About

My name is Paul Cotter, but before I tell you about myself and why I’ve decided to join the thousands of other people writing blogs about craft beer, I need to explain the name of this blog: Beer Burps. As with many great ideas, this one came about when I was a little bit hammered on my most recent birthday at a brewery in Sydney’s Inner West called Batch Brewing Co. I was trying to explain to my wife the different characteristics of the IPA I just consumed, when I burped. After excusing myself I proclaimed that I could taste some of the fruity characteristics of whatever hops they had used. Drunkenly, I continued that exhaling after a sip of beer was an important part of the evaluating the flavor profile of a beer. My wife mentioned that it would be a funny name for a blog and so Beer Burps was born.

In all honesty this blog is just a way for me to rationalize the amount of money that I spend on beer each year. Like many other late-twenty year olds, I’ve succumbed to the growing popularity of craft beer. Although, my story is a little different than most or at least that’s what I like to tell myself. My, oh damn!, moment wasn’t after drinking Pliny the Elder for the first time or drinking my first homebrew, but going to a craft beer bar in Rochester, New York and my Uncle buying us a small pour of Utopias from Samuel Adams. It was like no beer I’ve tasted before and it really opened my eyes to depth and breath of what beer could be. The next year I went to work for that same Uncle as he and a business partner took on the gargantuan task of starting their own microbrewery later named, Naked Dove.

During my time at Naked Dove I homebrewed with my Uncle on the side, read a little about the history of brewing, the styles, and variety within the styles. I was hooked. After Naked Dove I took sometime off from the brew world, but got back into it again when a family friend asked me to help him with Sales and Marketing for a California brewery called Hangar 24. I leapt at the opportunity, dusted off my rusty beer knowledge, and started to immerse myself in learning about beer and the brewing process. Luckily for me I had a friend who is an avid homebrewer and would invite me over for brew days. I also had some sensory training from one of wholesalers that I worked with helping me to expand my vocabulary as well as my palate. All that coupled with my own research culminates in me learning that I still know very little about beer. SO, my point being, this blog is a tool to help me hone my knowledge of beer and maybe provide some recommendations for those seeking to know more about individual beers. If you like what I have to say, great! If not, no worries. I will be as fair and unbiased as possible, but in the end remember that everyones palate is different and what I like may not be what you like. So as the saying goes, Relax. Don’t worry. Have homebrew.” Or in this case, any brew will do.