We were having this discussion in another thread yesterday.
Revvy said:
I think the fact that this is a homebrewing forum leads many to assume he meant "craft beer".
Really, why would you say that??? Actually if you get down to it, it's a higher probabilty that someone coming into homebrewing is coming from a bmc drinking background than a craft beer background, since quite simply more folks on this planet consume mass market brew than craft beer. If you look at markets like Canada (look at Craig of Craigtube) New Zealand and Australia, the reasons people homebrew are not because they're necessarily craft beer drinkers, but for economic ones. That's why I think it's rude to denigrate someone coming on here wanting to make a BMC type one beer, because not everyone came from a craft beer background like I did.
And assuming that everyone who homebrews is a craft brew drinker. I learned a long time ago not to assume anything.
In fact I bet if you look at the most sold beginner kits by Mr Beer, Cooper's, BB and all the other kit manufacturers they top sellers are those kits which are going to be in the closest approximation to a BMC beer, like the "Pseudo lager."
I think half the people I've taught brewing to were basic BMC drinkers. They gravitated to other styles later, but the first brews I help many folks with were of the above mentioned bmc-esque beers.
I really don't know what the stats, are but I bet it's pretty close to 50-50, or it is that more homebrewers come from a "regular" beer drinking background rather than like me, came from drinking craft beers since I became legal in 1987. I was kind of lucky. I had tried BMC "underage" and hated it. In fact on my 21st birthday I didn't go out and buy a sixer of Budlight like most kids my age. I went out and bought a very expensive bottle of Calvados instead.
But being an avid reader I heard about all the other "exotic" beers from around the world, like Guinness and stuff. And luckily around that time was the beginnings of the craft beer phenomena, and Sierra Nevada, and Bell's locally and a Sam Adams started to become available, and also a tiny few stores started carrying imports and the few craft breweries out there.
In fact my first "special" beer was Double Diamond Burton ale, bought in the kind of inner-city party store where the also kept the "chore boy" scrubbies and sold plastic roses in little glass test tubes at the front counter (if you don't know chore boy and little glass test tubes can be used to smoke crack with, they're quite popular in inner city stores.)
I don't know if it was because the store owner liked that beer, but it was there amongst the wild Irish rose. So I've been a die hard craft drinker for a long time.
I've only been brewing in the last 10 years, But it's been
since I've homebrewed that I've actually consumed a broader range of styles.
For pretty much all those decades of drinking craft brew I drank pretty much only IPA, Pale Ales, Porters, Stouts, Browns, California Common Beers and Reds. I drank a lot of them, I drank them from breweries around the world, and considered myself a pretty knowledgeable beer guy.....ANd for most of my drinking time, that was all that was available, there wasn't that plethroa of craft beer styles like there are now. So my palate or my exploration was pretty limited to that narrow band of pretty common beer styles.
But since taking up this hobby, and wanting to learn to brew more and more styles, I've DRANK more and more styles.
Just off the top of my head; Wits, Bocks, Vienna Lagers, Doppelbocs, Maibocs, Cream Ales, Pilsners, Dortmunders, Lambics, Oktoberfests, Munich Dunkel, Schwarzbier, Blonde Ale, Kölsch, Rye Beer, Ordinary Bitter, ESB, Scottish Wee Heavy, saison, Biere De Garde, Barleywine, Flander's Red, Belgian Dubbel, Belgian Tripel....AND just in the last couple years actually started enjoying BMC beers which I snubbed since being old enough to drink.....I can say that these styles for me are ONLY as old as my brewing has been. If I hadn't brewed, I probably never would have tried half of them.
Good topic. But like I said yesterday, I bet you'd find a surprisingly high numbers who came from drinking Mega beer.