You all, simply, have gotten too smart. You know too about beer these days. So, congratulations you graduate!

A couple weeks back Sherbrooke Liquor posted my final Beer 101 column on its website. You can read it here. I started writing Beer 101 back in 2009. The explicit mission was to provide a range of basic beer education for consumers interested in learning more about beer. It was  never about shilling product for Sherbrooke, although I did sometimes talk about specific beer. It was all about the education.

Which made it the ideal gig for me. I got to write about whatever I wanted, share beer information and try to raise the level of beer knowledge among western Canadians. At first I was quite methodical, gong through ingredients, process, styles and so forth. As the number of columns piled up, I started picking subjects that interested me or were on my brain at the time. The focus remained on education, but the scope of topics broadened.

In all I wrote 90 Beer 101 columns over the past 8 years.

So if I like it so much, why end it?

Because, like all things, it has run its course. I think there is less need for basic beer education today, plus there are now lots of sources. When we first started Beer 101 I was the only one in the region doing this work, today there are many.

Also Sherbrooke is in the middle of revamping their website and overall social media strategy. We sat down to review the column and mutually agreed it was time to bring it to a close. To mark the occasion Sherbrooke is offering up Beer 101 Graduation Certificates for any loyal readers who want one – click here to go to the registration page.

But don’t fret Beer 101 fans. My presence at Sherbrooke writing beer education articles is not over. In the coming weeks we will launch a new project from me on the website (and various other social media-like places). The focus will still be on education and I still won’t be shilling for Sherbrooke. Not sure why they agree to such a one-sided arrangement!

So for the moment savour your graduation. I look forward to sharing my new project with you soon.

Oh, I almost forgot. You all get an A+.