Happy 1-year birthday, MBC blog! (slightly-belated)

Now that this blog is one-year old, I thought I'd post a few stats, gathered from Blogger and Google Analytics. A big thank-you to those who have read some/all of the posts, and especially to those who have taken the time to comment. Like most bloggers, I wish that I did it more often, and I hope that over the next year I'll increase my time blogging, even though my brewing has decreased over the last 6 months!

Any stats from Google Analytics are a little off, as I didn't start using it until about 3 months into blogging...

Total Pageviews: 8,192
The first few months were really slow; less than 70 per month, and I think a bunch of those were me! Luckily, I learned to stop monitoring hits from computers I used. By February, the numbers started increasing, and the last two months have seen the biggest "action", with ~1400 pageviews/month. Pretty small potatoes compared to a lot of blogs, but a big improvement since the beginning.

Total Visits: 4027
Unique Visitors: 2575

Most-viewed Posts: Dry-hopping Tips (1121 views), Alpine Duet clone (710), Deschutes Black Butte Porter clone (364)

Top Countries by visitor: United States (1st), Canada (2nd), and Australia (3rd)

Browser: Firefox (1st), Chrome (2nd), and Safari (3rd)

What I've learned from the stats are two things: 1) a lot of homebrewers are seeking out clone recipes of their favorite beers, and 2) I should probably be blogging more about homebrewing tips and techniques. The main reason I haven't done this is because I feel like there are a lot of resources out there, and I'm far from an expert on anything to do with homebrewing. That being said, I know I personally like to read about other homebrewers' methods and brewing results, so it only makes sense to blog a bit more about my own experiences, as opposed to mostly posting recipes and tasting notes.

I plan to brew once more before 2012 is over. Ideally, I'd get in two brew days, but realistically, with the holiday season already on us, that won't happen. That will bring my total number of brews for 2012 to 14... unfortunately, very low considering 2010 and 2011's totals of 20 and 19, respectively. Hopefully things will pick up for 2013!

Other things on the horizon for the next year include more sour beers (a Lambic and Oude Bruin, specifically), a session IPA of around 3.5% ABV, a re-brew of my Oktoberfest and Sweet Stout from 2 years ago, and, of course, a few more new clone beers (including Smuttynose Finestkind IPA and Russian River Blind Pig IPA). As always, looking forward to more brewing!