Ratebeerians

Crowned in the Danish Court…Well, Almost…

The thing that I love the most about Ratebeer, is that being a Ratebeerian is like being a part of an enormous family. Nearly anywhere you go in the world, you can find Ratebeerians who will openly embrace you as one of their own, and the instant connection you feel with one another is one based on love—the love of beer.

On February 15, 2008 I rated my first beer with the goal in mind to rate 100 beers, so this princess could have a crown. I was pretty particular about the process at first, carefully choosing which beers I should rate, attempting to find the poetry in the soul of every beer. But after a short while, it began to feel a little like work, and so I rated sporadically for the next couple of years. And then we moved to Denmark.

Our first tasting in Denmark was at the home of FoneFan and his kind and gracious wife. We were picked up at the train station by DedolleWaiter in a black BMW, and driven down an ice-covered road to a completely snow-covered house in the Danish countryside. I brought a palm-sized notepad and my teacher’s utility pouch of writing utensils in case the spirit moved me to rate.

When we walked into the tasting room, I felt immediately like a little kid sitting at the grown-ups table. There, seated at a long wooden table, were Papsoe, Ungstrup, MiP, FoneFan, and KimJohansen. I couldn’t help but think of the room as a sort of neo-mead hall, and here were Hrothgar’s men at a table literally full of beers, hunched over their laptops like a university study group. These guys were serious.

The beers would start with Papsoe and then they would be passed in a very civilized manner on down the line. This was a marked contrast to the American beer tastings that I had been to, where things were just slightly less organized. As the day went on, the conversation became lively, and we were treated to a traditional Danish dinner of roasted pork with cracklings, potatoes, and I can’t remember the vegetable because the pork was just that delicious.

That day, I rated 20+ beers, but I don’t think I entered many of them because I couldn’t really find anything interesting to say. The more beers you rate, the more you come to realize that a lot of beers are just sort of ok, and it might be one out of twenty that gives you anything to write about.

Then at the RBESG (Ratebeer European Summer Gathering), the grand tasting was done in a similar fashion, only we were seated at a much, much longer table in sunny Italy. That day, I again rated 20+ beers, this time in the margins of a really bad novel. Two months after returning home, I finally got around to entering my ratings. When I finished entering in all the ones I could read, I realized I was pretty darn close to one hundred.

So recently, we had a tasting here on Fanø, and I made it my goal to rate 33 beers, so that at long last, I could achieve 100 ratings and get the little yellow crown beside my name.

I rated for nearly 12 hours, breaking for lunch and dinner of course, but at some point, very early Sunday morning, I met my goal. All day, I was cheered on by my Danish friends, and in honor of them, I drank Hr. Papsø as my 100th beer. As the banana danced, and the computer sang “Peanut Butter Jelly Time”, I had a great feeling of satisfaction (and drunkenness).

Much to my disappointment, I quickly realized that they no longer put the crowns besides people’s names. But it didn’t really matter because being a princess is a state of mind and having a room full of friends fist-pumping in pure joy to a ten-year-old meme is better than any .gif crown.

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