The Museum Turns 12 Years Old, Part 1: Site Summary and Statistics

For 12 years now I've been writing posts, telling the story of breweries and their taps. On the personal side of things, last year certainly had its ups and downs. I lost my mother to cancer and was laid off from my job of 26 years. However, the latter turned out to be the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. I sleep a lot better now and my stress and cognitive impairment are completely gone. Unfortunately, being laid off didn't translate into more free time to write tap profiles - I was laid off close to the end of the year - but I have been able to make bases for my taps out of plywood and many are now physically on display in display cabinets in my Museum. I'll post some photos later on this year and possibly even a video tour.

I was able to complete 19 tap profiles this past year. While that is still a bit lower than I'd like, it's more than last year and matches my output from 2 years ago.

The number of new breweries/brewpubs/restaurants profiled this past year matched the previous year at 10 profiles written, thanks to one last post (featuring Sour Cellars) before this one.

For new purchases, I am shocked by the result. At 109 taps purchased this past year, that is the most in the last 3 years and almost matches 4 years ago...I could have even exceeded that but some taps slipped through my fingers, and I bailed on some that were too expensive. It's just a mind-boggling number, and the collection is now up to 1,726 taps. Time will tell if my employment situation impacts the number of purchases in this coming year. I was also able to pick up some great taps that will go into my "Top Taps Acquired" this year. Due to the big jump in the number of acquisitions, I'll be expanding the top tap list to 25 entries, instead of the 15 I presented the last couple of years. I focused on the most scarce taps, combined with the ones I find most appealing, to keep it at no more than 25.

Finally we come to the page views. This took a big jump from 794,220 to 958,800 and the page views for this past year more than doubled those of the previous year. I don't know if that pace will continue, but if it does, I will hit a million page views by June. Wow!!! Thanks once again to everyone who comes to visit the Museum!

The "Top Taps Acquired" post will be up next. I'll have that up sometime next week, so stay tuned to see some amazing tap handles!