nzen. She knew we were there for one reason and one reason only - to drink beer! Near the end of the tour, with a touch of irony she called us The 3 Gents. The name stuck.I suppose that, when I think about it, "The 3 Gents" seems a strange phrase to be associated so heavily with beer. Who are we? And moreover, why?
More than anything else, I suppose, it's now become a brand-name behind an effort to discover, catalogue, rate and review beers around England, Europe and the world. From the most obscure Belgian beers, through beers from Haiti, Bangladesh, Canada, France, Holland, Thailand, to name but a few, to familiar English real ales, stouts and lagers.
We are also actively engaged in discovering amazing places in which to buy beer, both online and otherwise. From the online shop "Beers of Europe", through our local real ale pubs, all the way to amazing liquor stores and variety beer pubs in far-flung places like Atlanta. It's what we're about. It's what we do.
Let me tell you how this all began. My dad, Alan, and his friend, Phil, had been going to Amsterdam, using a cheap ferry fare, since shortly after I was born (I'm 28 at the time of writing). My dad had always had a preference and yearning for the better beers out there, but foreign beers were something that slowly entered their consciousness over a long time.
It was when I decided, in 1998, that I'd accompany them to Belgium, that this venture really began. I was impressed when I first encountered and tasted such famous Belgian beers as Duvel, Leffe Blonde, and Bush. To be honest, though, I didn't yet appreciate them for what they were. I was only 20, and getting drunk was my main concern. Belgian beers are easy to get drunk on, given their strengths topping 8%ABV.
It was later that year, on a separate journey abroad, when, whilst walking through London, Phil and I had the idea of actually writing down the names of all the beers we drink this time. We considered it'd be an interesting list to look back on. For this purpose, I bought a small red cash book. I did indeed fill the first few pages of it with many names of tantalising names of beers from Belgian, Holland, and several other European countries.
As I recall, I did nothing else in the way of cataloguing beer for the following 12 months. I simply wasn't that interested, and didn't know much about beer (other than that it gets you drunk!). The three of us had booked a two-week holiday - basically one big lads'-day-out - in Canada. We were to fly there with the Canada 3000 airline do a tour around the East Coast of the country, beginning in Toronto. While we were sitting in Manchester Airport, we decided, once again, to actually catalogue the beers we were about to drink in Canada. It was merely an afterthought. I wasn't even going to bother at first.
I walked to the airport's newsagent and picked up a Manchester United (I think!) writing book. However, this time, I thought I'd do more than simply list the beers. I would give them each a score out of ten, as well as say where we had them, etc. It was to be a proper beer scoring log. I even had a Notes section, as I recall, as well as other elaborate parts to the endeavour. Canada 1999 turned into a drinking holiday for us, and the beer logging was also a success.
That brings me to where the name, "The 3 Gents," originated. Our tour guide in Canada was a certain Barbara Lorenzen. She knew we were there for one reason and one reason only - to drink beer! Near the end of the tour, with a touch of irony she called us The 3 Gents. The name stuck.
I continued to catalogue beers throughout 1999 and 2000, though still only in a very amateurish way. For 2001, I began a new beerlog. It was a huge writing book - almost too large to carry. For it, I invented a whole new scoring system, which went beyond the old simple scores out of ten. Now, I gave each aspect of the beer - taste, head, aroma, etc - an individual score, which are tallied up at the end to give a final score for the beer. I embellished this new beer log book a ridiculous amount sections, including reviews of cities we go to. I also began gluing beer bottle labels into the book.
I was dismayed some time in the first half of 2001 when I lost that beer logbook somewhere in Ghent, Belgium. However, little did I know it at the time, but that loss was to pave the way for a whole new era...
On our return to England, I decided on creating my own series of much, much smaller beer logbooks. I used the same scoring system as before. Later that year, we returned to Canada - the other coast, this time - Vancouver, where we discovered hundreds of new beers. It was at about this time that the Beer Chart began, whereby I typed all the beer scored into an Excel spreadsheet, thus producing a chart of the beers we'd sampled since Book 1 (1st April 2001) began. The cogs had well and truly been set in motion.
When this all began, we didn't go very far outside of Amsterdam and Brussels, but during 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, we branched out to lots of other European countries. It wasn't long before the Beer Chart reached one thousand different beers. Two thousand and three thousand soon followed suit. Long by now, beer hunting had turned into my burning passion in life.
It was either in 2003 or 2004 that I began to give more actual description of each of the beers we sampled. I began my development of an increasingly complex coding system, whereby I could quickly and efficently review every beer I try. On the second incarnation of this website, I began to built up an impressive catalogue of my own beer reviews, gleaned from my beer logbooks. Incidently, we were by now way past Book 100.
The key to producing a good beer review is in actually recognising different flavours. As I went on, I learned to recognise and verbalise more and more flavours in beer. I also read and absorbed lots and lots of information about beer. Increasingly, it took over my life.
In 2005, I went backpacking around Australia on my own. It was a major experience for me, the full details of which can be found on The Real Australian Adventure, but, as I discovered, Australia does indeed produce a wide variety of different beers. I visited heaps of microbreweries (brewpubs) around the country, and further improved my beer-rating skills. It's an art-form; it really is!
It won't be too long now (maybe another year) before we reach Book 200, by which time, there will be far in excess of 4000 different beers in the Beer Chart. I - we - have come a long way. I hope all this doesn't seem a bit pedantic and obsessive, but, as I've said, it's become my burning passion in life. Either way, it is on this website that I share with you my knowledge of beer.