Hello- from the upper midwest, WI/MN

Grew up in southern WI around the time when the major breweries had collapsed the 200 odd WI breweries existing in WI before WWI down to the "big four" in a race to the bottom for quality and to the top in stock dividends, by then making the crappiest excuse for beer ever to make some mega corporation filthy rich.

I hated beer as a teen/20 YO (drinking age was 18 then and I barely tried it earlier). Beer sucked. Watery, crappy tasting diabetic rabbit urine with a low level and unpleasant buzz. The only hops detectable were the last couple those rabbits took before they went into a coma and soiled themselves... The breweries then mopped up that urine and bottled it, AFAICT.

Hyperventilating and then holding your breath til you passed out from O2 deprivation was a better buzz than the beer that was locally available, less hangover too.

In college, same $h¡t was on offer. Screw THAT noise, although I DID learn to enjoy... other things.

Then, I got a college roommate from (elsewhere). And he knew things. Guiseppi introduced me to brown label Chimay ale, at $1.75/liter?! Very fresh, because by the UW Madison campus, it got bought out as fast as it could be re stocked?

And I studied a bit, my research was based on this new theory, that beer did not HAVE to be disgusting.

Eventually, I learned to brew my own. Now I've started growing my own hopps too.

I would rather like to emulate "King Sue" double IPA. Got some Citra root stock coming in May, hopefully.