We launched this modest enterprise on October 28 with a post titled “So, where were we?” [which is now the “About” blurb on the home page]: “After three years in the now-defunct Providence Phoenix, Bottles & Cans & Just Clap Your Hands is now digital and mostly-daily, with news on Rhode Island breweries and bars, events, and the freshest releases from our own backyahd and beyond.”
In the past four months we’ve [somehow] managed to fulfill the “mostly-daily” pledge [after running every two — or three or four — weeks in print; we had three posts on December 30!] and mission statement, and have gotten a few big scoops along the way [breaking the news re: the return of Left Hand and Ballast Point and the debut of Alpine].
We’ve dug into Halloween-themed beers and made suggestions for International Stout Day and National Lager Day and corked beers to pop on New Year’s Eve. We’ve made a few detours, with valentines to R.E.M. and radio. And we unleashed the 1st Annual Bottles & Cans & Just Clap Your Hands Favorite Rhode Island Brewery Poll, which was topped by the little [beer] engine that could — Crooked Current Brewery.
We’ve been scrolling through the archives for the last few minutes and will immodestly say that we’re impressed and proud of the output at the Bottles & Cans Desk. [And we use the editorial we because we do a lot of mumbling to ourselves at said desk.] We hope you’ve gleaned a few fun facts and gotten tipped off to great new beers, and been entertained too.
Some inside sabeermatics: We’ve amassed 12.5K page views and the daily-visitors-average has been rising every week. Our most-viewed post [aside from the brewery poll] is “Grey Sail’s Captain’s Daughter: a star is born” [“Rhode Island finally has a beer that has earned a buzzworthy following”]. It’s read almost-daily and tops the “search engine terms” on our stats page. [Here are a few intriguing searches: “is cans off your hands a company name”; “ghandi bot cans valuable?”; “what is captains daughter liquor”; “where can you redeem your cans and bottles when you live in providence ri.”] And Bottles & Cans has a huge global footprint, with visitors from every corner of the world. [Which brings to mind the Beastie Boys line, “Don’t mean to brag / Don’t mean to boast / But we’re intercontinental when we eat French toast.”] We’re Rhode Island’s Biggest Little Beer Blog!
As our beloved regular readers know, we’re celebrating this momentous 100th post with the Ask Bottles & Cans! Big Giveaway. Everyone who submitted a question about the local beer scene was entered in a drawing for a bottle of Russian River Damnation, 2011 vintage. And our Randomly Selected Lucky Big Giveaway Winner is…Rob! Congrats, sir! We’ll be in touch, and we hope you enjoy the brew.
Most of the Ask Bottles & Cans! questions were about growler sales and regulations, and we’ll delve into that Big Topic in a series of posts next week [we started exploring Rhode Island Growler World two weeks ago — it’s complicated]. On Tuesday we’ll answer the first query on another beery matter.
Huzzah to 100 posts! And thanks to one and all for reading. Cheers!
Bottles & Cans & Just Clap Your Hands 