What were you drinking in the 90s (i.e. before hops got big)?

Guinness
Sam Adams
Red Hook
Long Trail
Magic Hat
Pete's Wicked

 

90s? Lots of cask ale, various SN, Anchor, Grants , Pike and Rogue (I know I know...) and towards the end of that not so great decade --wine.

 

Even back then I enjoyed a fair number of hoppy beers. Imperial IPAs weren't really available (at least in the Midwest), but I gravitated towards Anchor Liberty, SNPA, Summit Extra Pale, Sam Smiths IPA, Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout, and lots of Point and Huber in the stubby returnable bottles when we couldn't afford the good stuff.

 

Guinness, Bass, Sierra Nevada offerings, Pete's Wicked Ale, Yuengling Porter and Black & Tan, Killians. Not sure if there just wasn't anything else out there in my area or if that stuff was all I had access to at the time as I was just a young buck in those days

 

Mostly Fat Tire and Dales Pale Ale.

 

Had a Miller in my lunch bag everyday in grade school. So many kids offered to trade me fruit roll-up/Little Debbie snacks for this.

 

Pete's Wicked, Summer & Winter
Sam Adams (various)
Guinness
Yuengling Lager
Celis White
Redhook ESB
Hartford Brewing (defunct local brewpub)
Goose Island Honkers Ale (spent a lot of time near Chicago)
Couple of others from long defunct breweries.

 

Anything by Sierra Nevada. Pale, Porter, Stout, Bigfoot, Pale Bock (I miss that one), and Celebration.
Pyramid Hefe
Widmer Hefe
Redhook ESB and Ballard Bitter. (I liked that Stout with Starbucks coffee too)
I enjoyed Killian's Irish Red too.

There were many others, but these were my favs.

 

A hell of a lot of Guinness, Kronenbourg and Carlsberg Special Brew!

 

We had highly limited selection in the Dallas area back then. Most stores carried zero craft options -- maybe SNPA and Fat Tire -- so I drank lots of BMC. Plus I was in college in the late 90s and that's what you did. I did get into Sam Adams, Newcastle, Shiner, Fat Tire, Bass at the time. Those led me down the right path.

 

OE 800 40 ouncers
MD 20/20 -The blue stuff that looked like Windex
Cisco- When it was still sold in 40 ouncers
Brass Monkey
Boone's Farm- Drink it down to the bottom of the neck, stuff in some fresh fruit, and top off with Everclear. a.k.a. Mind Eraser

 

Seems to be 1996 when hops were invented, but I've forgotten a lot of what I was drinking back then -- no doubt due to the combined effect of all the malted hops and bong resin.

Edit: I drank the heck out of the Meister Brau in returnables (great for all that home-brewed I.P.A. and Brown Ale).

 

Almost exclusively homebrew unless I was traveling. Back then I brewed British styled ales, mostly stouts and ESB.

 

Many forget that there were "hoppy" beers in the NE in the 1990's, you just had to look for them. Here is a handful of what I would seek out:

Beer Works Back Bay IPA
Beer Works Hercules Strong Ale
Harpoon IPA (used to have more a prominent hop character)
North East Brewing Co Lobsterback IPA
Catamount Brewing Company Christmas Ale
Castle Springs Brewing Company Lucknow IPA
Brew Moon Improper Hopper IPA

 

Pete's Wicked Ale
Any Sam Adams
Bass
Guinness
Honey Brown
West Virginia Brewing Company craft beer

 

Oh we had hops back then! Just fewer varieties used. I drank a lot of DeGroens Pils, Tuppers Hop Pocket Ale and of course my own New American Ale made with CFJ90, which became Centennial. Interesting note, Tuppers arose since at the time Bob Tupper found it irritating that we had to wait once a year for SN Celebration to be released. And in the late 80s, there was Oxford Class and Wild Goose (pre-Frederick days).

 

Juiceboxes. And Yoohoo. And that colored sugar water in little barrel-shaped containers.

 

Anchor Steam! and SNPA! with an occasional SN Celebration, or w.e. else my dad let me sip (90 kid.) which was always pretty good

 

I grew up in California. My last years there I was drinking lots of beer from a couple of newfangled local brewpubs, SNPA, Anchor (Liberty, Porter, and Steam), and Guinness/Bass black and tans.

Then I moved to Boston in 1994, and set to drinking lots and lots of Harpoon IPA*, a bit of Sam Adams Boston Ale, and Guinness/Bass black and tans.

*Though it's now a very tame IPA compared to many others, it was quite nicely hoppy for the era.

 

Special Brew .... wow ... Strong Like a BULL!

 

milk, juice and the occasional Soda pop if my father let me.. ahh im a youngster .

 

Good memories! I remember once a month (Full Moon Day?), the Rhino would put all their 50 something taps on dirt cheap to clear everything out and start fresh again.

The Top Hat (Hippy Heaven) also had all you can drink nights with live music. Was always a zoo. I remember drinking lots and lots of Mirror Pond, Black Butte, Moose Drool, and Fat Tire. Some others that come to mind are Winterhook, Olde Bongwater, Fresh Bongwater, Pyramid?, Black Star (Great Northern Brewing) and Bayern Octoberfest. Celebration Ale was a big deal back then.

 

Not judging by your avatar! Seriously, though. Awesome avatar. I remember the days of A/S/L fondly.

 

I was born in 1983 and lived in Iowa, but I was lucky enough to have begun wanting to drink right as the very first out-of-state craft beers were coming into stores around me. My first non-BMC beer, other than Guinness, was Rogue's Dead Guy, and then Flying Dog's Doggy Style was my first relatively hoppy beer.

I remember getting into an argument with a friend of mine because he could not conceive of any beer being worth 6 bucks a sixer. Good times...

 

I am really glad you get it lol. My buddy showed this picture to me (no its not really me of course) and thought it would be the perfect avatar pic for BA

 

Guiness
Bass--that stuff sucks now.
Sam Adams
Becks
Newcastle
Molson

 

Early to mid 90s: German imports, RedHook ESB & IPA, local brewpubs' beers that are long gone.
Mid to late 90s: New Belgium (barrels of Fat Tire, literally), Sierra Nevada beers as I began to love hops, then Magic Hat beers when I moved to New England.

 

Zima w/ a Jolly Rancher

 

I feel that I lost a lot of brain cells in that era...let me think.
SNPA
Anchor Steam
Fat Tire
Sunshine Wheat
Pete's Wicked
Bass
Harp
Newcastle
Hennepin
I'm sure there's more. I also drank a shit load of Miller Red. Anyone remember that stuff?

 

I had many of the beers already listed, but some others from my collage daze in Pennsatucky:
- Rhino Chaser
- Dock Street
- Harpoon
- Nueweiler Black & Tan
- Pike Place
- Hop Devil keg - bought this when I accepted my 1st job after college (1996) - a very sloppy night

 

Sad to say I never looked too far beyond what my favorite restaurants at the time were carrying. At restaurants, I usually ordered Hacker Pschorr and Franziskaner Hefeweissen at new American restaurants or Negra Modelo at Mexican restaurants. If I purchased beer to drink at home, it was Pete's Wicked Ale, Bass or Leinenkugels. In the late 90s, I was making frequent trips to Toronto where I was introduced to Sleeman's Honey Brown and Cream Ales. I was also very pleased with Rickard's Red with a shot of lime cordial.

 

Carlsberg, Fosters, Molson OV, Molson Ex, Labatt Blue, Keith's.... then I found Unibroue in the late 90's... thank goodness for Maudite.

 

Killian's Red
Samuel Adams
Newcastle
Hacker Pschorr
Bass

later 90s started getting more into local craft,
Sprecher
New Glarus
and then I think I drank this as a go to for a couple years...

 

All the normal suspects: Anchor, Sierra, Grants, Anderson Valley, Mendicino, St. Stans, Pike's, but then around '94 I was introduced to the super hoppy beers from places like Blind Pig and Pizza Port (at the time it was only Solana Beach), and never looked back.

 

I was living in London at the time so whenever we went to watch cricket there was a four can maximum allowance that you could bring into the ground, so obviously we took the strongest canned lager we could find.
Worryingly, I developed a bit of a taste for it...

 

Funny thing that list, is about the same stuff I still drink..... well except for the boon

I drank SN PA allot. Petes wicked a lot more than SN. any porters I could find.

 

Gin.

 

gin and vodka at different times