The Hoosier Beer Geek Readers Survey - Results (Part 1)

We'd like to thank everyone who participated in our first full fledged readers survey. Fifty-nine of you took the time to answer the questionnaire, and thanks to your answers we hope to continue to bring the beer to you in new and adventurous ways.

Because there was a lot of data to cover, we'll break this up over two posts.

1. Demographics

As could be expected, the vast majority of Hoosier Beer Geek readers live in Indiana. We do have a few out of state readers - a few in St. Louis, Missouri, a few from Kentucky, a gentleman in Madison, Wisconsin who is welcome to mail us New Glarus products, another fine reader from Orlando, Florida, who is welcome to send us some warm weather, a class act of a man from Greeley, Colorado that we'd love to receive regular shipments of Oskar Blues products from, and a dashing young man from Seattle, Washington who we should probably send a t-shirt. For those of you reading from far away, thanks for your support - we hope your as excited about Indiana beer as we are about beer from everywhere else.

The average age of our readers? 34.35, with our youngest reponder being 22 and our oldest at the sprightly 58.

Hoosier Beer Geek is very much a boys club, with 85% of our readership being male, and the better 15% female. Luckily the attendance at our parties hasn't been so one-sided. We'd very much like to raise that percentage - the fine females of Hoosier Beer Geek are looking into a ladies-only event in the upcoming months.

2. How did you first find out about Hoosier Beer Geek?

The majority (52.9%) of Hoosier Beer Geek readers found out about us through links from another website - which means my trolling (just kidding) of messageboards and other beer sites has paid off! A few of you found us through press coverage (InTake, Nuvo, Time, People, National Geographic). While we certainly appreciate all our readers, for those of you referring us to friends (at least eight readers), a special thanks.

3. How do you read Hoosier Beer Geek?

This was pretty balanced, with 49.2% of our readers saying they visit the actual site, 39% reading through RSS, and 23.7% receiving our posts through email. Only one person responded that they weren't a reader and just enjoyed surveys.

4. Which of the following Hoosier Beer Geek events have you attended?

This was certainly eye-opening. Of 59 responses, only 10 readers admitted to attending a Hoosier Beer Geek event.

5. If you have not attended a Hoosier Beer Geek event, what's keeping you from attending?

It seems the reason most of our readers haven't attended our parties comes down to date/time issues or location. Date and time issues are pretty much out of our control, but we're certainly hoping to diversify our event locations in the future.

Five of you said you haven't attended because our events "are not (my) scene", and four of you said you're not comfortable with introducing yourself to people with the phrase "I read your blog". While we certainly understand that line of thinking, we really do want to let you know that if your comfortable with meeting new people, we're more than happy to have you out.

There were a few comments left that we'd like to address:

"The events don't seem welcoming to new people. It seems like you have a group of friends that all get together. Are there typically a lot of new people?"

While it's true that we have a group of friends that get together - it's only been through regularly seeing each other at the events that we got to know each other. There are a few pairs of folks who knew each other before Hoosier Beer Geek, but for the most part it's been an entirely blog-based group. If we haven't been welcoming before, we'd love it if you'd give us a second shot. Just let us know ahead of time that you're coming out - that way we know to expect you.

"(I) Don't know if I'm enough of a beer geek."

For those of you who are new to this - We want to meet you more than almost anyone. I'll be honest in saying that it's incredibly rewarding to know that we've had some part in introducing folks to something new. It's great to hear the opinions of those who are just walking through the craft beer door - a door some of us walked through not so long ago.

By the way, only five of you called us dorks. I think we all expected more votes there.