How Did You Learn So Much About Craft Beer?

Drinking, Doing shares, becoming friends in the community, yourknowledge will only grow and continue to grow

 

I watch(ed) reviews on YouTube to try and detect some of the stuff people were picking up. Thought it was important to familiarize myself with that stuff beforehand

 

Growing up my Father always drank craft beers. His fridge was always filled with growlers of beer from a local brewery. He didn't really drink much but when he did it was never "coors light", or the basic dad beers. Having an older sister in college that was a hippy always helped. As well as having alot of older buddies that liked Ipa's and good beer. I drank my fair share of crap growing up. But when I had the money it certainly was going towards good beers.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that this site is my primary resource when it comes to all things beer. I'll be on the site at least once per day, whether it's to post what beer I'm drinking or to see which threads are on the home page. There is always something new to learn and so many regular users have loads of information whether it's because they are involved in the industry or simply have been enjoying craft for a while.

I've been a craft drinker for about six years, but it wasn't until last July that I really started to pay close attention to the subtleties of what I drank and how each beer differed from the last. I've read a handful of great books, but BeerAdvocate is my "go-to" to stay in the loop of what's happening in craft and just beer in general.

 

Festivals, brewery tours, tastings, tastings, tastings, Beeradvocate.com, Zymurgy magazine, conversations, tap room visits.

I feel like brewery tours and tastings with other knowledgeable people are a good way to build your knowledge and experience.

 

BA website, BA magazine, taking part in the forum conversations, going to breweries, talking to brewers, brewery employees, other BA's.
Take advantage of bottle shares if you have the opportunity, usually get to try some great brews and talk to like minded people.
Go to beer fest's. I can't say enough about how great EBF, ACBF, etc. have been. Tried awesome brews, set up great trades, met great people. Tons of beer related events going on in the area. Lots of bang for your buck.

 

Step 1: Buy all the beers that you can find; one of each.
Step 2: Drink all those beers.
Step 3: If you see a post about a beer that you've never heard of or never tried, go buy it and drink it.
This 3 step process will only take you about 75 years, but after about 1 year you'll have a lot of beer knowledge.

 

Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher and How To Brew by John Palmer. Read both of those to give you a start then seek out all the craft beer you can. Learning what good craft beer is and what bad craft beer is takes a lot longer. Trying volunteering for a homebrew competition to learn from the best.

 

This site, books from Michael Jackson and Garrett Oliver, and other sites like Ron P's.

 

Research. Some people call it a drinking problem but I like research.

 

Instagram has been helpful recently. Following a few people outside of your distribution area is a great way to see what the rest of the country is drinking.

Also, traveling. Get around and see for yourself.

 

Reading doesn't hurt, although I realize that there is precious little of it being done in this age of electronica. The bi-monthly free newspapers are good for gleaning regional information. Ale Street News publishes both a New England and a mid-Atlantic edition; Brewing News has six or eight different editions to cover every area of the U.S; Celebrator Brewing News focuses mainly on the west coast and mountain states.

Brewers Association (the OTHER BA) has recently completed a series of four books, each detailing a basic beer ingredient. "Hops" by Stan Hieronymous is by far my favorite and the most accessible. I found it to be a quick & informative read. "Yeast" is next best, co-written by Chris White of White Labs. Then "Malt" and finally, "Water". I would caution you that H2O requires a degree in Chemical Engineering. I took it into a Chem colleague while I was still teaching HS English & he looked through it, emitted a low whistle and wished me the best, although he was willing to "decipher" any questions that I may have. I still own the book and keep in touch with him, but I may never finish it.

Regionally, Stackpole Books had been printing regional guides, like "Pennsylvania Breweries" by Lew Bryson, but with comings and goings, those become dated quickly, although they can still provide insight into the people behind the beer.

Attend fests that include presentations and go to the presentations when they are offered! They give you a chance to sit down & take a break + samples are poured during the lecture. Heck, you might even get to hear a bearded pseudo-monk hold forth about the CANned beer trend!

 

This is a little bit of an aside, but it occurred to me that a lot of Americans who are new to beer might not be as well versed in the "basics" as some of us older fellows who had little to chose from back in the day. There are just so many new American beers out there! When I started I tried to learn everything I could about English ales and German lagers (which actually covers quite a bit of ground!), and then moved onto Belgian ales and whatnot. You can't turn back time, but I feel that those building blocks made it much clearer to me what was going on within the newer beers being brewed. Enjoy it! There's a lifetime of learning to be had

 

I will second this. Only in my case home brewing with my kids got me interested in all things beer and led me here.

 

I learned most all of my knowledge from this beer advocate site, particularly forum reading.

Top beers listings - Top 250 keep you up on the hottest "hyped" beers of the moment around the globe, combined with some of the classics that are still ranked in there.

Top beers by state - Lets you see the beers and brewers that are top ranked on a state by state basis. Good for helping search for local beers.

One note for situational awareness: Not to bash this site, because I find it far superior to any other on the web, but it doesn't get as much of the beer rating/review traffic as some other websites/apps. With that said, I find that many of the smaller local beers and breweries, may be off the radar on beer advocate. The state "best beer" lists only include beers that have at least 10 reviews written to count in the rankings. For my state of MD, for instance, I know of several very highly regarded local beers and smaller breweries that have very high quality beers that have been released for many months (some beers perhaps over a year or more) and are getting lots of praise in the forums and talking with people in public, but they don't yet have 10 reviews to be visible on the "best from the state". Go over to another website/app and there may already be hundreds or ticks/ratings for the same beer or brewery. Just something for awareness.

Trade Forum - ISO (In Search Of) - Once you learn to decode all of the acronyms for beers and breweries used on this forum, you'll see what the hottest of the hot (or hyped) beers are that the uber-beer-nerds are after. An even smaller subset of the top 250. It seems to be perhaps 5-10 breweries in the US primarily and only a small handful of either brand new beer releases or super-limited rare beers. Not recommending you join in on this madness, but at least you'll know what is the hottest stuff at this time.

 

My favorite way to trade is to find someone with good taste and beer, to agree on a $ figure, and to send each other approximately that value in beer. You will be sent things you never would've thought about trading for and you will learn a lot about those beers and sometimes a region's brewing culture. I've done this as any beers they can find, or as a purely locals-for-locals trade, where each person only sends beers brewed in their state.

 

Learned from BA, drinking, drinking, BA, drinking....................and oh yeah,...drinking !!

 

beeradvocate.com + self-enlightenment + self-experience + other peers who are into craft beer

 

Well put, flew thru the first two, Yeast and Hops, currently reading Malt and going to probably pass on Water. Malt is making my head hurt as it is, but getting what I need out of it

 

Well, I suppose you should find a good merchant, work through world beers, find what you prefer, and simply have fun. By the way, I'm indecently into all beers!