How long have you been drinking craft beer?

A long time.

Waaaaaaay before there was craft beer there was microbrewed beer. And before that there was something called Sierra Nevada. Prior to that there was Anchor. And before any of that there was something called imported. And, if you had the chance, you had the beer in its native environment, a place called Europe. I'm not so old to have had it but know as well that pre-prohibition there was some damn fine beer right her in the USA and it was every bit as good as the imported.

So, over 30 years now. And trust me when I say everything new in beer is recycled old beer.

Why do you ask?

 

Anchor and New Albion started it for me but...there's always a but...imports and the likes of Ballantine XXX and Rainier Ale got me hooked.

 

I'm with @billandsuz , in taking a broad definition of craft beer. If you mean "something other than AALs" I guess it's going on 40 years now.

I wonder what I should have to celebrate the occasion .

 

I guess it depends on the definition. I first had Anchor Steam beer a few times about 40 years ago. However if you want to define my drinking craft beer on a regular basis then it would be about 17 years ago. So, my vote went to the 16-20 years ago category.

 

Was going to say "allllll daaaay llllloooongggg" but that wasn't a choice.
That's how long.

 

Bill,

Prior to Anchor there were beers in America that were ‘craft beer’ (but needless to say that terminology was not used then). Some extracts from my article entitled “What is Craft Beer” soon to be published on the MoreBeer website:

“Yuengling Brewery has the distinction of being “America’s Oldest Brewery”. There were other breweries operating in America before the 1829 founding of Yuengling (known then as Eagle Brewery) but it is the oldest continuously operating brewery in the US. It might interest some to know that the oldest continuously operating brewery in North America is Molson (1786).

The first beers brewed by Yuengling were not AAL beers but instead were beers brewed with ale yeast. On the Yuengling website they list as their first beers: Lord Chesterfield Ale and Porter. Both of these beers are available today, but Lord Chesterfield ‘Ale’ and Porter are now brewed using lager yeast.”

And:

“Ballantine was also one of the oldest and long-lived breweries to produce an IPA. Would Peter Ballantine have known then that he was producing the most popular craft beer style of 2021? Of course not, but tasty beer is tasty beer. Ballantine IPA was produced in a different manner than they are today but there are similarities: mostly pale malt and heavily hopped.

A few interesting differences in the production of Ballantine IPA in the years of yore: they aged the beer for extended time in wooden vats and they used distilled hop extracts to augment the aroma of those beers.

There were a number of other American breweries producing IPAs in the 1800’s with a few examples: C. H. Evans, Frank Jones, Christian Feigenspan and Matthew Vassar. A number of breweries ahead of their time?”

Also:

“By the middle to late 1800’s the dominant beers in America were lagers with light colored adjunct lagers being the most popular. However, those beers were not like contemporary AAL beers since they were more heavily hopped. But there were American breweries that chose to brew lagers akin to how they were brewed in Europe, Piels Bros in New York City being one. In the early 1900’s they produced all malt beers (brewed via decoction mashing) solely utilizing imported Saaz hops. They produced four brands: Dortmunder, Muenchener, Kapuziner, and Pilsener.”

Cheers!

 

Age 40, started at 15 (1996). Had an unfortunate digression in college (perhaps to be expected).

 

back in the early early 80's there was only Anchor Steam, Augsburger, Augsburger Dark and a strange beer from Philly called Prior Double Dark. That was it for decent US beer. No Sam Adams, no SN. You had to get Whitbread pale from England, Newcastle, Belhaven or Guinness for something w/hair on it. Folks have no idea how this is the Golden age of craft beer.

 

I joined this site in 2009. I had only been into craft beer a year or two before that.

 

I said over 30, I've enjoyed beer before I was old enough to buy beer. I remember when I was called swanky,fancy, or high brow when I ordered lowenbrau or Heineken

 

Yes, distribution did vary but there was indeed more than what you listed there. I discussed some other beers in my prior post (post #7):

There were non-AAL beers from Yeungling, there was Ballantine IPA and there were others.

And I suppose it is relative but Prior Double Dark was not 'strange' IMO. Prior beer was brewed back in the day by Adam Scheidt Brewing Co. Below is courtesy of @jesskidden:

"Prior (both a light and dark) began as Czech recipes brewed in the US for the beer importer, Atlantis Imports, by Adam Scheidt Brewing Co., Norristown, PA during WWII (when European beer exports weren't possible). Philadelphia's C. Schmidt's & Sons bought Scheidt in the 1950's and continued to brew the super-premium Prior beers into the 1970's. Around 1980, they re-introduced Prior Double Dark in a new package (and higher price)."

Cheers!

 

Started drinking fairly young but once two of my friends started working at a halfway decent distro with a lot of imported beers, that’s when my curiosity was definitely piqued. That was in ‘95 or ‘96. They would pick up stuff like John Courage, Dinkelacker, Corsendonk, Paulaner Salvator, Boddington’s, Schlenkerla, etc

Not too long into them working there, one of them bought Michael Jackson's books and we would just flip through it every time I was over there and it became a necessity to try to get every beer that he wrote about.

 

More than 50 years now and counting.

 

I recall PBR releasing a bock beer in the spring and I drank one (and only one because I didn't like it) of those in the mid-60s, and that was my first exposure to something other than an AAL. Some imports and a few Anchors along the way after that until the mid-90s which is when I embraced this stuff that we call craft beer, so I chose 21-30 years in the poll.

 

Before "microbrewes" were a thing, we would try anything that wasn't the MIller/Genny/Utica Club/insert various fizzy yellow beers here. Imports, Canadian, even exotic brews like Rolling Rock and Old Vienna were fair game.

 

I'm 40 and chose 16-20 years, but I'm very close to pushing into the next tier up. I started drinking beer in high school, but it was whatever trash we could get bought for us. I always tried to steer my dad toward buying Sam Adams or other interesting looking brands around the holidays instead of the ubiquitous AALs of the time. My first legal beer was SNPA and even in college sought out brands like Victory, Weyerbacher, Sierra Nevada, Stone, and other regional brews. My interest has only grown in exploring deeper into craft rather than resorting to a steady diet of macros.

 

Right at 10 years for me. (29 now.)

High school; alcohol was whatever I could get my hands. Smirnoff Ices, Watermeon Burnett’s and Powerade, Four Loko’s back when the crack was still in there... LOL. Tried beer some the usual BL...

Graduated and continued Bud Light etc, but always wanted to try different beers. Started to hang out with my uncle a lot who loved Fat Tire back when we couldn’t even get it in VA, first craft I ever tried at 19 and never looked back.

 

This thread is depressing because it lets me know I'm old, When I count the years since I was in college, introduced to Anchor Porter/Steam, Kulmbacher and other imports and "microbrews" it's over 35 years now for me