{"id":5995,"date":"2013-09-29T17:01:30","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T04:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?page_id=5995"},"modified":"2026-02-08T09:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:03:17","slug":"about-the-diary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/about\/about-the-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"About the Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Beer<\/a>
Beer Diaries, plural, on holiday and in the transition from Diary II<\/em>\u00a0(black) to <\/a>Diary III<\/a><\/em> (blue)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My Beer Diary<\/em> started life as an actual honest-to-goodness diary \u2014 or at least a notebook \u2014 and that remains its fundamental existence; there’s just something about taking on-the-spot handwritten notes that’s enjoyably impossible to replicate with gadgetry.<\/p>\n

The original was a component of a particularly-awesome present I got one year from my good friend George while we were both living in Melbourne.\u00a0He gave me a chilly bin (‘Esky’, if you’re Australian; ‘cooler’, if you’re American) which contained several beers I’d never had before (from the excellent King & Godfree\u00a0near our house) and had a notebook and pen perched upon it. He’d noticed I was on the turn from Ordinary Person Who Likes Beer into Proper Beer Nerd, and so I should start making some documentation \u2014 especially since my memory functions\u00a0well<\/em> below Human Normal.<\/p>\n

The Diary<\/em> lasted several years, with entries initially rather infrequent owing to my forgetfulness but then accelerating considerably as a) said Nerdiness grew, b) I finally made a proper habit of taking it with me, and also once c) I finished law school and promptly went back to working behind a bar for my sanity’s sake. In 2010, it was at last running out of pages, and \u2014 as the transition to Diary II<\/em>\u00a0(which had usefully already appeared, as another present from another flatmate of the time) loomed \u2014 I decided to preserve it online;\u00a0\u00a0partially to preserve its contents in case I should lose the thing itself, partially to ease the annoyance of not being able to find things easily among its 300+ entries, and partially for the sake of those peculiar few-but-actually-existing people who had expressed curiosity as to its contents when they’ve seen me scribbling in it.<\/p>\n

The initial Great Uploading took place in late September \/ early October of 2010<\/a>, but entries were back-dated to reflect their actual creation, which made sense at the time and then became headache-inducingly confusing as the online version diverged from the physical one and took on a life of its own \u2014 with the podcast, with various non-Diary<\/em> rants and rambles, and such \u2014 so that practice was shelved in May 2012<\/a>.\u00a0Despite the potential for (and the reality of) various instances of awkwardness and embarrassment, my original notes have always gone up as-is and with a verbatim transcript.<\/p>\n

Keeping the Diaries<\/em>\u00a0has been a massively rewarding experience; I encourage anyone with a scrap of geekiness about what they’re drinking (or indeed any other subject) to do the same. Maintaining actual, handwritten, on-the-spot notes of something as you explore and learn has an interesting and beneficial effect on the brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Beer Diary started life as an actual honest-to-goodness diary \u2014 or at least a notebook \u2014 and that remains its fundamental existence; there’s just something about taking on-the-spot handwritten notes that’s enjoyably impossible to replicate with gadgetry. The original was a component of a particularly-awesome present I got one year from my good friend … Continue reading About the Diary<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5995","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2705,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/podcast\/","url_meta":{"origin":5995,"position":0},"title":"Podcast","author":"Phil","date":"June 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Beer Diary Podcast premiered in May 2011 and ran (sporadically) over the next five years. My co-host and producer was George Langlands; my longtime friend who was also responsible for the original pen-and-paper Beer Diary itself. Looking back a decade later, I'm proud of what we did and think\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Our beloved Newsradio-esque microphone","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Microphone1-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/about\/","url_meta":{"origin":5995,"position":1},"title":"About","author":"Phil","date":"September 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Hullo! You've followed an old link to get here, and I haven't managed to prune them all out, yet. Apologies for the resulting confusion, if any. The original 'About' section has been chopped into different sections; follow any1 of the links below to carry on: About the Diary:\u00a0the Origin Story,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Floyd, a suitable totem for lost things","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Floyd.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Floyd.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Floyd.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Floyd.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18227,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/about\/about-this-website\/","url_meta":{"origin":5995,"position":2},"title":"About this website","author":"Phil","date":"May 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Online since September 2010 and originally serving simply as a backup incarnation of my actual physical\u00a0Beer Diary this has been my home on the internet and has endured through several rounds of boom and bust of various social networks; current places you'll find me are listed in the sidebar. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Creative Commons License","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by-nc\/3.0\/nz\/88x31.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16529,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/talks\/","url_meta":{"origin":5995,"position":3},"title":"Talks","author":"Phil","date":"March 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is extremely out of date; my apologies. I've had the good fortune to be invited to give a few presentations\u00a0and make the occasional appearance in the media. It's always proven terrific fun; drop me a line \u2014 here, or via Twitter or Facebook \u2014 if there's an event or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5991,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/about\/about-the-author\/","url_meta":{"origin":5995,"position":4},"title":"About the author","author":"Phil","date":"September 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Born in 1979 and raised in suburban Wellington, I spent most of my adulthood in the City there, with a few years each in Canberra and Melbourne \u2014 before moving back to Melbourne at the end of 2018. I studied law and philosophy at university, and have worked as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Me, in Too Many Beers and\/or Brandwank Whistleblower Witness Protection mode","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-is-Philbert.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-is-Philbert.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-is-Philbert.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-is-Philbert.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5995"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29178,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5995\/revisions\/29178"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}