What was your first craft beer?

1993--A mediocre red/amber ale at the first modest attempt at a brewery in the town where I lived. But I was only 20 (my boss brought me to the place for an after-work brew). So it was awesome.

 

It was Samuel Adams Boston Ale in the early 1990s when I was serving in the U.S. Army. It was the gateway to my burgeoning interest in craft beer.

 

After Christian Schmidt (by then in the US Top Ten) repackaged it in new proprietary bottles - in 4 packs! - and did a big ad campaign claiming it was "America's Only World Class Beer", it sure was priced like one.

Imagine, a US-brewed beer from a major brewery priced at ~$1 a bottle!
About $4 in today's dollars.
Previously, it had been sold in the same "Mod" stubby-ish T/A bottles used for Schmidt's Beer and by many other US breweries, and usually retailed in most markets in the "premium" price segment of around $2/sixpack.

Bought by Pabst in 1979, later acquired by Heileman, Stroh and Miller - so owned by 4 different macro brewers over the decades. .

 

Does Lowenbrau as brewed in 1988 count? I was 16 at the time and went to beach with my older 18 year old cousin and a bunch his of houligan friends and Lowenbrau and Coors light was what we had access to. If that version of Lowenbrau doesn’t count then a year later at Senior week at the beach 1989 age 17 I had a St Pauli Girl (skunked badly/tasted horrible to me at the time) and also a guy that stayed in our hotel brought his dads home brew for a bunch of us to try. I thought that was disgusting as well and I don’t think anyone else liked it either (no idea what style it was). I’d say the first American microbrew I had was probably 1992 Sam Adams Boston Lager. Friend of mine graduated college and moved to Boston and got a job at the brewery so when he came back to MD he brought a bunch for us to try. I remember enjoying this beer but the hop bitterness was more intense than I had experienced and I usually could only have maybe 2-3 max in a sitting. As most AAL drinkers say “just too much flavor”

 

A beer from Stoudt's Brewing in the mid 90's in a bar in Arlington, VA. I can't remember the name of the beer, but it opened my eyes to the world of beer outside of AALs.

 

I'll admit, not sure where to go with that, but I do know everyone has a different experience with their fathers.

 

First craft beer would have been in college. Knew I hated the taste of macro lagers so anything else was better. Not sure which was the “1st” but these were the usual suspects at the time- either Sam Adams Lager, Pete’s Wicked Ale, 312, or Sam Adams Oktoberfest (which was my go to in college when in season). At the campus bar it was between Red Hook Weizen or Spotted Cow. The local off campus bar was an Irish themed place so Bass or Harp would have been the call there.

 

Pete's Wicked Ale was the first for me, then SNPA and that changed everything about beer for me,

 

First "craft" beer was a forgettable locally brewed amber lager. It was a Great Lakes Edmond Fitzgerald Porter that made an impression on me and got me wanting to explore a wider range of styles.

 

While I was on a mission trip to Alaska in '98, I read a newspaper article about the upcoming release of a special beer brewed with alder-smoked malt. According to the article, the beer was produced in very limited quantities and could be cellared to age like wine. Even though I wasn't much of a beer drinker at the time, it sounded very interesting to me. When the missionary was planning a trip to the Lower 48 a few months later, I asked him if he could get a few bottles for me. He managed to score three bottles of the nectar we know as Alaskan Smoked Porter. That was probably the first "real" craft beer I ever had. I never expected to see it on the shelves here, but we get it quite often even here in Iowa. This one was purchased in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 2022.

 

Was it this sort of glass:



Back in the day I would regularly go to Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia and I would order Kwak both because I enjoyed drinking it but also I thought this glass was so cool!

Santé

 

I've probably shared this before, but, I had a job in a mall store out of high school, and we go into a mall restaurant after work, where they had the Double Dark on tap. Drank plenty of it.

 

Yep, Edmund Fitzgerald was my second one!

 

That is a WONDERFUL beer!

 

I thought Henry's was good, but didn't stand up to the 70's versions of Pabst Andeker or Huber Augsburger. I think the Andeker reformulation about '80 might have been inspired by the popularity of Henry's, since it happened around the time that Henry's was popular and Pabst bought the Blitz brewery and Henry's label. Andeker lost its distinctive character at the same time it became all-malt and was repackaged into an"export" style bottle similar to Henry's. I was disappointed with the "new" Andeker.

 

Sounds familiar, now that you mention it. I probably have replied previously something like: "Oh, yeah - I remember seeing Prior Double Dark draught more in NY State when I lived in the Southern Tier region (esp. in Ithaca IIRC) than I ever saw it in central Jersey." I don't recall the price of a glass of PDD draught was much different than a bar's other US beers. Wonder if the keg price wasn't raised like the bottles were?

And, of course, FX Matt would later brew (under license?) Prior for the local NY market after Schmidt sold out to Heileman, and some bars continue to use Prior tap handle on kegs of Matt's Saranac Black Forest after that. I think that's the story...

 

Stone IPA in 2006. It smelled and tasted like strong green tea to me at the time with strong bitterness. It was definitely mid-2000s, because I drank it with my sub from Quizno’s for lunch.