Do You Remember Your First IPA?

I'm in the minority, my first IPA was also my last. But if that's what you like, rock on! Cheers!

 

I was rather late to the party. The first one I remember trying was Columbus IPA, which I picked up during a trip back home to take to my friends in Iowa. My first memorable one, the one that set me "on the road to ruin" as it were, was Deschutes Fresh Squeezed. I've been a hophead ever since.

 

It was probably either Redhook or Goose Island for me.

This got me thinking - anyone else remember when there was debate whether Alpha King was a pale ale, as labeled, or an IPA?

 

Bombay Grab IPA at Vermont Pub and Brewery
1988.
Poured by Greg Noonan himself
Cheers

 

22oz bomber of sculpin in 2009 God that beer was unworldly!

 

Not my first IPA, but I remember my first wheat beer quite well. It was c.1999, and I was at a place called dba on the Lower East Side, bring down the coolness factor I'm sure. I was with an English friend, who was appalled at my consumption (which included a lot of Coors Light, because it was the least "beer like"). He put a draft Brooklyn White in my hand and said "try this, it's really good". And the rest is history.

 

I believe mine was Oregon lPA. Not even sure of brewery, maybe Oregon Brewing. I want to say Sam Adam's had something to do with them. Again, unsure.

 

No kidding!!! All these responders, "in 2014," "2009..."
I may in the middle of the road, I started drinking |(legally) in 1996, fortunately for me, in the middle of the craft beer boom at that time. My first legal drink was at a brewpub near my college, I got a sampler rack, so it's entirely plaudible I had an IPA there, but this was really in the beginning of the internet for the public, and well before BA, so I had no idea of styles, etc, aside from "this one's dark, this one's light," For a long time, as a revolt of sorts against the typical beverage choice in college, cheap and strong (the unofficial beer was Natural Light Ice,) I would hold the bottle up to the light, and if I could see through it, it wasn't worth drinking.

 

Yeah, the so-called "Oregon Ale and Beer Co." was eventually just a subsidiary of Boston Beer Co. Their beers were originally brewed at Saxer, then Stroh-owned Blitz-Weinhard in Portland (which also brewed SA for the west coast) and finally in far-from-Oregon Cincinnati at Hudepohl-Schoenling (where BBC also contract-brewed and soon purchased). Oregon craft brewers were not amused.

Originally started as a "partnership" between Koch and BBC employees Gregg LeBlanc (ex-Gallo) and brewmaster Walter Scheurle (ex-Pabst/Blitz-Weinhard and Pittsburgh Brewing Co. - where Scheurle was working when the first batches of Samuel Adams Boston Lager were brewed there.)

 

Flower Power-2003ish.
The good ol days
First Double IPA was also from Ithaca. Anyone remember this one?
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/651/16111/

Was told by an employee at the brewery that it eventually evolved into this (with the addition of alfalfa honey):
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/651/46937/

 

Back in the day it was an Amazing beer, easily case worthy. Then the brewer leaves beers never the same, amazing they had it dialed in, so its more than computers pushing buttons, I think Surly has suffered the same fate with beers like Abrasive. It’s not the same, and it’s not like they’re bad beers, but they lost a little luster from where they started, and icing believe my palates shifted that much either

 

As a lifelong Massachusetts resident, I'm pretty sure it was a Harpoon IPA out of my dad's fridge years ago.

 

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for me too. Got it in part of a build your own six pack and LOVED it. SNPA has been my go to ever since.

 

Wasn't it a later "2.0" version? Don't recall all the particulars (it was originally a seasonal "English-style IPA") but it is reflected in the BA scores if one starts at the earliest reviews.

 

I still drink more East India Pale Ale than any other IPA.

 

One of the OGs, too, at least in terms of beers that actually went by the IPA moniker.

 

Michael, an old story:

I started homebrewing in the 90's and there was recipe in Ale Street News for making a clone of Celebration Ale which I never had at that time. I clipped out the article and went to my Local Homebrew Store to buy the ingredients. The fellow behind the counter asked: "What are you brewing". I proudly replied "A clone of Celebration Ale". He then said: "Oh, an IPA". I likely had a quizzical look on my face and I meekly replied: "Yeah, I guess it is". If not for that homebrew store employee I would not have known I was brewing an IPA. That batch turned out great and I rebrewed that beer many times thereafter. And once Celebration was available at my local beer retailers I bought that too.

Cheers!

 

That would have been a heavy hitter in 1996, bet it was a fun wedding

 

Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA, and Pliny not too long after that. Lots of Racer 5 in my early IPA days, too.