It's official, another friend converted.

I do this except with Allagash White.

 

ONe of my friends who used to be only a cheap swill drinker told me this summer:

"Man, I hate you for getting me into these good beers. I can't even stand Miller Lite or anything cheap anymore. My wallet can't take it!"

Warmed my heart.

 

I never tried to convert my friends but it's happened with most of them over time. The first time I bought an Arrogant Bastard to a party, they were all like "WTF is that?" and I called em wussies because it was almost 8%. Intimidation almost always works with dudes.

 

A friend from work overheard me say that I used to like beer, but there is just not much to it anymore. He gave me a short list of craft beers to try, and I bought every one of them. One year later, I am still thanking him from the bottom of my heart. Damn, I am glad I didn't die before I experienced good beer!

 

yea its nice when they self convert. I used to try to convert folks and you get cussed out allot. I stopped at like 3 folks when I figured out it was stupid to try and force anything I believed on another person.

 

I had another teacher come up to me and say, "that rasputin beer is just awesome. Thick and bitter." I about shit my pants and passed out.

 

You don't want those hops to fade.

 

Honestly, I don't think its that hard to convert people. I think just about all adults like to enjoy drinks from time to time (Dinners, watching a game, cook outs...), as long as the people you surround yourself are open to trying something new/different it is really easy to say "Hey, I found this beer and it's really great, here have one". Like many people have said in this thread, once you found a truly "good" beer - it's all over. And I use the word convert loosely - you can't force someone to try something or to like it but if you provide the opportunity it will most likely happen.

 

I've got a good friend who in the six months or so that we've been hanging out, I've managed to nudge in the right direction pretty successfully. At the time, he was a Bud Light drinker. I'd gotten him to try a few craft beers like Optimator and Schlafly Hefeweizen, but never anything too exciting. A couple of days ago I took him to a craft beer bar and got him to try Curmudgeon's Better Half, The Czar, Tart Lychee, and Two Hearted. He liked all of them except Two Hearted.

 

I'm seeing the sarcasm here, but there's plenty of people who really feel this way so I'm still going to make a point: So many breweries are expanding right now due to forecasted demand increase being as strong as it is now. Unless you want to see your favorite brewery that's expanding their operations fail, keep converting.