Do you remember what got you into craft beer?

Before I came of drinking age, I noticed that my dad always drank the "normal" beer as everyone else. Somehow having knowledge that there were other things out there, I decide that when I could buy my own beer, it would be different from the norm. When I turned 21, I went out and bought Bass, Guinness, and Killians Irish Red. Not realizing that I hadn't broken the norm with those beers, and with some, still supporting the BMC powers. However, at a superbowl party not long after, a friend brought a case of Franziskaner wheat, the instant I tasted it I knew I had to seek out real beers........

 

Drinking Bell's Two-Hearted

 

About six summer's ago or so, someone offered me a corona and lime at the lake and said hell why not. After that I thought to myself there had to be better beers out there than this. So I put down the tequila and bourbon( just for a second) and sought after better beers via this website. To many beers later I'm still here, but not really hunting rare beers as much. That's my story, sorta.

 

Guinness, New Castle and Heineken

 

A ticket to the Chilton (hosted by Rowland's Brewery) Beerfest in WI. One ticket led to that becoming a must attend event which led to the Great Taste of the Midwest which led to an obsession with craft beer....

 

1. BeerAdvocate.com (thank you, Alstrom bros!)
2. Stone Enjoy By
3. Karbach Brewery

there's other things, but BA and all of the good insight by so many BAs (brothers included) got me into this stuff ... i thank them and thank you if i've read one of your reviews on this site -- the hardcore beer heads gripe and complain about reviewing/rating to style and they make a good point, but the bottom line is people drink a beer and do their best to score it on this site, and their attempts helped get me into good craft beer

 

Sammy Smith's Oatmeal Stout and Nut Brown Ale. It still takes me back to 1996!!!!

 

My buddy got into brewing early on eventually going to Seibel, and he worked retail for many years so I was always around it but I can't say I really started truly understand and rightly appreciate it until I hit my mid-20s when I first tried Saison Dupont.

 

Ralph Steadman

 

On my 21st birthday I bought a 6er of Harpoon IPA and Longhammer IPA - from there I bought a different 6 pack every time I went to the store - never picking the same one twice (until celebration ale came out - my first favorite beer, although now I dont really dig it as much)

 

Hunahpu Day...so many friendly, generous people sharing all this beer I had never heard about...amazing time!

 

Yes. it was 2 years ago when I turned 21. My friend bought me a Scottish ale and I haven't turned back since.

 

Well, coming out of lurker status with my first post on this one. I actually never use to drink much. I would buy a sixer every payday of any new Sam Adams or Blue moon variant and considered myself rather adventurous at that point. Problem was that nothing really tasted good to me, so id have 1-2 and the rest would sit in the bottom of my fridge like a graveyard until I could pawn them off onto someone. Then, a few years back my good friend Bond brought down a new beer for us to try from Boulevard, it was part of the smokestack series, whatever that was. It was the Two Jokers Witbier and it blew me clean out of the water with all that aroma and flavor. So from there it went on to the rest of the Smokestack series, GI offerings, Rogue....etc etc....to the trainwreck it is today. Love it!!

 

My addiction all started with trying a Good Gourd from Cigar City at Mr. Dunderbak's in Tampa. Good Lord, Good Gourd! From there, I started trying pretty other pumpkin beers, nothing beat it, so I moved on to other CCB items, and fell in love with Jai Alai and Zhukov... which led to the natural progression - Huna. Nice to have all this in my back yard.

 

Towards the end of my college days as a marketing major, I started to notice the gimmicks that BMC implemented in their marketing. It was about the time that Miller was promoting the wide mouth and punch top cans, Coors the color changing when cold blue mountains, and Bud added lime/tomato juice.

I thought to myself, "Why can't they sell their beer on taste alone? Wouldn't the beer be better if they redistributed their marketing budget to ingredients?" When I had this realization is when I decided it was time to venture out and try new things.

 

A combination of:

1) Me being tired of getting mocked for drinking Mike's Hard (because I hated the taste of beer, not knowing beer existed that was better than typical BMC stuff) as well as it consistently giving me ridiculous heartburn.

2) My (then) new gf informing me that good beer did exist, and explaining the concept of microbrews/craft beer to me. I started with Summer Shandy and Obereon, and liked them a lot.

3) My undergrad advisor starting to slowly introducing me to stuff (hefes, wits, APAs) once I told him about my newly found interest in beer. I initially did not like a lot of them, though, so I often resorted back to the good ole' Shandy.

I'd say my pivotal moment was a conference I went to in Minneapolis. I had mostly stuck to drinking Summer Shandy in the late summer, and then moved on to Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest, but I decided to branch out and try new things on this trip. I saw "New Belgium Trippel" at a bar and gave it a try. Loved it, and so began my love affair with Belgian beer (as in, I started drinking actual Belgian tripels after I got back home and did some research on them, which led me to branch out into other Belgians, then other styles in general).

That was only last year, too...this year I tried a Summer Shandy when they were first released to see how my tastes have changed, and I could barely drink it...my palate was not pleased at all. Obereon is still drinkable, though.

 

I've been drinking good beer since I turned 21 almost 20 years ago. No idea on the cause. (And good sours were expensive even back then.)

 

My brother in law and I walked into Spec's one afternoon many moons ago when Chimay was still $8.50 a 750ml bottle in Houston. Talked to a guy named Jeff, the beer guy at that time. He asked what we where looking for and we had the deer in a headlight look. It was our 1st time in Spec's downtown and 1st time ever. He said here try this. Handed us 1 Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale and 1 Chimay GR. We said ok. Went back to his house. Pulled out 2 frosted glasses from the freezer. Poured the beer and sat in the front yard drinking. Never looked back and no longer use frosted glasses.

 

Was at my brothers wedding around '95 or so and they had Spanish Peaks Honey Raspberry ale. I know, a girlie beer, but up until that point it was miller lite. It opened me up to craft beer and got me into homebrewing.

 

I was in university and my sister started seeing a guy who owned a pub. He was partnered with the local craft brewer, and as I was "family" I was entitled to a discount. I wound up spending a great deal of time there, and I have not looked back.

By the by...I still get the family discount from that craft brewer.