2020 will be remembered as the year from hell. But one silver lining during the COVID-19 pandemic was more time at home.
And with more time at home, I brewed 17 batches of homebrew in 2020.
I kicked off the year with Mountain Saison #2, a classic saison inspired by Ed Coffey’s Farmer In The Rye recipe, and Mountain IPA #2, a Vermont IPA inspired by The Alchemist Heady Topper. Both beers were brewed specifically for the 2020 National Homebrew Competition which was ultimately cancelled due to COVID-19.
In March I brewed Mountain Pilsner #1, a New Zealand pilsner with loads of Southern Hemisphere hops. Then I brewed four batches of Mountain Sour to christen my 10 gal Squarrel square barrel solera project.
Two months later, I brewed All Together, a worldwide collaboration beer aimed to raise awareness and provide relief support for the beer industry during COVID-19. I also brewed Mountain Sour #5, an apricot kettle sour perfect for mowing the lawn. And to wrap up May, I brewed Mountain Seltzer #1, my first attempt at a (grapefruit) hard seltzer.
June featured batches of Mountain Saison #3, a farmhouse ale fermented with my foraged Massachusetts yeast and Mountain IPA #4, a session New England IPA fermented with Voss kveik yeast.
In August I brewed Black Is Beautiful, a worldwide collaboration beer aimed to raise awareness for the injustices to people of color and police brutality. I also brewed Mountain IPA #5, a New England IPA inspired by Tree House Julius, and Mountain Pilsner #2, an Italian Pilsner inspired by Firestone Walker Pivo Pils.
In October, I brewed Mountain Marzen #1, an Oktoberfest using Brülosophy’s lager method. And one month later, I brewed Mountain Barleywine #1 using a re-iterative mash technique.
Besides brewing, I also had extra time to blog.
In fact, I published 27 posts (including this one) totaling 15,535 words. There were 11,662 unique visitors to ThirdLeapBrew.com that accumulated 21,095 views (1.81 view per visitor). Visitors from 95 countries browsed the website in 2020, with the United States (13,675 visitors), Canada (1,283 visitors) and United Kingdom (804 visitors) leading the way.
Ward Labs Mineral Analysis of Tree House Julius continued to be the most popular blog post, garnering 4,861 views in 2020. For 2020 posts, Cheaper Cheater Hops: Potential Substitutes for Citra & Mosaic was most popular with 3,404 views.
July was the busiest month of traffic, averaging 159 views per day. Tuesday was the most popular viewing day (17% of views) and 9:00 AM was the most popular viewing time (6% of views).
The most frequent referrers to ThirdLeapBrew.com were Google (6,643 referrals), Facebook (750 referrals) and Reddit (696 referrals).
And 33 comments were posted to the website in 2020.
With lots of brewing, writing, and podcasting in 2020, I am excited to see what 2021 holds for Third Leap!
One Response
Fascinating blog! With a bit of time to create some perspective, what were your favorite beers brewed? So many recipes, so little time…