available while I’m in town, and I’ll be amazed if I manage to sample even half of these beers on this trip.
In order to use the small amount of beer time I’ll have as efficiently as possible I’ve turned to the ol’ interweb to compile a list of beer bars, restaurants and bottle shops in each city, to give me the best possible chance of finding the beers I need. Over the next week or so I’ll be doing some hardcore research about what each city has to offer in the way of amber liquids, and posting my results on here in the hope that I can get some feedback from those with local expertise. For a little added fun, I’ve also got a fridge full of beers hailing from North America, so to get me in the mood (and to shorten the list a little before I go) I’ll be trying these brews in the days leading up to my departure.
Happy New year everyone. It’s going to be a fun one
Chasing Ale 
Let me know if you’ll be in the Philadelphia area and I’ll give you some ideas.
Philadelphia is our third stop! But we’ll only be there for one night, so any local advice you can give would be awesome. I’ll post my ideas in the next week or so