Pete Brown reports that this blog has now ascended to the dizzy heights of #3 on the Wikio ranking of “beer blogs”. That’s some achievement for something that was only ever intended to give me the opportunity of getting certain things off my chest. It’s written for my benefit, and I don’t consciously seek to attract an audience.
Martyn Cornell (whose writings I greatly respect) had suggested that these rankings overstate the relative popularity of this blog. He has a point – it’s not really a “beer blog”, it’s more an “I hate lifestyle Fascists” blog wrapped around a pubs and beer theme.
But that, of course, is why it’s so highly ranked, as it attracts a lot of inward links from other blogs outside the “beer blogosphere”, specifically, although not exclusively, from those opposing the smoking ban. That is the way Wikio works, and inevitably however rankings are compiled there will always be some who benefit and some who in relative terms suffer.
It does seem to me, though, that a lot of beer blogging is somewhat parochial and introspective, and doesn’t really connect with the day-to-day experience of beer drinkers and pubgoers.