A look back at 2022

Clearly boosted by the return to a (more or less) normal society in my country since mid-February, I broke my personal record of new tasted beers in one year with 2116 (my former best mark was 1783 in 2018).
I also had the most new Swiss beers ever with 1056 and it was the second time I had more than 1k in one year. I have now tasted  in total 22’145 beers (8’653 from Switzerland).

Although top Swiss tickers like ttt or Marcel Vogt are sampling more than 3k new beers every year (top world tickers even reaching 6k to 7k), this inflation sounds definitely more and more absurd to me. You cannot imagine the quantity of beers (even good ones) I threw away last year! I tried to make an estimation and it is probably between 300 and 350 liters.
This and the fact that drinking hundreds of hugely similar (NE)(I)IPA looks really every year more and more pointless to me, decided me to change my behaviour for 2023.
My goals for this year will be to focus mainly on Swiss beers (should be at least 2 thirds of the total) and to stay below 1.5k new beers overall.

I attented 13 beer festivals (all in Switzerland) and had again the pleasure to judge at the Brau- und Rauchshop Contest.

Let’s have a look from where I got all my beers:

In comparison with last year, the categories “festival” (7% -> 23%) and “bars/restaurants” (6% -> 18%) of course massively increased at the expense of the category “shops” (63% -> 36%).

From a total of 48 different countries las year, the five I got the most beers from changed a bit in comparison with 2021. If Switzerland of course still remains on top with 1056 new beers, it is now England which takes second place (164) with France third (123), USA fourth (100) and Belgium fifth (83). It is very surely the first time I had at least 100 different beers from 4 countries in one year.

Finding new countries is a very difficult task and I am quite happy to have sampled 2 new ones last year with Gabon and Sint Maarten. Yes, I know: counting an area of the Netherlands with substantial autonomy as a “country” may appear a bit weird to some of you 😉 For those of you interested to know a bit more about what I do count as a country, please read the chapter “definition” on https://www.bov.ch/beer/beer-countries.html.

The ranking of the best countries in 2022 shows the USA on place 1, followed by Wales (winner in 2021), Russia (winner in 2020), England and Canada.

Among the 650 breweries I met last year (they were 480 the year before), here are those from which I had the most different beers:

1) Lehe Pruulikoda (22)
2) Barbière (20)
3) Piggy, Verdant and Blackwell (19)

The ranking of the most represented styles in my new beers of 2022 shows for the 12th consecutive year the usual domination of IPA and its derivatives:

1) American IPA (226)
2) Imperial IPA (177)
3) NEIPA (168)
4) Sour (165)
5) American Pale Ale (153)

I tried to regroup the styles together to have a better overview (click on the picture to enlarge):

The proportion of “IPA & friends” finally decreased last year, as it reached 35% in 2021 and 32% in 2020.

Here is the ranking of my favorite styles (with a minimum of 5 beers tasted):
1) Imperial Stout
2) Double IPA
3) Imperial/Double Porter
4) Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy
5) Sour

And here the styles I enjoyed the less (worst on top):

1) Low Alcohol (also “winner” in 2021)
2) International Pale Lager
3) Czech Pilsner (Světlý)
4) Amber Lager
5) Golden/Blond Ale

The strange presence of Czech Pilsner is due to the fact I got unfortunately very bad examples of this style.

And here is the top ten of my favorite breweries in 2022 (in brackets the ranking in 2021):

1) l’Apaisée (8)
2) Verdant
3) Hoppy People (6)
4) BFM
5) nine brothers (5)
6) Sibeeria
7) Northern Monk
8) Whitefrontier
9) Drunkbeard
10)North Brewing

This leads us to the top 20 breweries in my country in 2022 (on a total of 271 – 2021 ranking in brackets):

1) l’Apaisée (4)
2) Hoppy People (3)
3) BFM
4) Nine Brothers (2)
5) Whitefrontier
6) Drunkbeard
7) Shrinkbrew Ales (13)
8) UNIKUM
9) S&A (18)
10) Barbière
11)Lorraine Beer Project
12)À Tue-Tête! (1)
13) Dystopian (7)
14) Degenbier (10)
15) Riot Act (16)
16) Blackwell (5)
17) BlackPig 88)
18) Holliger Bier
19) Mawash Beer
20) Bier Factory

For the record, here are my winners from the last 25 years (yes, I do like archeology ;-)):

2022 l’Apaisée
2021 À Tue-Tête!
2020 Hoppy People
2019 WhiteFrontier
2018 WhiteFrontier
2017 Blackwell
2016 Cinq 4000
2015 BFM
2014 S&A
2013 S&A
2012 S&A
2011 Degenbier
2010 Bier Factory Rapperswil
2009 BFM
2008 BFM
2007 BFM
2006 BFM
2005 Öufi
2004 Hürlimann
2003 BFM
2002 Bäre-Bräu
2001 Bäre-Bräu
2000 Seeland Bräu
1999 la Houblonnière
1998 BFM

Last year, I have been able to discover beers from 73(!) new Swiss breweries. Here are my top newcomers:

1) Holliger Bier
2) Mawash Beer
3) Braukellerei Hug
4) Fennek
5) Ahoi Hill
6) The Yeast Within
7) Zugvogel
8) Berner Lohnbrauerei
9) Bierwerk Züri
10)Septentrion

And here are my top new beers for 2022:

1) l’Apaisée Coetus VIII
2) Trillium Wild Sinister Kid: Black Currant & Pinot Noir Grapes
3) À Tue-Tête! Triple Noire Griotte
4) Track Take My Place
5) Finback Double Something Nelson
6) FiftyFifty Eclipse – Old Trestle Bourbon Barrel (2021)
7) Verdant Nebulous Sky
8) l’Apaisée Shima Enaga
9) l’Apaisée La Grande Duchesse
10)À Tue-Tête! 2021

Coetus VIII from l’Apaisée [picture is from la Mise en Bière]

And finally, here are my top 20 new Swiss beers:

1) l’Apaisée Coetus VIII
2) À Tue-Tête! Triple Noire Griotte
3) l’Apaisée Shima Enaga
4) l’Apaisée La Grande Duchesse
5) À Tue-Tête! 2021
6) Hoppy People Demon Cleaner
7) Hoppy People I Love Hops # 11 – ❤️ Eclipse Edition
8) Unikum More Is More
9) S&A blåck (oat)
10)Chien Bleu Pomelo BA Tarocco
11)Hard Labor Brew Imperial Stout
12)BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien Grand Cru – Paranoid Android
13)l’Apaisée Prunus Persica – Pêche Blanche
14)l’Apaisée Coetus Framboise 2021
15)Whitefrontier Imperial Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels
16)nine brothers DDH Mosaic Weisse
17)BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien Grand Cru (2021) – Gola Verage
18)BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien Grand Cru (2022) – Sherryff des Buissons
19)Faune Vulpes
20)l’Apaisée Prunus Persica – Pêche De Vigne

As always, when some breweries or beers mentioned above are unknown to you, I can really recommend you to find them out and to try them!

Cheers!