Two Today and a Redesign!

Over 200 posts fatter and 100,000 words longer, the blog is two years old today (a birthday it shares with Hardknott Dave)!

To celebrate and to update, you might notice the change of design... I almost went really drastic and made it www.pencilandpint.com (I even got the logo made up by Rich at myBrewerytap) but I bottled it at the last minute and went with the safe, constant option. At least I’ve got a pint glass in the logo now so it’s easy to see that it’s actually a beer blog. The blog will soon be available at www.pencilandspoon.com (UPDATE: It's NOW available at the .com address). If you have links to it then it’d be great if you can update them once it flicks over (it should automatically direct anyway, I hope). There’s also now a facebook group for the blog (it was probably about time I added one). And an About page.

The last year has been a good one with a few notable highlights including becoming an uncle twice; winning the New Media award from the Guild of Beer Writers; getting engaged; Sheffield Twissup; San Francisco; Prague and Pilsen; earning money with my first paid commission; making new friends and drinking some fantastic beer. I’ve got a bottle of Racer 5 in the fridge which seems like a good beer to open to toast the two years.

Thanks for reading – if no one read it and commented then I’d have so much more spare time on my hands, I’d get two hours extra sleep every night, I’d have a healthier bank balance and body and I’d have room in my wardrobe for actual clothes and not just bottles... But whatever, beer blogging is cool and I’ve had some unforgettable experiences this year thanks to the blog. And despite waking her up at 5am most days, or me going out a few times a week, often waking her up when I get in (drunk), or telling her that I’m going to another country and leaving her for a few more days, Lauren still says that I'm her favourite beer blogger, which is all that really matters.

Many thanks to Richard from myBrewerytap who did the graphic design for the new logo. If anyone needs any design work doing then you can email him on richard@mybrewerytap.com. If you need beer you can also use that email address as he’s got lots of it (including the new Marble bottles – Chocolate Dubbel and Vuur and Vlam). And thanks to Andy from Beer Reviews for sorting out all the complicated internet stuff (if it doesn’t work then he’s to blame, although I need to be nice as he now knows my password...).

Two great years in. Here’s to the next one!

And what do you think of the new design?! I nearly photoshopped it myself (after my skills were shown in this post) but instead sent the following picture to Rich and let him do it properly...

Cupcake image from here.