It's not at all surprising that I'd watch this documentary. After all, I make my own beer and have sampled well over 2500 different beers. However, when I saw this film, I noticed that I am a complete novice compared to some of these 'beertickers'--folks who pride themselves in tasting and noting every different beer possible. Some of these folks can count well over 30,000 different beers! Plus, most of these people drink a pint or half pint at a time--many of mine are tiny samples I've had at beer festivals or at my local club! Wow...these are dedicated (and crazy) folks! Phil Parkin directed and starred in this odd film. It consisted of him joining the ranks of the tickers and ticking off one beer after another. However, in his case, his goal was 500 beers--enough to do only minor damage to his liver! While most of this sounds kind of dull, it wasn't because of the psychology involved. Some were simply more interested in numbers than actually enjoying the beers (such as those that save the beer for later or throw it away) and they kept HUGE notebooks. They also would, in some cases, not even finish the beers and the obsession became not the beer but the numbers. These folks simply lost sight of the enjoyment of the beer and it was more like the folks had a type of obsessive personality disorder. Plus, how healthy is it for folks to be consuming an average of 7 beers a night each and every day?! As we watched, my daughter has an interesting comment about one of the beer tickers--"I don't want to see a guy wearing a shirt with a gun on it when he drinks THAT much beer!". I can certainly understand that! And, I assume if you watch it you'll learn to appreciate good beer BUT you'll also find these folks extremely interesting--and not necessarily in a good way! Well worth seeing but strange.
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