Your Gateway Beer to Craft

First beer I had that told me beer could actually have flavor: Calhouns Tuckaleechee porter. It had such a strong coffee flavor that it blew my mind.

 

Summit extra pale ale

 

Old Rasputy! What a beauty

 

Delirium Tremens. I'll never forget that night.

 

A combination of djing regularly in Duluth, Minnesota for a friend who slobbered on about Guinness and for one event, had some homebrew IPA from a buddy of his who is now a brewmaster and general beer muckity muck. That, and the Sam Adams portfolio, circa 1995.

 

Back in late 80s early 90s, the first beers I can recall that opened my eyes to what beer could be were: Sam Smith Nut Brown Ale (anything by that brewery really), Anchor Liberty Ale, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Hacker Pschorr Dark, and Chimay.

 

In college at Kansas in mid 2000's had access to Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and Boulevard wheat was only a couple bucks more than some of the big nationals. It was definitely drinking a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale that opened my eyes to what beer could taste like.

 

Blue Moon, then Allagash Dubbel from the grocery.

 

SA Octoberfest. My first six of real beer, year 2000. Glorious. The flavor may have been enhanced by the fact I wasn't technically, really, "legally" supposed to be drinking it at that age...

Of course I was surrounded by friends guzzling Natty Ice and Barton's Vodka. Boy did I look wierd to them. Fortunately I was at the type of institution of higher education where pretty much everyone was wierd (engineers) so it didn't matter. Aaaaand it's not like we had any girls to impress.

 

Reading these replies was like going down memory lane. Thank you! Anyhow, I made some Pale Ale in my garage and said to myself "Self, this is the way to go." Then I tried Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and discovered it to be very close to my homemade stuff. So I guess you could say I cut my teeth on homebrew and SN.

 

Summit Brewery Mai Bock made me realize beer was much more than Bud/Coors/Sam Adams Boston Lager.

Dale's Pale Ale pushed me over the top for good.

 

Luckily for me I stayed away from beer until I was 21. At that point, my best friend immediately started throwing craft beer at me. My first beer was a Young's Double Chocolate Stout. We then did summer abroad in Europe less than a month later, about half the time in the UK and Belgium, the other half in France and Switzerland. We tried so much craft beer on the first half and so much wine (my preferred beverage) on the second half. At that point I was completely in.

I honest to god had never had a Budweiser or Miller anything until I was in grad school and that's all they had at a tailgate.

 

Back in 2005 I drank a Gordon Biersch Marzen from the supermarket, which was way better than any of the BudMillerCoors beers I'd had before. Then my cousin had me try a Chimay Blue which was the first "Aha!" moment; I realized that beer could be complex.

That quickly escalated into Samuel Smiths Oatmeal Stout, then Stone IPA & Ruination, AleSmith ESB, Rogue Shakespeare Stout to name a few...

In retrospect my early gateway beers were quite humble and mainstream but that was why I love craft beer to this day.

 

Founder's Double Trouble

 

Firestone Walker Union Jack.

Used to be 10$ a 6er also!!

 

Picked up a pack of Sweetwater IPA and Sweetwater Blue instead of my usual PBR once in college because I thought the labeling was cool. Drank Sweetwater IPA non stop for a month and have never looked back.

 

Mac n Jack's African Amber.

 

Honeymoon in Denver area 8 years ago. Drove up to Breckenridge for the day to bum around. Started drinking with lunch and continued as we explored. All of a sudden realized we were too drunk to drive back to Denver, so grabbed a hotel room for the night that happened to be right next to Breckenridge Brewing. Spent the evening trying their beers. Avalanche Amber was my hands down favorite, and made for an easy transition into exploring craft beer. I was so excited when we got distro on it here in FL a few years back, but honestly I rarely buy it anymore.

 

Late 90's in college I decided to try Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, as it always seemed to be on tap at most of the Iowa bars I would frequent. From there...Sam Adams and SNPA were what I would call my "dinner beers". Eventually, I dropped the BMC altogether and here we are today!

 

I do not think one leads into another really. At least for me. If I never joined the Navy, I would have never been to the UK and Europe. In the 1960/1970's early I hated Domestic beer, So I drank some imports. But really I had switched to the drinking Bourbon and wine at that time. So there was no really gateway beer for me. Then of course I got off my first ship in Portsmith England and as I say the rest is history. This was pre craft/ per micro whatever.

Sadly Even the English beers were in a disarray then, but I did not know that at the time. They had Bass PA, bitter, ESB, Mild, etc. depending on the pub.....