What was you first Craft Brew?

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And I have never looked back.

 

If guess it was a Lowenbrau when it was still a German import. Maybe 1973 or so.

 

I don't feel super confident about the order of things back when I was first exploring beer in the early 90s, but I *think* my first craft beer experience was Ipswich Ale. Sam Adams Boston Ale or Lager and Harpoon Ale are also possible culprits.

I'm more certain of these two things: the first brewpub I ever went to was the Boston Beer Works across from Fenway Park and the first actual brewery I ever visited to sample/drink in was Nimbus Brewing in Tucson. The Nimbus "taproom" simply consisted of a couch plopped by the loading dock garage door and a collection of old board games. They had a super bitter pale ale and a malty, boozy, 8ish% brown-ish ale of some sort. I was instantly smitten.

ETA: since other people are mentioning it, sips of my dad's Lowenbrau while doing yardwork could count as well. One time afterwards he offered to actually pour me a little bit in a glass to drink at my own speed. I was probably 10 or so and it was only a 3 or 4 ounces at most, but I remember feeling slightly woozy in a way that was both pleasant and slightly unpleasant at the same time

Part of me still chases that "lawnmower beer" taste that I remember as a kid. A Sierra Nevada Nooner after painting my deck in a brutal July heat wave a couple years back is the closest I think I've come.

 

Rogue Brutal Ipa was the first that got me curious about craft beers.
First brewery visit was Cigar City Brewpub.

 

Some of these older beers make me nostalgic, I can remember cadging them off my old man, but some of these beers make me feel old as fuck.
some of these kids are all "haze was my first beer, I never looked back"

 

Sam Adams BL about 2005. Hated it solo much.

Brewery is tough, Redhook in WA or Big E in WA. Around 2008 or 09

 

How so? Fifth largest brewing company in the country (1983), operating the single largest single brewery in the US with over 16m bbl/yr capacity, fourth most popular beer brand - a pretty typical American adjunct lager, noted at the time as being lighter than the other national brands.

 

When I started drinking around 1960 there was little else but craft beer. It wasn't called craft then but "local",and all on cask too.To this day I possibly have only drunk a gallon or two of keg beer.
The big brewers hardly penetrated this area so practically all the pubs sold one of three local brewers products.Restricted choice of course but we were happy as it was so good.
The same brews are available from small craft brewers and are still my "go to" beers

 

Alaskan Smoked Porter
Snow Goose, Anchorage

 

I don't remember, but I would imagine it was either Gritty's, Geary's HSA, or Allagash (probably White), or Sam of course?

 

Used to cage sips off of my dad's Sam Adams BL back when I was a kid. He reverted to less expensive beers after the divorce so never really got much into it afterwards.
First craft I tried knowing it was a craft beer, Devil's Backbone Vienna Lager.
First brewery visit, Soaring Ridge.

 

Pino's? With their catacombs-like "cellar". Place lost all it's charm when they moved across the street...

Yeah, I can never remember if Anchor Steam was in NJ before I left for California, so if you can date it by your college years, I'm sure I had had it by then, too.

A few years later, we were getting Boulder, Riley-Lion (out of Arkansas, no less!) and Chesbay. (Also can never remember when Sierra Nevada showed up, but I've got an empty Bigfoot from '86, so...)

The industry story was the NY-NJ metro was the largest US market for imported beer - something like 25% of all imports were sold here - so they figured since we were used to paying above average prices anyway...

 

Sierra Nevada came to NJ in 1984. There was a store in Clark NJ, Baumels with a great selection and I remember getting it there in 1984. Anchor Steam also made a re-appearance after about a five year absence.

 

First craft beer: Coopersmith's What-A-Melon (it was actually something else from them, but I had that one the same day and actually recall it because it was the first one I enjoyed)

First craft beer brewery: New Belgium in Fort Collins.

Unless you count touring O'Dell's and Oasis Brew Pub in Colorado with my dad years before I could drink. I didn't understand why those big, metal vats were so important in the world until some time later.

 

I was in SF in the early 90's, and tried a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I could not stop drinking that beer for the next few decades!

 

Keweenaw Brewing Company's Red Jacket.
It's too bad they don't distribute yet. Surprising too.

 

It was a Wells Bombardier Ale, 1983 or so.

 

First I ever tried I imagine would have been Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Although the one that converted me was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

First brewery was Cigar City back in 2009.

 

Probably old slugger from cooperstown in the mid-late 90's..