How long have you been drinking craft beer?

I can say Balantine IPA in 1974 was a transforming experience. So I said 30+ years.

 

I'm 34 and I found and joined BA about a month after I had my first Sam Adams variety pack so, almost 11 years.

 

GOOD ONE (you old fart)!!

 

A little north of 21 years, while I was in college. Started out with the very small craft sections at the package store: mostly drank Pete's Wicked and Strawberry Blonde, Allagash White, Harpoon IPA, Sam Adams Boston Lager and seasonals. When out and about locally we'd go to Trinity Brewhouse before/after concerts and games at the Providence Civic Center. And friends of friends started Newport Storm (now Newport Craft Brewing & Distilling).

 

Summit Brewing Extra Pale Ale which I believe was released 1989 or around those parts.

 

Started in 2003 at age 23. Was living in the DC area, got roped into a few different brew pubs with friends...it was on from there. Got on to BA in ‘06 and was amazed at how much was out there to try, and also pissed at how difficult / impossible some of it was to get. Drank a lot of Troegs, DFH and Weyerbacher. The sexy beers on the threads at that time from what I recall were anything from Stone, Russian River and 3 Floyd’s.

 

I'm 29 and I've been drinking craft since I was legal. I bought a six pack of Deschutes Black Butte Porter on my 21st birthday and been going at it ever since. I didn't try most macro stuff until about a year or so ago, out of curiosity and an attempt to deepen my knowledge and appreciation of beer in general. I mostly stick to local independent breweries these days but I do try some macro/national/regional stuff I missed or overlooked in my earlier days being a bit of an uneducated snob.

 

I hear you. Next step is the "How much longer will your Doctor let you drink craft beer?" thread.

 

If he was ethical, he probably would have stopped me last year. But my gp is an old drinking buddy, so I'm good.

 

30+ years.
In high school I drank whatever lager we could get our hands on... usually Lucky Draft, Rainier, Olympia, and that BEER beer. There was a bicentennial graduation party where there was copious amounts of Anchor Liberty Ale, so that was a start on what good beer could taste like, but settled pretty much on Rainier. Then one day in 1981 after I started a new job, a workmate hauled us all down to Murphy's Pub in Seattle's Wallingford district to drink yards of the original Red Hook. I indeed was hooked. Bridgeport, Hales, and of course, Grants was on offer at a very select few taverns around the area and it was an adventure trying to find them.

 

I picked 16-20 years, but it could be 21-22 years. I was drinking Leinenkugel's even earlier than that, but I think 2001 is when I started drinking beers like Sierra Nevada, Bigfoot, Honker's Ale, Delirium and other Belgians, etc.

 

30+ years.... damn I'm old!

 

I don't know, that sounds an awful lot like cheating to me!

 

It is all relative.

 

I moved around the corner from Berkshire Brewing Company in 1995 and started buying their growlers at the corner store, so I date it from there. I had previously lived in Boston and had had the occasional SABL and Pete's Wicked Ale before that, but don't really count those - or imports like Guinness and Harp. I remember thinking the first Guinness I had in high school (mid 1970s) tasted like tar.

 

This may jolt some Beer Advocate members, but I will become 65 years of age in May. Aside from a slight case of asthma, I'm in pretty good shape. I do not look that old, especially after I shave my beard.
I have probably scribed elsewhere on the forum that I had the craft beer epiphany in May 1984. It was a concoction of watching out-of-market outdoor soccer games on the C-Band satellite television system, consuming German imported beers, and most significantly, Augsburger on draft at Arno's Place, a bar at 4530 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. I was there a lot in 1984. Even watching on satellite the STING win the (last) N.A.S.L. Championship versus Toronto BLIZZARD in October.
The address is still a bar (& restaurant), now titled The Grafton Pub. If and when it reopens, I will go there again.

 

I missed the opportunity to vote in the poll. I would have picked 30+ years. I'm 61 yo.

The first "craft beer" I ever had was Catamount Pale Ale from Vermont in 1985 or 1986. Back then it was called a micro brewery. I was a broadcast journalist for WCFR radio in Springfield, Vermont. This Windsor, VT brewery invited the local press to come on a tour.

At the end of the tour, they offered all of us reporters a sample of a freshly brewed Catamount Pale Ale (yup, I was drinking on the job). At that time I was already mostly drinking European imports. I was impressed with it because it tasted so European to me. After that, I frequently looked for Catamount and other craft brews. They weren't so easy to come by then.

I went to my first brewfest in 1995.

 

About 2 years now and I was quickly consumed by everything. I have come to envy the guys that got into this 25 years ago before the internet and all the crazy styles that are out there now. I frequently visit my stores and am quickly overwhelmed by the 500 varieties available. Especially at the price point some beers are working at now. Frequently I see something I would like to try and then see it’s 23.99 for 4 pints and then the internal battle ensues. Do I really want this? What if it’s horrible? Often times I end up getting it anyways and usually I enjoy it but it doesn’t reduce how overwhelmed someone who is still as green as I am when it comes to the world of craft brews feels when all this information is thrown around. Seems like my biggest trouble is deciding what I want to get into next as I don’t think one can adequately explore and appreciate each style and each subset of the styles if you try to do everything at once. It’s definitely become my biggest hobby, and my most expensive one. Don’t get me started on the imports and the home brewing and the pub crawls and the taproom only releases and the list goes on and on. Very quickly I’ve found myself in a place where all I think about is beer

 

I lived in Chicago 75-77 and Augsburger and Andeker (pre-80's version) were readily available on draft. The little corner bar near Leavitt and Walton had Andeker draft. Quenchers (RIP) on Fullerton was a go-to for a variety of beers.