Polk the Truth 2021 - Spring into April or something wittier

   

After 4 months of daily beer tracking, I must say I'm feeling a little over the whole thing. I'm beginning to remember why I stopped using Untappd in the first place and the mere act of having to put every damn pint into it is beginning to feel like a second job. I mean, I've written a daily beer review on Instagram for almost 2000 days in a row...wait is that right...yep, 1997 and counting...there's a post in there I'm sure that will get somebody angry at me or something, but that's not what this is about. I gotta keep on, keepin' on

  I persist because that is what I do, always.

  So let's get into the numbers and what we've learned this month, the very first one to average less than 4 beers a day...albeit at 118 check-ins in 30 days it comes in at 3.93, so just barely. Honestly on the 30th I was gonna have a couple more beers but when I saw that number I kinda wanted to hold it down just to say I did it. Overall I liked the direction the month took, more than half the days were under 3 beers a day, especially pleased that on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (typically work nights for me), that average was 2 beers or less, something I actively worked on. The struggle remains those evenings when there is no work the next day or the ones where I let my stress and anxiety get the better of me or just want to blow off a little steam with a couple extra pints.

 I'm trying to quantify the hard to quantify here, so I also don't want to come off as glib or dismissive of my life or how I live it. I like to drink beer and talk about what's going on in my world while I do it, so I'm trying to find the right balance in the whole thing and I hope this is helping somehow...

First 15 days rolled in with a solid 60% of the 56 beers to pour in my glass unique entries, a good indicator that this was part of trying to focus on talking about different beers and not just pounding a couple of go-to pints just because. There are still a couple days well over what I consider to be the upper, normal limit, but with the weather warming, I feel like this is an indicator of where we could be heading despite more than half the days being 2 or less.

The back half of April had some real work stress giving my ability to stay on that under 4 line a run for it's money. Toss in some real patio worthy afternoons and you can see that 33 of 63 beers were just for enjoying and not so much about the writing or discussing flavour profiles and the like. It felt like there were some days I wanted to just chuck this whole thing onto the waste bin of bad ideas, but I still think there is some merit to keeping myself honest and real, regardless of whether I like the numbers or what they say about me and my self control...or lack thereof.

    Perhaps I have just become bored by this or that the numbers seem to be relatively the same and constant. around 4 beers a day with a good smattering of single beer days coupled together with some nights of 8 plus pints seems to be the story every month. I am not sure it does much good, although I do enjoy breaking the information down, it gives me an inside look at things I already suspected were true. I do have a lot of free time away from work, I don't really have hobbies or people to distract me, I drink some beers, write about it and then go read a book or watch something to distract me from the dwindling hours of freedom left before bed time. I know this is a self indulgent look at a tiny slice of life that I dare share with the world. I am not pretty or tied up in a bow and presentable to an audience. I basically am as I seem, leaning into a life lived at full speed for a long time, now idling and waiting for the light to change. What's next isn't really on my mind as much as why? Why do we do this stuff? Why do we feel compelled to share our beer online or take time to write and photograph this fraction of who we are? Why are their people invested in what I do when I could care less myself? It's become an inward looking, outward facing 6 year experiment in examining my life using craft beer as a backdrop. I am compelled to tell stories and wander through the vague and never changing landscape that is my rather sedentary world.

  I re-read this last part and it seems a little maudlin. I could delete it, but let's leave it in for the sake of argument when we get to the end of the year and look back at each month. April was a stress filled slog at work and while I did get my first dose of vaccine, there were a lot of days I struggled to get motivated enough to get out of bed and head in for my ten-plus hour shifts. I feel better now, but something about last month was just off. Lucky for me I have beer to drink and talk about, pints to be inspired by and words to try and help me explain myself to you all out there doing you're very best at the same time. I'll put this out there now, May is off to a bit of a roaring start, so I'll see you in 3 weeks or so and examine what the hell that all turned out to be.

Stay safe.

Polk

Now for the raw numbers, nerd Polk approved...

Beers by the day 

Sunday -  13 (3.25 per day)

Monday - 5 (1.25)

Tuesday - 6 (1.50)

Wednesday - 22 (5.50)

Thursday - 23 (4.60)

Friday - 25 (5.00)

Saturday - 24 (6.00)

Unique Beers - 63/118 (53.4%)

Beers by Brewery

Collective Arts Brewing - 8 unique beers

Nickel Brook Brewing - 6

Fairweather Brewing - 6

Badlands Brewing - 5

Great Lakes Brewery - 5

Grain & Grit Beer Co - 5

Overflow Brewing - 5

Beers

Nickel Brook Brewing Headstock IPA - 8 times

Collective Arts English IPA - 4

Wellington Brewery Faces DIPA - 3

Fairweather Brewing Menagerie Motueka 3

Merit Brewing Young Rival IPA - 3

 

Polk the Truth 2021 - March : In like a lamb, out like a Lion.

 Three months into the very real numbers of what I drink and I am finding a pattern and comfort in my ability to use the data I am generating to have conversations with myself and the people I trust to help me navigate this life I lead. Honesty and openness has long been my benchmark and while I won't sugar-coat anything, I do feel like this is helping me get a better understanding and perhaps even a plan of action as I move forward. The raw and emotional response some have to what I do with my life does not go unnoticed and while I appreciate the concern so many have shown, I am doing much better in terms of mental health and self worth as the year has progressed. There is something soothing and sobering about confronting the numbers as they occur and that is part of what I had hoped to achieve. Not knowing what the next months will bring, I endeavour to continue to shine the light on myself and hope it does more than just help me understand my own motivations, that perhaps other people will look at their own consumption with a more honest eye.

Onward to looking back on the month that was March, 2021.

The month of vacation was a good one

 The entire month boils down to three real distinct parts as this month includes our annual vacation, albeit the stay-at-home version (times 2) of my beloved Polkapolooza tour of Ontario. As with last year, we did not travel the province, visiting upwards of 50 different breweries as it was not advisable to do so during the pandemic, we made a couple of close to home stops at local breweries and contented ourselves with a staycation at Casa de Polk. The early part of March found me a little more focused on getting to that vacation and I was really cutting back on the pints at night mainly due to working a whole lot. The first 11 days (we started vacay on the 12th) saw only 30 beers consumed or 2.72 per day, a serious drop and more in line with where I'd like to be as we move on in this year. Even better, 20 of those were unique check-ins and that meant that the "beer for just drinkin" beers were way down as a percentage of what I poured in my glass. A 28% drop from the first 11 days of February and a whopping 47% drop from the same time frame in January. I was much more aware of every beer I was drinking and I think it had a deep impact on whether or not I grabbed a go-to beer or not most nights.

More of this going forward

  The vacation beers were another story, but to be honest, it isn't a big deal a to me overall because I enjoyed my time off and cutting loose a little during a pandemic might be an okay salve on this wounded year that saw me celebrating my second locked down birthday at home, away from friends and family. There was no real surprise then that in the 9 days we were off and relaxing' my beer total was a little higher than normal. All in, I was at 52 total beers for the time off, although 34 were unique, a rate of 68% and that's a 20% difference from the ratio the rest of the month. We picked up or had delivered a whole lot of different breweries, so there were many options and I took advantage of that to enjoy them all. A daily average of 5.77 is about 43% higher than my normal average for the rest of the days in March and 24% higher than the overall average for the year. I had a good time, we enjoyed some fine beers at home and then went back to work with an eye to continue what we had begun earlier in the month.

It's good to relax on vacation

  The last eleven days of March were a little more the first 11. A sandwich of moderate consumption surrounding a 9 day stretch of a little more indulgence skewed the progress made this month and I feel like the stretch after vacation reflects that I am still a work in progress. Despite increased stress at work and the world feeling a little more pandemically challenged around me, the numbers came in with a drop of 26% from the holiday stretch with 47 beers for an average of 4.27 per day. Looking to bring that down below three as we move into April and better weather will be the next challenge but as we ended the month down 5% from January and even with February, I am encouraged by my progress using this approach to really dig deep into the why's of my not so subtle beer drinking.

The last third of the month was a little bit of a struggle

 The biggest challenge remains those evenings where there is no work the next day, primarily Saturdays and Wednesday, where I had 43% of all my beers. I wasn't really intending to end the month with a bang, but that negative Covid test gave me a reason to celebrate and here we are with that little 7 beer party skewing things a little bit, in my humble opinion.  I am trying to find a way to enjoy writing about beer while simultaneously cutting back to just the single new beers without giving up a few nights of enjoying some old and go-to faves just because. It's a work in progress and I'd be lying if I said it would be much easier to just drink the beers and not bother documenting it all, but I want to know, I want to learn and I want to change.

Thanks again for indulging my numbers and my thought process as I navigate this year and my own relationship with myself and beer. I am working on being a better person in a lot of ways and this is just the most visible one. I encourage anyone who comes to the realization that they need help to get it and while I may make a lot of jokes about getting real hammered on Twitter, I am more than the memes I use to try and lighten the mood in a dark world.

Stay safe, see you again in May.

Polk

Now for the raw numbers, nerd Polk approved...

Beers by the day 

Sunday -  15 (3.75 per day)

Monday - 7 (1.40)

Tuesday - 18 (3.6)

Wednesday - 31 (6.20)

Thursday - 16 (4.00)

Friday - 15 (3.75)

Saturday - 27 (6.75)

Unique Beers - 73/129 (56.5%)

Beers by Brewery

Nickel Brook Brewing - 11

Collective Arts Brewing - 10

Great Lakes Brewery - 6

Gateway City Brewing - 6

People's Pint Brewing - 4

Merit Brewing - 4

Spearhead Brewing - 4

Beers

Nickel Brook Brewing Headstock IPA - 13 times

Collective Arts Good Monster DIPA - 3

Collective Arts IPA No 16 - 3

Nickel Brook Brewing What we Brew in the Shadows Hazy N.Z. IPA - 3

Merit Brewing Young Rival IPA - 3

Niagara Oast House Brewers Haymaker DIPA - 3

Polk the Truth 2021 - February : 28 Days Later

                                           

  The year of truth in beer rolls on through the shortest month and the 28 days of February were full of lessons and insights into my beer drinking ways. Let's take a look at what the last 4 weeks taught me...

Good month, need to up that new beer ratio

  Now I don't have a format planned out for each month, more of a let's look at the data and let it tell the story, but I do like looking at the month in halves for context of what seems to change as the beers roll in. February was much like January in that the first 2 weeks were much heavier than the last 2, perhaps more of that observation changing the outcome theory that I postulated last month. It seems to play out and time will tell as March begins if it is indeed a theory worth following. 60 check-ins on UnTappd in the first fourteen days was a heavy 4.57 pints a day and that included a 4 day weekend party for one that saw 29 beers consumed in 96 hours. Maybe not the herculean totals of my 20's and 30's, but at 7+ beers a day, those 4 days drove the bus on the rise in numbers at the beginning of the month. Zoom beers and celebrating GLB's birthday on that weekend were what gave me license to let go a little and while it isn't a frequent thing anymore, it certainly gave me pause when looking at the second half of the month.

A heavy start to February...

  The whole purpose of documenting every beer that passes through my glass this year is to examine more closely when and why I drink, can I be honest with myself and by being accountable to whoever follows along, can I change a behaviour I find to be less than desirable? It feels like it is having an impact already, I find myself pausing before grabbing the 4th beer of a random day and wondering if I really want a beer or am I just doing it out of habit or boredom. I have begun to do other things instead of just mindlessly pouring another one and while I have no intention of giving up my daily pint, I do feel like the "bender" evenings or weekends should be less of a regular occurrence and more of  a black swan thing.

...a little better on the back end of the month.

  Swinging into the second half of the month, I did see a significant decrease in consumption from the first 14 days at 52 check-ins and only 3.71 pints per day. That drop amounts to an almost 20% (18.75% to be precise) reduction and reflects once again that by making every beer a known quantity, I changed my behaviour to match the vague and movable goals I set on a daily and weekly basis. While I don't have a particular number in mind for a daily average or monthly total, I am feeling like when I have fewer beers on a given day, I feel better about myself the next day. Piling one on top of another beer just to drink to pass the time has become less appealing over the last 59 days and I am encouraged by the trend I see and the attitude I am adjusting inside my own mind. 

  I know some people find this whole thing odd or that I am encouraging or enabling any sort of over drinking by myself or other people and I get what those folks are saying. I have an incredibly complicated relationship with myself and my past, my alcohol consumption and my own inability to control my impulses from time to time. I enjoy the 2 beer buzz a lot and I continue to advocate for all things in moderation, including letting myself enjoy an extra pint or three once in a while. But it also has become clear that I do slide into the 6 or 7 beer realm a little too easy some weeks, whatever the stress or trouble I am tying to escape may be, more than 76% of my total consumption happened in only half the days. So trying to transform more of those 14 heavy days into the lighter, more moderate ones is a reachable goal for the next month, a modest reduction in pouring one last pint at midnight on my evening off and then falling asleep in my chair would go a long way to helping make that happen. Whatever I do with the numbers I find, I do know that being absolutely open and honest about every beer I pour is changing something about me that I am open to exploring more as the year goes on.

 Thanks for following along and we'll do this all over again at the end of March for what should be an interesting look back at my birthday month that has a week's vacation in it and how that plays into the numbers going forward.

Polk

Now for the raw numbers, nerd Polk approved...

Beers by the day 

Sunday -  14 (3.50 per day)

Monday - 8 (2.00)

Tuesday - 8 (2.00)

Wednesday - 19 (4.75)

Thursday - 20 (5.00)

Friday - 15 (3.75)

Saturday - 32 (8.00)

Unique Beers - 60/116 (51.7%)

Beers by Brewery

Great Lakes Brewery - 12

Collective Arts Brewing - 9

Nickel Brook Brewing - 5

New Ontario Brewing - 5

Fairweather Brewing - 4

Block Three Brewing - 4

Beers

Collective Arts Good Monster DIPA - 9

Clifford Brewing Brave Captain Brown Ale - 6

Collective Arts - Frisch Pale Ale - 5

Grain & Grit Beer Co. Homebound IPA - 4

Collective Arts Brewing IPA No 16 - 4

The Drain Pour Day

It was bound to happen.


I mean, after all these years, how hadn't it already been something I would encounter?


I drain poured a beer I didn't like.


  I know, not revolutionary or uncommon for a lot of folks, but I am a combination of cheap and drunk that has always meant finishing my beer no matter what. I've had my share of awful beer but always managed to finish them quickly and efficiently like the German ancestors on my mothers side would have. The idea that you don't have to completely drink a beer you don't like was so foreign to me that I had a hard time wrapping my head around it, but after more than 3500 different beers and a desire to not waste my calories or beer life, I'm done with the ones that just can't hack it.
  It started a few months ago when we started to get a little more picky with what we would buy at the LCBO or when we stopped at a Brewery. We used to buy one of everything at any brewery and every new beer that hit our local liquor stores. Styles I didn't enjoy or particularly care for were given the same credence as much desired ones and often languished on the shelf or were drunk late at night when good decisions had ceased to be a characteristic of my drinking.  A common sense look at our budget and a bulging fridge of beer neither of us was really interested in was the next logical step to letting go of the need to buy everything. Why buy a lager when it doesn't interest me? Do we need 2 of this sour ale when only I will try it and Mrs. Polk has no care for that style? It was time to focus on what we liked and leave behind a notion that we should be omnivores of craft beer.

This seems excessive

  It's been a slow process but we have been making great progress with both our buying and drinking habits. Choosing to keep it to only 1 or 2 a day for the most part and even when we chill out and have a few, keeping a weekly run of less than 14 beers was strangely doable to me despite my inclination to drink all the beers. But wasting one of those precious slots on beer that just wasn't giving me anything was becoming harder and harder. When you are just going to have 1 beer, it becomes hyper important that it be enjoyable, to style and on point.
  The lack of proper fridge management can play a role in this problem as I still have a little too much beer (I know, I know, 1st world problems and all) and no desire to drink a portion of it. Giving away to friends has been a fine way to clean it up a bit and when I finally caved last week and organized most of it, I discovered about a dozen beers that were clearly well past their prime and on the way to that great circle recycler in the basement laundry tub. A little choked up at the prospect but I bit the bullet and got rid of them. Not the first time this has happened and it bothered me more that I had screwed up than in actually getting rid of the beer.

Yes, it is a macro now but they had a huge infection problem. Proper drain pour.

  This was but a prelude to a little later that day when I opened a beer and just went "Meh.". It wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was just there. Cloying and artificial, it was supposed to elicit dreams of dessert and instead made me wonder why I was wasting my time. It wasn't an awful beer, in fact some people would love it, but I couldn't do it anymore. I have had several friends tell me this moment would happen and I always scoffed, but here it was. I stared at the glass for a few minutes, contemplating just slamming it back and moving on like I usually do but something was stopping me. I knew I only had room for 2 beers in me that day and why should I waste any of my allotment on something that just didn't do it for me. The time had come and without fanfare or a big show on the damn internet, I poured a beer out for the only reason that should really matter, I didn't like it.
  It felt freeing. It felt a little weird and it felt like I had finally learned to start letting go of beers I don't need.  To pour a beer out should never be a public spectacle and if there is truly something off about your pint, i.e. oxidation, sourness etc., then do your brewer a favour and reach out privately to let them know. I understand that it gets way more attention if you take a run at a beer in public but I think that says more about your need for likes and comments than it does for your commitment to great beer. As a caveat I will say this, if you reach out and are ignored or rebuffed, feel free to go public and demand accountability. While I am all for helping to promote and grow this wonderful community, that has to be a 2 way street and as consumers we must let our voices be heard when something is being done poorly as well as celebrating the best beer has to offer.
  I'm not going to say it was easy but life is indeed too short for bad beer or anything that doesn't bring you happiness. In beer, as in all things, seek joy and the very best that you can find.


Cheers!


Polk

I'm Okay with Who I am.

***I am going to preface the following post with this little aside. I do not want advice on how to diet, exercise or otherwise lose weight. Your experience with those three things is singular and doesn't apply to anyone else. I write this because I love who I am and you should do the same for yourself. If you want to help someone, look in the mirror because when it comes to who we are at our core, the only opinion that matters is your own.***

I am a fat guy.

Not a shock if you know me, follow along with my beer adventures at The Drunk Polkaroo or have encountered me in real life at all. I weigh in the neighbourhood of 270 pounds and being only 5'6", it's a big gut on a small guy.

I'm neither proud or ashamed of what I look like. It is who I am and despite years of thinking about doing something about it, I never really have.

Perhaps I am lazy;

 Maybe I don't really care about myself and eat poorly;

Drink too much and have poor nutritional skills.

No...None of that is true.

Yet those are some of the things I've heard over the years, along with what exactly I should be doing to be more like everyone else. Eat less, exercise more, try this fad diet, see a specialist or engage in someone else's newest passion. While I may be a beer guy and shout my love from the rooftop, I always say that you should drink what makes you happy and to hell with everyone else. Maybe the people who want to change how I live should do the same.

So why bother writing about this at all? Why not just keep on living life and let it slide? The truth is since I've started to explore the wider world inside my head and outside my comfort zone, I don't know how not to write about what comes forward. My being fat isn't a disease and it doesn't mean I have to listen to your advice or even want it. Why is someone's weight still the one thing that people feel they have the right to weigh in on? (Pun intended)
I walked over 10 kilometers last week in Quebec one day and felt wonderful. I wasn't out of breath, tired or sore, even the next day. I walk to work quite a bit lately because the Jeep is broken, 2.5 km each way and it's not an issue. But still I get the looks, comments and unwanted intrusion into my appearance. Even at 43, I can't get away from people who think they have the right to impugn upon my person because of how I look.

 I refuse to hide behind the walls of my home, though. I make videos and take pictures with my shirt off because I love who I am. I expose myself to the potential ridicule, but I don't care because I want everyone to know it is okay to love yourself for who you are. If you want to lose weight, get more fit or engage in any other form of self improvement, I say go for it. Attack your life with a ferocity that will help you achieve anything you want. But don't expect me to come along with you. I applaud your efforts and wish you well, but I am pretty happy with myself and the life I have (re)built.

Many times I have lost some weight and then put it back on. The master of the Yo-Yo diet, until one day I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided to just be myself and see where life takes me.  I eat pretty well, mostly home cooked meals with a good balance between greens, grains and meats. I try not to eat a lot of junk and almost never patronize fast food joints. My beer consumption is surprisingly small despite what people perceive. While I do have one beer every day, it is often just that single beer that enters my system. I am on my feet 9 hours or more at work 5 days a week and spend a large chunk of my days off working around the house. So I am far from the lazy, beer swilling, nacho eating character that usually embodies a man of my girth. I am active and probably have more energy than most people I know. I greet each day with enthusiasm and find other's lack of positivity to be a larger problem than the few extra pounds I carry around my middle.

I know this sounds like a rant and in my head it didn't start out that way. But body and image shaming have no place in a civilized, modern world. We must strive to be more inclusive in our approach to creating an open and better society with our words and actions. I make bad jokes at my own expense all the time and I know that it is because I learned early on that humour can mask the pain that other people cause. I recognize my own need to be more accepting of who I am and work harder to create a better narrative for my own story. Your journey, like mine, is inherently personal. You can choose to be joyful and to make other peoples lives the same or you can be negative and hateful. If you're a downer, take your bullshit somewhere else, I've heard it all before.

I might go for a walk tonight. Or a swim. Or maybe I'll prop my feet up on the deck and have a few pints. Whatever I decide is because it makes me happy and at the end of the day, that's all I can do.

Be kind to each other and yourself. Unless someone asks for your advice, keep it where it belongs...in your head. Be fierce in your passions and gentle with your faults. Nothing has to stay the way it is, but don't let anyone else take over the wheel of where you're headed. The only person driving your life should be you.