Twenty years back, I was spending a lot of time on my European Beer Guide website. Trying to keep up with the beer scene in multiple European countries necessitated reading lots of publications, mostly the magazines of beer consumer orgainsations. A stupid number of which I was a member of. Just as well I'd taken the time to learn to read so many languages in the preceding decade.
When I started my blog, the main point was to direst traffic to the website. How quickly that changed. With the blog and history taking over. From the guide and the present. Because I had to make a choice.
Why? Very simple: time. Keeping the European Beer Guide up to date was a Sisyphean task. Especially in the highly-dynamic modern beer world. Simply treading water was pretty much a fultime task. As I started to dive deeper and deeper into the history loch, I didn't have time to work on the Guide. Slowly, I gave up updating it.
I'm easily distracted. Too many things fascinate me. If I come across an interesting source of information, I can all too easily slip into its icy waters. Keeping a tight focus is the solution. And history is my focal point of choice.
Much tighter than that, now. The focus. Not just history, but a specific bit of it. I try to spend most of my time on my current book project. Currently, "Free!", about UK brewing between 1880 and 1914. My favourite period. For the beer. I wouldn't want to live there permanently.
I abandonned the present for the past.* Partly, because the past doesn't keep changing. Unlike the annoying present. I'm sure I made a good decision.
* Only in my research, not in real life. I very much live in the present. As I have a limited amount of future left.
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