I got a taste for real ale in the late 1970s while at university in Cardiff. The only alcohol available in the students’ union was bland, fizzy beer. I sought out a better quality drink in local pubs and quickly grew to love the depth of flavour of all the different styles of cask ales. I like the fact that cask beers continue to ferment in the barrel before they are served, which keg beers don’t. That conditions the beer and improves the flavour.
Back home in Sheffield after university, I started attending beer festivals. By 1985, I was recording the beers I drank by ticking them off in the festival programmes. In those early years, I was going to three or four festivals a year. Then someone I knew got me into this hobby properly, which is called beer ticking or scratching – marking off beers you drink from a list.
The most festivals I’ve done in a single year is 109 – that was in 2004. Festivals usually run for two or three days, and I might try anything from a handful to 16 or 17 half pints. I also mark down every cask beer I have when I go to the pub. I don’t score the beers – I just note the name, date, venue, price, brewery and alcohol percentage.
I drink a lot less these days. You have to be conscious of drinking too much and knowing when you’ve had enough. It’s not about getting drunk, it’s about ticking beer. I average out at fewer than four pints a day, and cask beer generally has a lower alcohol percentage, about 3.5% to 5%. I did once try one that was 23%. It was so strong that I forgot to mark it down in my notebook.
I usually write everything down, and I now have about 250 full notebooks. I decided a few years ago not to bother digitising it all – it would take too long.
I’ve got a broad palate. I prefer maltier beers to ones that are really hoppy or sharp, but I don’t really mind. If it’s a new beer, I’ll drink it. I’ve got a couple of all-time favourites: Brains Dark from Cardiff, and Wadworth 6X.
Recently, I’ve noticed that the range and flavours introduced by the craft beer boom have improved the cask beer range. There are some beers you get now, like hazy ones, or a black IPA, that never would have been brewed before. There are so many around these days that I don’t tend to drink a beer twice.
For me, my hobby is partly down to numbers. I like spreadsheets and things like that – I was an accountant before I retired. I’ll go out ticking three, possibly four times a week. I keep a total of how many beers I tick off every year, and it averages about 2,000. This year I hit the huge milestone of 50,000. It was nice to get there. My 50,000th beer was in a Sheffield micropub. Local breweries made a celebratory beer for me when I hit that number.
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In the early days of ticking, there used to be an unofficial list of the first people to get to 10,000 different beers, and I think I crept in at number 11. I never really had a target in mind – I just kept going.
I met my wife at a beer festival, so she was accustomed to my hobby from early on. Even though she doesn’t really drink, she likes to get involved and volunteers at the Sheffield beer festival, where she runs the tombola. My two stepchildren were introduced to pubs and beer festivals at a young age, so they don’t bat an eyelid when I say I am going off on my travels to find some new beers. One hardly drinks, and the other has the occasional cider or Guinness, but not real ale, so neither is following in my footsteps.
The social side of ticking is great. You get to travel the country, and I’ve met some great friends and characters over the years: many with nicknames, like the Alefinder General, Mick the Tick, Trolley Gary and Jingling Geordie. Sometimes we spend more time talking than drinking. It’s a real community. There is no endgame as far as I’m concerned. As long as I still enjoy the hobby and am able to have another different beer, I will just keep going.
As told to Daniel Dylan Wray
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