What was the first beer you had?

For many years, you'd still find them at junk shops, garage sales and flea markets - label-less, sitting with the carnival glass and other cheap vases and glassware. (Still can really - I always get a kick out of telling people "You know, this is a beer bottle, not a vase." ) Sometimes you'll find them spray-painted gold or covered with glitter or macaroni (!). I think some "hobby" or "women's magazine" or Brownie girl-scout publication recommended them as craft-projects for Brownie troops or something.

"Hey, Daddy, instead of drinking that cheapo 88¢ a sixpack canned beer with the penguin on it, can you buy some Michelob?"
"Do I LOOK like my name is Rockefeller?"
"But, Daddy, I NEED it for my Camp Fire Girl project for Mother's Day! You can keep my 50¢ weekly allowance for next month..."
"OK, sweetie, you got it!"

 

My Dad drank very little beer unless he was mowing the lawn or fishing. His lawn beer was Pabst, his fishing beer was Miller High Life so it wold have been either of these. We're talking about the early 60's. Later in his life he still preferred Scotch to beer, but he loved my homebrews, especially my basic English styles like ESB's and brown ales.

 

Spent the night at a friends house when I was about 16. One of the other guys there snuck a bud light up to the hosts room. Sipped it, said it tasted like Moose piss and when I turned 21 I tried hard to just be a whiskey man.

 

My Grampa gave me and all my cousins and my brother 1/2 fill dixie cups of his PBR (3-4oz maybe at most). Age unknown...<8 years old though and timeframe somewhere between 1975-1979. I remember the taste though like it was yesterday...really nasty/disgusting when your used to overly sugared up kool aid and Hawaian Punch, Coke Sprite etc.

 

It's not an AAL. No adjuncts...unless the recipe changed

 

I was 7 years old. We were living in California at the time. Either in Redding or Sacramento.

We always went camping when i was young, and we usually would go to Hat Creek, or Mt. Shasta. One summer, we were at Hat Creek, and i remember being by a pond or a lake, i can't remember. My dad had was talking to some friends, and i distinctly remember that my Dad drank Coors Light.

I guess the guys were talking Guy Talk, and my dad asked me to grab 2 beers from the cooler. I ran back, got the beers, and handed it to him. He gave me one back, asked for me to open it. It was the Pull Tabs from the 70's, those of you old enough to remember. So i pulled it, and went to hand it back to him. He said, "Boy, you opened it, you get the first drink."

So, i had my first drink.

All they guys started clapping and patting me on the back. I felt really proud, and I was genuinely happy to be around my dad.

I kept that memory deep in my heart. And i had always looked forward to the time that i turned 21, so that I could take my dad out, and have a beer with him. Sadly, he passed away right before i turned 19. By that time, he had changed his life around, was a born-again Christian, and had stopped drinking. My mom told me years later, like when i was in my late 30's, that he drank more than he fathered his kids. But i never saw that growing up. My memories of my dad were awesome, and he's been a hell of a man for me to live up to.

In a lot of ways, i'm still living in his shadow.

 

Great real life story. It is time that you create your own shadows. Peace, brother.

 

Age 14 Carling Black Label.

 

Skunked Heineken and Beck's. They were always in the fridge (my dad's go to beer) and I drank one for the first time at about age 13 and periodically thereafter through high school. I felt sophisticated drinking "imports."

 

It was either an Iron City or a Strohs. That's what my Old Man would generally buy. I remember thinking how bad it smelled. It still does.

 

Coors Light at Applebee's shortly after I turned 21.

 

Busch Light. I’m the youngest of 4. My pops was probably 40 at the time. I was probably 5. Parents had one of my relatives over most likely, just sitting on the back patio under our two big Bur Oak trees in early fall. Pestering my pops for a sip, so he gave it to me. I’m sure my face twisted sour. It was my first experience of real bitterness on its own.

from then until 18 I never understood why anyone liked the taste of beer.

 

First time I can recall was a few sips off a Corona Extra when I was about 9 years old. My mother would maybe drink 2 beers per year, (always a Corona or a Coors Light), and would let me have a little sip or 3, because if always ask (I LOVED the taste of it). First whole beer was a good old PBR when I was in high school - about 14 years old. My buddy and I would occasionally get our hands on two - one for each, and get together after school and suck 'em down while writing music and being hippies.

Man, what happened to those golden days?

 

As a kid wayyyyy back when, my uncles and my grandfather would spend Sunday nights playing euchre. They would let me (and my cousins) take occasional sips off their beers. At my grandparents' place, the house beer was Stroh's.

 

Old Style at a Cubs game. 9 or 10.

 

Yeah, that's a weird one and would depend if it was "early" or "mid" 80s - since Red, White & Blue was one of the brands that Heileman kept after buying Pabst, keeping some breweries and brands (Lone Star, Blitz-Weinhard and their Pabst GA brewery) and then spinning off a new, weakened Pabst Brewing Co. in 1982-1983. I remember thinking:

"What - Red, White & Blue? Heileman really needs another "economy-priced" beer? Isn't their portfolio full of them already?"

But, by some source's figures, RW&B was a million-barrel brand (1.1M in 1985) so I guess they were right. Apparently it was big in the South where Heileman thought they were weak (thus keeping the GA brewery and Lone Star). It sounds like a Reagan-era brand name but it actually dated back to 1899, with Pabst historian Thomas Cochran in 1948 noting that it got a big promotional push in 1902 "in tune with the nationalistic enthusiasm during Theodore Roosevelt's first term". Who knew?

 

Back when I had hair, about 7 or 8 , my grandpa gave me a sip of Colt 45 or The Bull. He liked Malt Liquor.
Later, I still had hair, at about 13 or 14 we got some older blokes buy some beer for us. 3 Amigos!
Well to my surprise they didn't steal our money. I got my share which was 3 16oz Buds that were the temperature of a farm pond in summer.
Drank all 3 of them. Woke up covered in dirt from our makeshift "campsite".
I remember saying that next time! We should bring some water.
For the pasty mouth of warm Budweiser still fresh in my mouth.
Yep.
Good Times!