The Year in Beer: 2012’s Most Read GDB Posts

In Beer News by Karl

We’ve covered the biggest beer news of the year so far – but what was the biggest news on our own site? We thought we’d throw together this Top 10 list of our highest-traffic posts just for a fun look back at some of the things that you found the most interesting, newsworthy, eyeball-earning and clickable through 2012.

10) Begyle: There was a weeklong wave of coverage around Ravenswood and Lakeview when Begyle hit the scene, and we were a little late to the game with this post (as you may notice from the headline) but it seems there was still plenty of interest there. It’s been fun watching these guys grow organically through the second half of 2012 and look forward to seeing Begyle bottles hit the shelves in the early part of 2013.

BlueNoseLogo9) Blue Nose: Andrew went out and hung out with the Blue Nose guys in late August and filed this report, full of yeast-nerdery and temperature control conversation and the phrase “the Stephen Hawking of brewing.” This post also prompted one of our favorite posts of the year, asking whether or not adjuncts necessarily make a bad beer.

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8) State Rep Working on Homebrew Legislation: This is definitely something we’ll be keeping our eyes on in 2013. With the popularity of homebrewing on the rise (and in the case of new brewery Middle Brow, which we plan on covering shortly, a major part of their business model) there’s going to need to be some changes made to the current laws if we as a state want to keep having things like homebrew tastings and competitions happen. Homebrewers, get to know this name: State Rep Keith Farnham of Elgin.

7) Vander Mill’s Apple Crop: This was a rough year for Michigan’s fruit farmers, and we checked in with one of our favorite cidermakers, Paul Vander Heide, to see what his business forecast looks like for 2013.

6) Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout Coffee Vertical: Our review posts rarely garnerTBK-BCBS-BDCS8 the traffic that our news posts do, but this one was one of the exceptions that prove that rule.

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5) ILCC to InBev – Get Out: Ryan’s been covering the battle between AB InBev and the ILCC like no one else out there all year, and this post was the high point as far as eyeballs are concerned. Which is to be expected, when a state agency tells the biggest brewery in the country to walk away from one of their distributors.

4) Hypothesis of Hopothesis: A lot of production breweries hit the scene in Chicago this year, and interestingly enough it was this post about a contract brewer with a single new beer on the market that garnered quite a number of views.

3) Westy 12: The recent #westypocalypse might, in years to come, be seen as one of the biggest beer events of the decade. Our post announcing Chicago and IL as one of the destinations for this super-rare trappist beer must have excited quite a number of you as this quickly bypasses nearly all other posts as one of our most trafficked at the end of 2012.

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2) Big Hurt Beer – Sometimes we spend 5 years hunting down a KBS vertical. Sometimes we drink a tall boy of something in the backyard and spend 20 minutes writing it up. Go figure – y’all were quite interested in BHB this year. (Again: it wasn’t bad!)

1) One Trick Pony: It was this tale of FOIA requests, TTB searching, and one under-the-radar Chicago area brewer that hit the market with next to no marketing or social media that most of you found interesting this year.

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About the Author

Karl

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Karl has written about food, travel and beer for Chicago Magazine, Thrillist, Time Out Chicago, AskMen and more. His book, Beer Lovers Chicago, is now available via Amazon and other booksellers. If you're buying, he's likely having a porter or a pale ale.

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