What beer got you into craft beer?

Summit Great Northern Porter in the early 90s (while in college). Then grad school (first in Scotland then in Germany) deepened the love.

 

Sierra nevada!

 

For my taste in hops....

Ive had just turned 21....and heard good things about dogfish head, picked up 60 mimute later on and i thought it was odd but yet awesome.

I wanted a pale beer as in color next time. I saw boat from carton. It said pale on the can. And i noticed it was bitter and floral like 60 minute. so i looked it up and thats my ipa start.




For dark beers.....

Newcastle Brown got my curiosity started

Finchs Secret Stache Stout and Penn Quarter Porter by DC Brau made me seek out darker beers more often.

 

Anchor Steam and Celebrator Dopplebock. This was late 80s/early 90s

 

Many many years I had tried Chimay and Corsendonk brown. They were awesome but way too much money to drink regularly so it was back to Yuengling lager and rolling Rock except the few times a year I had some cash to buy a bottle or two. There were other English Belgian and European beers I was drinking on occasion at the Khyber Pass as well.

In the late 1980's, maybe 1988 I went to a pay as you go beer tasting , it was off south street. I was drinking some English import, London Pride or ESB maybe? In the booth right next to them was Carol Stoudt. She started to talk with me and gave me a few free samples of her beers. WOW. They were great. I learned that She had opened a brewery just recently and was exited to try more. For many years Stoudts was a go to beer. I even had their Hefe(before the name change, was there a recipe change too?) on tap at my wedding. Perfect along with another new comer Victory Hop Devil just a few months into the start of their business. Victory really showed me what beer could be and the Dogfish 60 minute found me.

After my chance meeting with Carol I searched out more and more good beer. This led to SN and other American beers and now here I am 28 year later still searching out god beer.

While I was drinking good imports Carol really opened my eyes to what we could produce here in the states. I realy drink about 95% American beer now with Belgian being number two.

Thank you Carol and Ed and Bill and Ron and Sam.

You are the people that got me into this crazy beer journey

Enjoy

 

Blithering Idiot.

 

About 3 years ago I drank a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, and that was my gateway into the wondrous world of craft beer! I joined this site a few months later, and it blew my mind! I never knew there were so many beers out there that I had never heard of.

Three years later, my future goals are to become a certified Cicerone down the road, and to start home brewing in the very near future.

If a good friend of mine hadn't brought that 6 pack of summer shandy to that poker game that night... I might still be drinking budweiser right now

 

Trappistes Rochefort 10

 

Magic Hat #9 was the first craft beer I liked. Visited the brewery when I was 21 years old (about 12 years ago now) and realized I didn't like any of their other beers, but still loved the trip. A beer periodical did a NJ passport at the time where it gave you all breweries to hit in NJ to complete the passport and send it in for a t-shirt or something. That was a great eye opener too. But then the first IPA I really loved which really solidified my love of "craft" beer was a regular Stone IPA on a crisp early fall day sitting on the front porch. Remember it like it was yesterday. So good

 

Blue Moon and Shocktop.

 

the original lineup from Arcadia, back in 1999

 

Arrogant Bastard

 

The year was 1989, the beer was Sam Adams.

 

May 1995. Abita Turbodog...SNPA...Red Brick. Then less than a year later moved to Portland for a couple years......and the journey really took off!

 

New Belgium Trippel as a freshman in the college dorms. Had been more of an *herbal* guy in high school, but that beer really opened me up to where I am now...snobby and broke!

 

The first time around - Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout
After a 10+ year break - Troeg's Nugget Nectar

 

Goose Island Sofie. I regret nothing!

 

There is no 1 beer for me but it was Sam Adams Boston Lager, Boston Ale & Cherry Wheat as the first exposure to American craft brewery offerings. Then came Pete's Wicked and Strawberry Blonde, Blue Moon Nut Brown Ale, Saranac, Blue Ridge, Wild Goose, New Amsterdam, Foggy Bottom and several others in the mid 90's.

I remember around 2000ish, I was given a Victory Hop Wallop as a gift and it almost turned me completely off of ever trying an IPA again. Was like chewing on a pine cone. 12+ years later and I like Hop Wallop and hundreds of IPAs.

 

No particular beer, but an avid natural curiosity coupled with the great good fortune to have travelled extensively as a young fellow. Also, being mostly of German extraction probably brings in a genetic predisposition!