What's your most memorable beer experience?

So many great memories...I'll just list a few...in a super divey biker bar not far from my (then) house. Middle of a really warm summer Friday night. Place was packed, no A/C, band was rockin, exhaust fumes and noise pouring thru a side door from the drag pipes on somebodys bike. Place was full of girls. I was pounding down Buds of course. Taken all in combination it was perfection. I swear I can still smell that night when I think about it! Another great one..in some dump of a bar in Honolulu. I was in the Marine Corps at the time. Had just gotten a tattoo at China Sea tattoo, like thousands before me had. So it wasnt an extraordinary experience by any means, but it's burned into my brain. Yep, that was Bud then too. Of course that was 1983 Bud. Not the putrid swill they sell now. One more...sitting in another long gone favorite dive and having a girl come over with a pitcher of GCA and sitting down with me because she said I looked bored. Told her was. She said lets change that. That was the start of one of the craziest nights I've ever had. Guess I shouldnt rag on the crappy domestic beers as much as I do. Theyve been a part of an awful lot of fun!

 

Getting lucky and scoring a case of DBHuna. I had bought my mom a ticket so I could have got two cases of DBHUNA. Good trade bait although I only have two left and haven't even tried one. Probably won't ever get a chance to score so many nice beers at once again.

 

I don't want you to get me wrong but what I meant was so awesome about that is that I could score some nice beers to split with my friends which I never would have been able to otherwise. I basically always share my beer with my friends and people that I trade IP with them if they have time for one or a quite a bit more. I have so many beers that I need to share them or some of them might not make time like the Founders Series beers and things like that. They seem to fall off quickly but I have only had a few. Have the rest in the fridge and hope they are still holding up better than some of them have.

My other beers are in a cellar but I want to make sure to drink them before they get close to dying. I usually only store Imperial Stouts or sours/tarts/lambics.

It's not like I have cellars like some of you but I can't drink all this by myself and I have trouble not buying beer or bourbon if it sounds good.

 

The first pint I had when I got back from a year in South Korea. Oakham's Scarlet Macaw on cask.

 

Unfortunately, probably the time it shot out of my mouth at 100mph mixed with pinto beans and bbq after my first raucous bachelor party.

 

SAVOR

 

Went on a trip to Indiana with a couple buddies for a concert. Stopped at a bottle shop to pick up anything that we don't get distribution of in KY. Luckily there were fresh Lagunitas Sucks six packs on the shelves at the time, first time I had ever seen them. On our way back home that night we hit a huge inanimate object on the highway, totaling my friends car, and got stranded in Indiana with no one around. Had to spend the night at the closest truck stop, my buddies wife ended up picking us up and we got back around 4 am. I distinctly remember popping my first Sucks with my friend when we got back and being blown away with the aroma and flavor. It made us forget about all the shit we went through that night, great beer memory for me.

 

I'll share a odd one: visiting the Eggenberg brewery in Cesky Krumlov. The tour guide was friendly and funny, but told us upfront that the brewery tour was her least favorite (she gave tours of the castle, town, etc.) and that she didn't understand the interest. Great start.

From there we were led through one of the most filthy food/beverage facilities I've even seen. Nothing directly contacting the product, but good god that place was nasty - dirt and dust, mildew, general disarray. We went down to the cooling tanks and had to find our way with cell phones as flashlights. When the lights were flipped on we noticed mold everywhere in the passages between different rooms. What?!?!?!

Finished the tour and went to the taproom. Almost not in the mood to drink the beer, but did and it was very good. All the money must be in the ingredients, because it's not in construction, renovation, sanitation or tour guides.

 

A couple weeks before The Alchemist shut their doors to customers at the brewery John and Jen unveiled their new growlers and kicked it off with Donovan's Red. I skipped out of work, got their right as they opened, talked with Jen for a while, talked with John for a while and congratulated him on this new system, also bought some Heady. Had a great time, a few laughs and walked out. Then realized I had left my growler of Donovan's Red sitting on the counter. I walked back in and there's John starring at me, arms out looking at me totally incredulous and we all started laughing. Derp.