In the final minutes of “BEERTICKERS: Beyond the ale” documentary filmmaker Phil Parkin announces he still has some unfinished business.
When he began making this movie had no aspiration to be Morgan Spurlock (the protagonist in “Super Size Me”). “I never actually intended to be in the film,” he wrote in an email, “but became so ingrained in the content that I felt the viewer needed someone different, a non-ticker, to lead them through.” He set a goal to reach 500 ticks, and at the outset of the Sheffield Beer Festival he has 472.
Drinking No. 473 he talks about the lessons he has learned, but by No. 479 he is looking a little dazed as he wonders if friends who are to meet him will show up. And I’m thinking, “Dude, don’t do it.” Twenty-eight half pints (the “official” size for ticking as champion ticker Brian Moore explains at the beginning) amounts to about two gallons of beer even if you get a few short pours in there. This does not seem like a good idea.
In fact, his friends do arrive, it gets dark and the organizers call time after Parkin orders No. 492.
“Yes, I drank far too much that day, we arrived at 2 p.m. and I didn’t leave until around 12 or 1 a.m. if I remember correctly,” he wrote. “Much of that footage didn’t make the final cut. I drank far too much. Eek.”
The documentary started out to be an examination of beerticking, also known as scooping, a hobby he viewed as akin to trainspotting. It turned out to be about UK drinking culture, real ale and pubs. About a culture and people easy to care about. Maybe this makes me a hardass, but when Spurlock kept ordering to excess in “Super Size Me” I felt no empathy toward him.
When Parkin looked at his clock at 1:50 on morning and realized feeling like shit was part of the process my head also hurt. And who wouldn’t want to have a pint in a pub with Mick the Tick, listening to him play in a skiffle band in the pub where ticking may well have started?
British beer culture comes off all the better because this was not shot through a gaussian lens. Mick the Tick staggers a bit from time to time, and Dave Unpronounceable and Gazza (two of the other ticking principals) have a few rough edges.
Parkin gets a little rah-rah goofy when he visits the Thornbridge Brewery and helps brew a beer, but it works because by then he has begun to consider the difference between appreciation and accumulation. “I could have only one (beer). I wondered if it bothered the other beer tickers,” he comments before going on to the next tick.
In an email he reiterated that ticking doesn’t necessarily include keeping tasting notes, and for some “it’s all about the numbers. Quite sad in some cases as the appreciation of beer goes out of the window.”
Perhaps. But listening to Mick the Tick talk about beer I don’t really care if he can tell me if tick No. 24,612 tasted like fresh oranges on a June evening or brussel sprouts. As Parkin’s images illustrate so well, in the pub friendship, sharing and community are as important as the beer itself.
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You can find copies of “BEERTICKERS: Beyond the Ale” here and here.
Call me out of touch, but I don’t get the concept. Based on the article it sounds as if the English have created their own version of binge drinking (as if the Bavarians at Oktoberfest haven’t as well).
I mean, does one really have to “tick” off 5,000 ounces (assuming these are Imperial half pints) to fully appreciate the sharing and community of a good pub? I didn’t on my trips to England and Ireland (even Germany — even Chicago!).
“…but it works because by then he has begun to consider the difference between appreciation and accumulation.”
Now he’s getting it.
I don’t think there is a standard beer ticker any more than there is a standard beer geek. I know some beer tickers, for example, who buy books listing pubs, then one-by-one visit each one listed. However, it make take years for them to do this.
Hard-core tickers and geeks are compulsive/obsessive. They can’t really control themselves, and they probably get very little enjoyment out of drinking beer. I’d go further and say they have a tenuous grasp of rationality.
I really don’t see any connection between tickers or geeks and German Oktoberfest visitors.
Mike – Good point that there’s not a standard beer ticker. Getting to know the individuals in the documentary makes that clear.
I’m fine with people logging the beers they drink or pubs they visit, but I lose interest when they won’t revisit a beer or pub because they always need a new tick.
So do you tick off each pub or each beer you try? It wasn’t clear from watching the promo video. How far have the hard core beer tickers gotten down the list? Sounds like a good hobby. 🙂
Brian Moore has ticked more than 40,000 beers. He drinks a half pint, and records the name and the abv of the beer. Even without tasting notes the results is several thick journals.
Stan — I misunderstood the concept, I was under the impression that there was some goal of multiple beers to be the “top ticker.” As I re-re-read about Phil, he’s only after 28 half pints on the particular day he deluged his liver. Still.
Mike — My comparison of “tickers” (really what Mr. Parkin was trying to achieve at the Sheffield Beer Festival) to Oktoberfest revelers was consumptive binging. 28 half (imperial) pints equals almost 9 liters, doesn’t it?
But yes, with further clarification I can see that ticking is pretty much just keeping track of the beers you’ve sampled over time, not necessarily in one evening.
Hi guys, first off thanks to Stan for reviewing the movie! As he mentions at the end, its available to buy or rent on iTunes for about $2… and it will be on Hulu in late July! Sorry, plug over!!
In regards to the comments:
As I understood it Beerticking is simply “seeking out a new beer, drinking it (all) and writing it down! Most of the tickers I met did this by drinking half pints, but there were some that chose to ‘tick’ pints! As I experienced in the film, it’s hard to drink pints when a beer festival offers tens, sometimes hundreds of potential new ticks! I called it the ‘dilemma’; drink another beer I really enjoyed or move on and get more ticks. You an guess where my preference lies by the fact I was 28 new ticks shy of my target as we filmed the last scene.
The surprise in the movie was not just the characters who were tickers, but also the understanding i gained about Britain’s heritage in beer and brewing, and how the UK is losing the ‘big’ brewers and pubs are closing every week. However, we are gaining more microbreweries, and they are contributing to the renaissance in ‘real ale’ as we call it. When you actually understand what beer is supposed to taste like, this is a very exciting discovery. Plus, beerticking can become a great hobby!
Cheers all – enjoy your beers and please tell your friends about our little film!
Phil