And... We're back! (Hopefully)

Well, yes... It certainly has been an inexcusably long time since I have had an opportunity to play with this blog. I'm not going to try justify it, but as as partial explanation, there is now another Osborne, Jasper William (born 6-Apr-07) - anyone following our other (also sadly neglected) blog already knows this, of course.

How I wish I could just pick up where I left off... It is now over three years and many hundreds of different Belgian and international beers later, however, so my tastes have evolved so much that I'm quite embarrassed reading back over the beers that I used to think were nice. Perhaps serendipitously, dotphoto seems to have lost all the pictures that we uploaded, so I guess that will force me to revisit and update everything anyway. Those beers that have stood the test of time and of my evolving tastes will get a special mention in the eventual rework.

Anyway, the reason that I'm back is because my wonderful wife gave me "100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die" for xmas. Since I have already tried about 80 of the beers in it, and I'm not ready to die anytime soon, I have decided that this event will usher in a new era of Beery tourism.

Not satisfied to merely "Try" the 100 beers in this book, I will endeavour to personally visit all (55) breweries responsible for them, in order to experience the beers in situ, and get the book officially signed off by someone at each brewery. I will document my travails here.

This era officially started last weekend when we were joined by my best man, Shane Balzan - visiting for a long-weekend trip from his adopted home, London.

I've written up the three breweries that we crossed off the list (only 52 to go!) in the Beer Tourism section (find it on the right)

I think that Jeannie is already regretting having given me the book...