What was your gateway craft beer?

Sam Adams Boston Lager and Dogfish Head 90 minute

 

Wasn’t a big beer drinker in my youth but I always had good taste. In college, early to mid 90s, I drank Sam Adams and Pete’s Wicked before I knew it was craft. Later, I would drink SNPA, again without being aware of its status as craft. Later still, my parents bought a house in Delaware, and I learned about an up and coming brewery called Dogfish Head that produced beers that would get me drunk from one bottle. This is when an interest began to develop.
However, the true obsession began when I was given a 1 gallon homebrew kit as a birthday present from my sister. Homebrewing got me interested in trying different styles. While researching information on beer, I stumbled upon BA and learned about reviewing. The rest is history.

 

Well, "very limited" compared to today, I suppose but New Jersey's beer selection was pretty good compared to the rest of the country, I'd say. Back in the late 1970s, when imports were still a tiny 2% of the beer market, the industry claimed that about 25% of all imported beer was sold in the NY-NJ metro area. Probably most imports to the US made it to NJ except for some smaller Asian and Mexican brands that didn't make it east at all.

A quSchmidt'sick look at number of US breweries (<50) left at the time and I'd say we got some beers (if not their entire portfolio) from more than half of them. In the period of, roughly, 1975-1985 US "specialty" beers like Ballantine Ale, IPA and Brewers Gold Ale (Falstaff was still shipping kegs of the hoppy Kruger Old Surrey Porter), Narragansett Porter, McSorley's Cream Ale, Carling's Red Cap Ale, Schmidt's Prior Double Dark (and the light up until they dropped it) and their ales like Tiger Head and 20th Century, the 3 Augsburger brands from Huber, Stegmaier Porter, Black Horse Ale, Schaefer Cream Ale, Ortlieb's Boarshead Stout (& their McSorley's after they took over the brand with the demise of Rheingold), Sierra (from Pittsburgh), National Premium, Heileman Special Export, etc.

In that period other regional brewers' like Genesee (CA and 12 Horse), Utica Club (w/its Cream Ale) and Yuengling's "beer, ale and porter" all became more widely available in NJ. Hudepohl shipped Christian Moerlein here soon after it's release and (maybe post-merger?) Schoenlings' Little Kings Cream Ale was also here by the 1980s. (Pretty sure the short-lived Alaskan brand Prinz Brau even made it here?).

I'd say that the only US beers NJ lacked at the time that I would have wanted were Rainier Ale, some of Falstaff's other Narragansett-brewed ales like Pickwick and Croft, and some Midwestern bocks.

As you note, NJ was one of the earliest markets to get Anchor's portfolio and getting Merchant du Vin's imports meant also finding US-brewed Cold Spring Export and August Schell's Pilsner and Weiss beers.

Beside the other early "craft" beers you mentioned that made it to NJ, I recall Boulder, Smith & Riley and Cheasbay all being on the shelves.

 

In high school in the 90’s I found Pete’s Wicked Ale and Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. Then in college took a trip to visit a friend in CO and had Fat Tire. Sometime thereafter New Belgium started distributing Fat Tire to IN which got me into the scene on a regular basis and evolved from there.

 

When I was younger I always enjoyed European and Canadian beers since I found them more flavorful and with a higher alcohol kick. When the Craft brewing started in the US I naturally embraced it and enjoyed all that I tried. But the one that really impressed me was Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA and it really opened me up to the West Coast Brewing style.

 

After misspent youth of watery beer I was first introduced to the “idea” of better beer by Henry Weinhards and their batch numbered brews. Then Pete’s Wicked Ale showed me that bigger flavor was an option. But the real gateway beer was Dogfish head 90 minute IPA. It was at a dinner with friends in Las Vegas. I ordered by what was the Most unusual name. I never went back. Big flavor fantastic body. I went on search from that point forward because my world had been opened.

 

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and eventually Anchor Steam as well were the first two beers that taught me there were quality alternatives to the macro products. But it was a trip to Stone and sampling their Imperial Russian Stout that really opened my eyes to the wide variety of styles, colors, malts, and hops offered by craft brewers.

 

Spanish Peaks raspberry wheat in 1996 was my first non BMC. It was great. Beer with flavor. Then, Pete’s Wicked. It also got me into 20+ years of Homebrewing. It’s been a great and expensive ride

 

OMG! I go back a LONG way. Coors was myth east of the Mississippi in 1968 and a couple of my frat brothers had gone to Colorado over spring break and brought some back to Farmington, Maine and sold them for $2/can. Up until that time I thought beer just kinda sucked and didn't get into it much at all. BUT, the Coors got me thinking that there actually could be something out there that was good. After that I was a slow convert to beer at all. then in 1984 I went to Munich and to the Hofbreau House and freekin' really got a taste of what beer is supposed to taste like. I even had a fresh beer in Munich that I'd had out of a bottle in Maine (and thought was the worst beer I'd ever had) and found that the same beer was wonderful in Germany.(preservatives is what I was told made the Pilsner Urquell so bad. Then came Guiness and that opened me up to the darker brews and life has been great ever since. Probably the life changer for me was a World of Beer opening up here in Port Orange, Fl and some staff that really knew beers. This would have been around 2011 and that clinched it for me on the craft beer industry. So I guess if I had to pick one beer that opened my taste buds it would be Coors.

 

A coffee porter from Kona Brewing,Hawaii. I had begun trying Porters because my brother-in-law said he’d been trying them. I was so impressed I had to keep searching. Today I lust for Imperial IPAs. Upwards of ten percent. Hophead now Thanks to Jesse and Dogfish Head. One bottle of 120 Minute changed the way I love Beer. Beer works in mysterious ways. Proof God Loves Us and want’s us to be happy. B Franklin

 

Allagash Tripel Ale. After that I was hooked.

 

My first "craft" beer was a Lowenbrau dark, back in 1972 when it was still brewed in Germany. My first taste of American craft brewing was Widmer hefeweisen, which introduced me to the wonders of Oregon beers.

 

Like some others, my first dance with craft beer was with Stone IPA. I was at a Christmas dinner with some folks from work and got there a few minutes late. The waitress came around to get my drink order, but it was pretty loud that night and I only half heard what she said was on tap. I kinda took her recommendation, still not really knowing what I was going to get. I'd been a bud lite and ultra fan forever and really didn't experience much in craft beers, never mind a hoppy IPA with a decent 7.7 apv! From the first sip of those hops to watching the lacing grow as I savored this glass, I was hooked. A few sips into my second glass I decided I better have some dinner before went too much farther! This was by far the highest apv beer I'd had. I was hooked, and I continued to drink Stone everywhere I could find it. After a while I realized there was a whole world of craft brews just waiting to be experienced! Since then I've tried dozens of craft beers, but I always find myself drawn back to a good high gravity IPA. I even brew and keg my own a few times a year and have a smooth Black IPA I like to call Darth Vader Black IPA! Now a days when I'm out, my go to brew is Triple C's Babymaker IPA when I can find it!

 

I'm a legit bot.

 

Bass Ale. What an eye opener for me. I have never looked back. I now enjoy styles of beer that previously I never knew even existed.
Gotta’ love it. (and I do)
This was before the our current craft beer scene.

 

One day I tried Schofferhofer Hefeweizen and it was a completely different thing to what I was used to. Then I bought 2 different Oranjeboom and thought it was crap. Then I went directly to Westmalle Tripel and Rochefort 10 and couldn't believe it. It was a different drink. That Rochefort 10 is still in my top 3. And the power of that Westmalle was like smoking weed for the first couple of times.

 

Anheuser-Busch's "100% Share of Mind" program of the late 1990s was a voluntary "incentive program" - threatening to take away independent AB distributors' "right to carry and sell AB products" likely would have violated Three Tier and state franchise laws and would have made for a much stronger case against AB for anti-trust violations - and probably could have meant AB distributors joining the lawsuit(s). (The DoJ eventually dropped their investigation without taking any action).

Incentives included (according to one of those lawsuits):

 

Spent six months in Silicon Valley in 1998. Rasputin (from the local supermarket) did it for me, with Pete's Wicked and SNPA consolidating my new obsession.