Cheers!

It’s been a big year for the Brewmistress – I moved my blog to its own URL (from its former home over at The Craft Beer Project), I’ve been to every South African province seeking out breweries for my next book, Beer Safari, I’ve met beer enthusiasts from around the world and had a lot of fun (hope you did too) with the 12 Days of Beermas competition.

I want to thank you all for the support, for reading and tweeting and commenting. And as it’s the end of the year/the start of a new one, I thought I’d do a quick roundup of my most popular posts of 2014 – just in case you missed any. Here’s the top 10 in reverse order according to hits:

10. In November I asked ‘Are there too many beerfests in South Africa?‘ – seems you tended to think that there are…

9. The 12 Days of Beermas mega beer giveaway was a great success. Thanks to all who entered, congrats to those who won and HUGE thanks to everyone who sponsored a prize. Remember to get in touch if you haven’t yet claimed your prize….

8. Of all the beer reviews I posted this year it was the Devil’s Peak King’s Blockhouse IPA review that got the most views. Whether this was because it’s SA’s most awarded beer or because of the slightly unusual format I don’t know. Maybe I’ll sing all my reviews this year…

7. Beer lovers were scrambling to find out who won the 2014 Craft Brewers Championship back in October.

6. The question ‘Can I put rooibos in my beer?‘ sparked some of the most interesting comments, proving just how passionate many of you are about the South African craft beer scene.

5. You were even more excited to find out the Finalists in the 2014 SA Craft Brewers Championship than you were to learn who actually won!

Bottle conditioning gone bad – mouth sieve required

4. The most commented-on post of 2014 was no great surprise: SAB steps into the craft beerosphere.

3. It seems you were excited to drink beer in beautiful places – the third most popular post of the year was this one: South African craft beer reaches new heights – craft beer in the Cederberg

2. Despite the fact that you think there are too many of them, you still wanted to know where to find all the South African beer festivals and events

1. And the most read post this year was one that I’m pretty passionate about myself – the issue of why so many bottled South African beers end up being fed to my plants. Here’s the most read Brewmistress post of 2014: Bottling South African craft beer – what’s going wrong?

Thanks again for reading – lots more coming in 2014, including loads more reviews of restaurants with a good beer selection, a lot of rants, hopefully a couple of high profile interviews and more on homebrewing as I start developing my own recipes with The Brewmaster…

Happy new year!