What was your gateway craft beer?

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale...............many years ago.

 

I remember when I was in highschool, my best friend's dad was really into craft beer. He would allow us to drink at their house as long as we didn't do anything stupid and we had to stay the night. The first time we did this we had:
Lagunitas Lil Sumpin Sumpin
Abita Purple Haze
Founders Imperial Stout
Trappist Tripel
Victory Hopdevil
The Lagunitas and the Victory were immediately favorites of mine.

 

Growing up in Baltimore in the 60s and 70s, I felt that beer was just about the nastiest liquid anyone could drink. Even the smell of Carling Black Label and Natty Boh or PBR had the allure of toilet bowl water to me. Decades passed and I thought no beer need ever pass my lips.

I was wrong.

One afternoon -- I must have been 45 years old -- I was at a spiritual gathering with some dear friends and was handed a chalice. I sipped and was astounded at the taste. "What is this?" I asked.

"Midas Touch," was the reply. "It's beer."

"Oh, I don't think so," I scoffed. "Beer doesn't taste like this. This is amazing!"

He showed me the bottle and I read that the label. It was indeed a beer and even better, it was an archeological recreation, which intrigued me -- history and archeology are passions of mine -- but even more interesting was that the brewery, Dogfish Head, was located in Milton, Delaware, which was also near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a vacation spot I hadn't visited in far too many years. I realised I now had wonderful reason to go back, besides just hanging out at an awesome beach.

Beer. Truly life-changing beer.

With one taste, I was now not only now a nascent Dogfish Head fan, I knew that I wanted to explore more beers like Midas Touch. I needed to make a pilgrimage to the brewery explore what Dogfish Head had to offer. Now, 15 years later, I still am and will be a lifelong fan. Even more though, I am a lifelong fan of craft beer, independently brewed and unwilling to compromise on certain values.

I am grateful for advice Sam Calagione once gave me: taste every beer at least once and explore goodness.

Got it. Cheers!

 

Harpoon IPA

 

Sam Adams Boston Lager

 

Late to the party but for me it was Eye of the Hawk from Mendocino brewing. I still (although i havent seen it in a few years, pretty sure it is currently not being brewed) have a hard time separating my nostalgia for that time from my appraisal of this beer. This site calls it an 'American Strong Ale', but I just remember the rich full flavor and being so surprised by that aspect of a beer. Shortly after I was introduced to Old Rasputin from North Coast brewing. Same kind of revelation. So much for Natty Ice for me. Good riddance

 

Pete's Wicked, followed by Tremont IPA and Tremont Ale. Tremont was the brainchild of Chris Lohring and their beers were excellent. I was sad to see Tremont close as it was my favorite beer at the time, I still miss it to this day. It was more of an English style beer with their own proprietary yeast and just well crafted beers in general. I loved the Lost Brewery tours Tremont used to host in the Boston area. That's how I first discovered the camaraderie of beer lovers.

 

A handful of beers from the British isles: Guinness, Samuel Smith's Pale Ale, McEwen's Scotch Ale, McAndrew's.

 

I was in cooking school in the early 90's, N.E.C.I. in Montpelier VT. The school had a physical activity requirement, we had to keep a log to show we were not just eating our way through the semester.
Winters in Vermont can be harsh, my roommates car was snowed in, covered completely. So one Sunday morning, Todd grabbed a six pack, a couple of shovels and asked me to help dig out his car, and we could log the time for the school.
The beers were put in the snowbank and we got to work, some time later half way done, Todd cracked a beer and handed it to me, the beer was like nothing I tasted before, absolutely delicious, it was an Ottercreek Stovepipe Porter....and I was on my way down the craft beer track.

 

Mine was probably Sierra Nevada Pale Ale; after that it was Spaten. That was 15-16 years ago. Until that time, I was primarily a Coors man, and still love Coors Banquet beer. I am a wheat ale guy; love Franziskaner Heffe; Boulevard Wheat and really like the Marzen styles/Octoberfest. Not big on stouts, or IPA's.

 

I soooooo miss

 

North Coast Brewing Red Seal Ale. Me and my buddies would buy it by the half keg and put it in my homemade keg system in my basement bar. Miss those days.

 

Mine was Rusty Chain from Flying Bison (Buffalo, NY).

Flying Bison's description

I can't remember exactly when I had my first, but it was the first time I felt like I was breaking from the norm. Most of my friends at the time were into the cheap beers because they wanted more beers for their buck. I was looking for more and with a mellow, malty taste, it was easy to introduce it to others.

First IPA on the other hand, well, just can't remember off hand.

 

Old Milwaukee Light.

 

For me, the major epiphanies which took me beyond Macro and regional light lager were:

Beck's and Beck's Dark
St. Pauli Girl
Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Scotch Ale
Anchor Steam
Pete's Wicked Ale
Brewski Ale
Guinness Stout
Arrogant Bastard
Dead Guy Ale

 

Such a dumb, stupid beer I probably wouldn't drink now. But Terrapin PBJ porter. Showed me that beer could be way more far out than pilsners and lagers everyone else around me drank. Went down the stout rabbit hole till I had an infected BCBS that killed stouts for me to this day. The beer that showed me IPAs could actually be amazing was a Stone probably. Then it progressively spiraled into needing DDH, brewery only, IIPAs and fruited milkshake IPAs, sours and goses.

 

Pete's Honey Wheat (RIP)

 

I drank "craft" before, but what really opened up my eyes was this one day a friend of mine invited a few of us out for beers on his dime for "research" (he was a rep) and we all decided to go to Beachwood BBQ in Long Beach as it's super accessible. Ended up drinking Mocha Machine (Imperial Porter with Cacao and Coffee) and for the first time and I was blown away....and probably blowing a DUI later on.

Even after all the other beers I've had since that day 6-7 years ago, it's still a great beer to me and I indulge myself readily.