Intro to Craft Beer?

Some of it depends on the kind of person that the macro drinker is. If he or she is adventurous, just go to a few tap rooms, order a tasting flight and see what you like and don't like. Also try the many festival out there. They usually offer an opportunity to try a large number of different beers. If you are talking to a reader, there are a bunch of good books out there. Try Mirella Amato's Beerology, Lynn Hoffman's The Short Course on Beer, or Ashley Rouston's the Beer Wnech's Buide to Beer. For the more geekey, try Joshua Bernstein's The Complete Beer Course, Jeff Alsworth, the Beer Bible or Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer.

 

This may provide some useful links to get them started:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/

 

I think a "craft beer" class or book is putting the cart before the horse, or at best it's too clinical. A better intro is recommending a well thought out mix-a-six and then the person drinking it.

 

Glad I could help. I agree with @zid that trying beers is the best way to learn, but if they also have basic information to go along with it they will learn faster and likely retain more when it's hands on.

 

Share your good beer with him!!!

 

I would agree that a curated sixpack is better than a webpage or a book. Get a sixer with a nice variety of styles - I started a thread last week on this very subject - and when he likes something, tell him what it is. When he doesn't, do the same.

Beer is meant to be enjoyed, and enjoying it is the best way to learn about it.

 

A good idea might be to follow up after a while and ask them if any styles they read about sound particularly interesting, you could use it to either put together a curated six pack for them or at least make some solid recommendations based on local availability.

Edit: I suggest this because a lot of my early craft education came from the info on BeerAdvocate but I never knew when reading a style and thinking, "I think I want to give that a shot!" if what I was picking up in the store was going to be representative. The reviews on the website are decent enough, but not having a frame of reference to put those reviews into meant taking away useable information was trickier than it is for me now.

 

Host a craft beer novice tasting, involve a variety of styles, prepare a little info about each style...or tell your friends to go to a bottle shop and pick up a couple of things that look interesting to them, and incorporate that into your tasting

 

Outside of the internet, some of the beer pairing books on the market provide a great intro to craft, but I feel you would be the best advocate. You can interact with your friends, answer basic questions, and you surely know what beers are approachable by a novice. Just remember we were all new jacks once, and even some wheat beers are just too overwhelming compared to adjunct lagers.

 

I'd say grab a flight or two at some beercentric bar.
Help them along by giving some info on each one.

 

Agreed. To go along with this, try to keep it simple.

 

Wheat beer such as Franziskaner or Hoegaarden are nice places to start. Darker lagers and ESBs are also very approachable as well.

 

Drinking wise, we have a brewery here in Indiana called Sun King (I guess they are fairly popular outside of Indiana too) that makes a Cream Ale that I think is the gold standard for transitioning macro drinkers into craft beer drinkers. I recommend any well-made blonde, kolsch, or cream ale to start them off.

Literature-wise, I love "Radical Brewing". Even if they aren't brewing it goes over a lot of brewing history that kind of gives an insight of how different beer styles came into existence without getting too technical.

I know a lot of homebrew stores in my area also give classes on brewing and tasting too, you could check yours in your area and maybe get lucky.

 

Something like Upland's Champagne Velvet (a Classic American Pils) wouldn't be a bad, though slightly more adventurous, pick.

 

Hey Bro!!!!!1!!!
Rogue Ales, Goose Island, Sierra Nevada these are the *****... I mean smoother beers.

 

They are refined beers and damn good beers.

I don't think a single major brewery in the market to date has made good German inspired beers until trying the Octoberfest beer from Sierra Nevada. That was a super great drinkable beer that seems to ignore trends of more hops and more alcohol.

There is nothing "*****" about the way Sierra open ferments. Think before you speak.

 

I'd be willing to bet that Sierra Nevada Pale was the beer that many on this forum used to transition to craft beer. Has enough bitterness to get them a little used to it but still smooth enough to finish.