Museum Turns 6 Years Old, Part 1: Overview and Site Statistics

Every time this year I like to write anniversary posts to celebrate the founding of the Museum and this blog. This first post takes a brief look at the past year and what I hope to accomplish over the next year, plus site statistics.

Click through to read more...

This past year was far more challenging than any previous year. Work became a tremendous strain on my time, as did continuing construction on the Barcade, the future home of the Museum. I've been locked out of my Blogger account at work, so the time I used to spend on my breaks and lunch to write posts and upload photos is no longer available. I've moved my mother onto my property and I am now supporting her financially and devoting time to her needs. I've also been guiding and supporting the Amazing Tap Handles Collector's Club. But the most impactful event happened last month when the Eagle Creek fire in Oregon spread to Washington, less than 6 miles away from my home and the Museum. It was frightening to contemplate that the entire collection could have gone up in flames. After several tense days, we caught a break thanks to a change in wind direction and the fire burned itself out and was contained by heroic fire crews.

While the past year was a struggle, there's reason for optimism for the coming year. We are hoping to make good progress on the Barcade over the winter, and I have a huge chunk of vacation time coming up this spring, some of which I will devote to this blog. My finances make it more likely that new purchases will slow considerably, but with almost 1200 taps in the collection I have plenty of material to work on already. And I'm very happy with the Collector's Club community and how it has become almost self-sustaining.

Moving on to site statistics, let's take a look at taps profiled for the year:

Ouch! It was definitely the lowest year since I started. The good news is that the low number should be easy to top for the coming year.


Initial posts written for breweries/brewpubs/restaurants:

Again I'm hoping this will be easy to improve upon.


Taps acquired:

My second best year for acquisitions, trailing only the previous year.


Site page views:

Despite the low post numbers, page views continue to skyrocket. Thank you everyone for your support!


In my next post I'll take a look at individual tap statistics...