He saved popping up on my FYP web page on TikTok and my “recommended for you” on Instagram. A skinny, middle-aged man with rectangular glasses, usually carrying a Penn State hat over his shaggy hair. In a heat however excited voice, he would introduce each certainly one of his reels the identical means: “I’m Alan and I’ve had over 2,900 totally different beers.”
As craft beer started to increase within the aughts and 2010s, so emerged the ticker. An individual — most frequently a person — obsessive about attempting (or “ticking”) as many alternative beers as humanly attainable.
It didn’t even need to be a full pint, can, or bottle. Blasting by a flight of tiny pattern pours to garner 4 or 5 distinctive ticks was completely acceptable. Forty or 50 totally different one-ounce ticks at a beer pageant was legit. As was attempting a mere sip or two of some extraordinarily uncommon and costly stout or lambic break up amongst a big group of fellow tickers.
Do not Miss A Drop
Get the newest in beer, wine, and cocktail tradition despatched straight to your inbox.
It was, admittedly, a reasonably dorky, laughable apply, and I’d have advised you that it had all however ended as craft beer entered its post-pandemic darkish days. However then, right here was Alan with an astonishing 260,000 followers on Instagram, one other 60,000 on TikTok, nonetheless meticulously score every beer on Untappd, the beer logging app it appeared everybody had stop utilizing years in the past.
So was Alan alone, or has ticking made a quiet comeback within the yr 2025?
A Previous Tick
I was a beer ticker myself. So did lots of people. And why wouldn’t we’ve got been? Between 2000 (once I turned 21) and 2020, almost 9,000 new breweries opened in America. Thus, with 1000’s of latest breweries on the market producing tens of 1000’s of latest beers yearly, there was loads of nice stuff to strive. Why would any fanatic wish to stick with the identical outdated, standard?
Untappd launched in late 2010 and I registered for it nearly instantly. The primary beer I ever logged got here a pair weeks later: Concentrated Evil, a Belgian sturdy darkish ale from FiftyFifty Brewing Co. in Truckee, Calif. I scored it a middling 3.5 out of 5 stars, and I don’t bear in mind this beer in any respect.
For the remainder of the last decade, I’d log a number of hundred new beers per yr, just about the whole lot I attempted. After which, I merely stop doing it. Pulling up my Untappd account for the primary time in years, I see my last-ever login got here on June 16, 2019.
I nonetheless keep in mind that Sunday afternoon. It was Father’s Day. I had a 3-year-old and one other on the way in which. And, as a little bit present, my pregnant spouse let me escape the household for a couple of hours to go ingesting with my buddy David Covucci.
We hit up Threes Brewery, which was internet hosting a Can Jam occasion, promoting fascinating, canned beers from throughout the nation. David and I had been most blown away by one from Nashville: Pharmacy Pils, made by a brewery known as Bearded Iris. I used to be impressed sufficient to present it 4.5 stars.
“When different individuals are ingesting and chatting at a bar or wherever, they’ve beers lined up with their laptops out. Every taking notes and passing the beer onto the following rater.”
At 40 years outdated, I used to be about to be a dad of two, a pandemic was a couple of months away, and, little did we all know, the craft beer renaissance was seemingly in its remaining glory days. I by no means logged one other beer after that Pharmacy Pils. That means, I at present sit at 2,983 — a couple of greater than Alan.
However, the factor is, Alan and others have continued to hunt out new beers, proceed to get their ticks in, and proceed to log into Untappd. So I made a decision to search out out why.
Trainspotting
“I all the time preferred beer,” says Alan Spoll. Now 56, and residing within the Philadelphia suburbs, he began ingesting it whereas attending Penn State within the mid-Nineteen Eighties. “And what I rapidly found was that I preferred beer, however I didn’t like a lot of the beer that my buddies and I might get simply.”
Again then, that primarily meant Busch, Anheuser-Busch’s notoriously dangerous economic system beer. So Spoll started to pattern stuff that was a little bit totally different. At first, that may imply Molson or Moosehead, however because the craft beer revolution hit Pennsylvania, he started to pattern issues like Anchor Steam and Yuengling. He remembers Rogue’s Morimoto Hazelnut Signature Ale — made in collaboration with the famed Iron Chef — being a selected revelation early on.
“I used to be simply consistently on the seek for one thing new and fascinating, however I by no means counted something again then,” Spoll says.
Like me, that will all change when Untappd launched. Spoll started utilizing the app round 2014, not as a social connector, nor as a ticker’s log, however merely as a reference he might return to and see what he considered earlier beers he had drunk.
Whether or not deliberately or not, counting beers would change for lots of people because of Untappd, in addition to Beer Advocate, RateBeer, and different websites.
By the late-aughts, so prevalent was ticking on the opposite facet of the pond {that a} British documentary concerning the apply, “Beertickers: Past the Ale,” was launched in 2009. “It’s a type of trainspotting,” explains one ticker within the movie, making his passion sound even dorkier.
“‘I don’t know that anyone cares what number of beers I’ve had, however, in the beginning of this video I’ll say I’ve had nearly 2,500 totally different beers.”
The ticker phenomenon was much more prevalent among the many Danes. On longtime beer evaluation web site RateBeer, a number of Danish males started racking up a fully astounding variety of ticks during the last 20 years, capped off by one Jan Bolvig who had tried almost 75,000 totally different beers. How might that be humanly attainable, many needed to surprise?
“They’re the blokes at beer festivals with laptops simply churning by samples on an meeting line and writing evaluations that sound nearly precisely the identical,” posited one man on a Reddit thread from 2016. “They’re like an meeting line,” wrote one other consumer. “When different individuals are ingesting and chatting at a bar or wherever, they’ve beers lined up with their laptops out. Every taking notes and passing the beer onto the following rater.”
RateBeer shuttered on Feb. 1 of this yr and you need to surprise the place the tickers have moved, or whether or not they’ve folded up store. Untappd checkins within the U.S. started to say no with the pandemic, from 89.1 million checkins in 2019 to simply 67.4 million in 2020, in line with a Good Beer Looking report from 2021 entitled “Tyranny of the Tickers.” Surprisingly, nevertheless, there was a soar to 101 million checkins in 2024, although unfold out over solely 11.5 million customers.
Is a brand new breed of ticker rising?
TikTok Tickers
Round a yr in the past, Spoll’s 30-year-old daughter Jess urged him to begin recording beer evaluations for Instagram. She had discovered her personal social media success through TikTok, the place she has almost 190,000 followers on a pop culture-related account, whereas Sproll’s son-in-law had discovered content material success on YouTube.
“They tried for months, saying, ‘It’s best to make movies, it is best to put movies out. Folks will watch them,’” says Spoll, who had a busy day job working for a software program firm. “No one’s gonna watch me discuss beer. However they labored on me sufficient that I ultimately tried it and I simply began doing it day by day.”
Early on, no person was watching. He tried totally different codecs and totally different introductions to every video. Sooner or later, he checked out his Untappd and seen he was at 2,375 beers. Being very data-focused from his software program job, that intrigued him.
“And I used to be like, ‘I don’t know that anyone cares what number of beers I’ve had, however, in the beginning of this video I’ll say I’ve had nearly 2,500 totally different beers,” Spoll says.
Viewers rapidly responded.
“I believe Beer With Alan is having a lot success as a result of he’s framing his content material in a means that’s comprehensible and approachable to tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals, which permits him to go viral,” says Doug Veliky, a accomplice at BrightBev and the creator of the Beer Crunchers Substack. “He’s talking extra broadly to everybody and being useful, not a small echo chamber that was motivated by craft beer for various causes than I imagine Alan is.”
By February of final yr, a video of Spoll ingesting a boozy Goose Island Bourbon County Model Stout at a Philadelphia’s airport bar shot to over 100,000 views. Then, in March, a video the place he urged individuals to drink Firestone Walker’s 805 Cerveza as a substitute of Corona reached a outstanding 16 million views. His follower rely went from 75 to over 100,000 in every week or so.
Many youthful Instagrammers and/or individuals not locked into the craft beer world had been absolutely astounded that one individual might have tried so many alternative beers — that there have been even that many alternative beers on the market to strive! his analytics, Spoll notes that, certainly, most of his followers are younger males of their 20s and early 30s; males absolutely too younger to have been swept up by the craft beer revolution from a decade in the past.
“I wouldn’t say {that a} ticker tradition has reemerged amongst a youthful crowd as a result of I don’t assume tickers are following Alan, aspiring to be one themselves, ” says Veliky. “As a substitute I believe they’re simply comfortable to get the tutorial nuggets that he’s passing alongside on his journey.”
However there have been additionally naysayers, different tickers who troll his feedback, telling him they’ve drunk many extra beers than him. Spoll is nicely conscious of that.
“I’ve obtained buddies on Untapped who’ve had 10,000 totally different beers,” he says. “Like, I’m not bragging and I don’t assume it makes me an skilled. It’s simply one thing to say at the beginning of my movies.”
Tick Tick Growth
If I as soon as felt like a little bit of a beer skilled in my ticking days, I now not do.
So I made a decision I ought to, once more, change into a ticker whereas scripting this story; not less than get to a cool 3,000 totally different beers.
After I went to a beer retailer or bar round a decade in the past, I used to all the time search for one thing new, one thing fascinating, one thing unique. As I’ve aged, I’ve moved extra towards the straightforward and nicely crafted. No extra high-ABV adjunct stouts, only a few double IPAs, solely the occasional barleywine, and by no means sours. In the present day I’m proud of pilsners, helles lagers, and kölsch from breweries I do know.
If something, the pandemic made me extra brand-loyal to these beers that all the time provide consolation, enjoyment, and drinkability above all else: Threes Vliet, Rothaus Pils, Dwell Oak Pilsner. For those who’re hardly ever attempting new beers, there’s no must log ’em in.
However now I’d transfer my mentality a little bit again in time and act like I used to. I’d hunt down new breweries once I traveled, I’d seize new 4-packs once I went beer procuring. I’d be extra like Alan, who, even in his mid-50s nonetheless favors large, daring beers over 10 % ABV — Belgian quads, barleywines, and ingredient-packed barrel-aged stouts.
As for Alan, his following continues to develop day by day, by now larger than a lot of the breweries that ship him free samples or rent him for sponsored content material.
I resumed my ticker journey once I was in Vermont with a Hand Pulled Heady Topper, the perfect beer I’ve had in years — 5 stars. Again in Brooklyn, I attempted a nitro English delicate from Suarez Household Brewery. Scrumptious. On a visit out to Louisville, as a substitute of looking for new bourbons like I sometimes would possibly, I sought out an incredible native brewery and located it at Atrium. I used to be capable of test in a scrumptious Czech pils (on sidepour, natch) and a suped-up Italian pilsner.
As soon as once more, I started to search out enjoyment in ticking, a rediscovery of a youthful adventurousness I’d grumpily pushed to the facet. Craft beer could also be — statistically — on the decline, however there was nonetheless a variety of enjoyable, scrumptious stuff to find on the market.
At my native movie show, Nitehawk, as a substitute of getting the Three Floyds Zombie Mud Pale Ale I all the time have — at nearly my max ABV cap of 6.5 % lately — I had a double IPA; it positive helped get by the excruciating “Minecraft” film with my youngsters.
The tickers’ mentality I as soon as had returned — the need to all the time discover one thing new, one thing bizarre to strive, one thing to flex with on-line. The latter arrived once I was fortunate sufficient to attend the Masters.
The famed Augusta golf match has no branding on any concession merchandise. The chips are available in white baggage they usually provide plain or BBQ taste. For beer, there may be “Home Beer” (Bud Mild possibly?) and “Import Beer” (Stella, absolutely). There’s a third signature beer that does have a reputation: Crow’s Nest Wheat Ale.
OK, so it tasted prefer it was most likely Blue Moon relabeled, however however, right here was a troublesome tick, a beer that would actually solely be ticked if one had been capable of get contained in the notoriously tough-ticketed match.
Certainly, fewer than 1,000 individuals have ever checked in Crow’s Nest on Untappd, now together with yours really.
A Milestone
Ultimately, I used to be at 2,999 check-ins. My sense of beer ingesting competitiveness had totally returned and I used to be wanting to cross a milestone.
As for Alan, his following continues to develop day by day, by now larger than a lot of the breweries that ship him free samples or rent him for sponsored content material. He even has a Cameo ($50), merch, and will get acknowledged in public — one thing he calls “very unusual.”
As for his 3,000th beer, arising any day now, he needs to make it rely.
“It seems like I must make it one thing totally different,” Spoll says. He’d achieved a $75 bottle of Anchorage Wendigo Double Oaked for his 2,five hundredth, Sam Adams Utopias for his 2,800th, and a 15.5-percent-ABV Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock for his 2900th. “It must be an enormous deal.”
I’d make my milestone an enormous deal by saluting Alan, and having a beer extra in his wheelhouse. I opted for a bottle of Facet Mission Beer: Barrel:Time (2023), a 15-percent-ABV mix of twenty-two totally different imperial stouts aged in Weller 12, Willett Household Property Bourbon, and Blanton’s barrels. This was a beer that will have thrilled my ticker thoughts in 2014, however one I’d hardly attain for lately.
With a taste profile constructed purely from the malts and barrels, it provided decadent notes of chocolate, vanilla, and toasted coconut. It was means boozier than I drink lately, however in a small serving dimension it really impressed. It made me recall what I used to love about these beers within the first place. I scored it 4.5 on Untappd.
Most significantly, I might now proudly say:
“I’m Aaron, and I’ve had 3,000 totally different beers.”
