Breakout Beer

wyoder said:

Picture it, the year is 1999, a young college kid is drinking underage at a bar in Blacksburg, VA. He orders a locally made New River Pale Ale. Yum. A trip to the local beer store, The Vintage Cellar, in search of more NRPA introduced him to craft beer and his wallet's never been the same.

Don't forget to tell us your story!

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As a current hokie I can relate! I also have the recipe for New River Valley Pale Ale!

I was 22 and working as an embassy guard in Paris. There were a couple really good Irish pubs there and Guinness got me starting on liking beer again.

Once I got out of the Marine Corps I came back home to Portland just as the micro-brewery thing started to really get going. That's when I got turned onto Widmer Hefeweizen. For years it was my favorite go to beer. These days I still like Guinness and Widmer Hefeweizen but my new favorites seems to change.

Recently, I tried Newcastle Brown Ale and that sort of re-kick started my love of beer. Shortly after that I got into home brewing.

I was 21 and poor. Living in an economicly challenged neighborhood with lots of other poor people around me. With desperate times, comes desperate measures. Most of the folks I knew were just trying to drink away the pain. With not much money for beer, many of these folks would slug back a bunch of whale piss (malt liquor). ie O.E.800, Schlitz M.L. Bull, & St. Ides. It was gross, but it would get you 'there'. Then, just before I turned 22, and old friend that had moved away years earlier came back to visit me. And with him he brought the beer that would change it ALL for me.....Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. 'Leaping Lobsters!' I shouted as I finished my first bottle of this Ale. And life has been a journey of seeking out the finest Ales ever since. A huge thank you goes out to my buddy Mike for opening my eyes!!! Cheers!!!!!!!

Long legs means more room for beer!

A long, long time ago, when Leinies was still independent, they used to brew two beers. Regular Leinies, and every spring they would release a Bock. Which I still think was better than most of the stuff they brew nowadays. I think that was the beer that made me realize there were more than yellow beers.
I never drank the regular Leinies, always was more partial to Walters, the other local brewery, now long since gone.

It was 2 beers. Dale's Pale Ale was the first hoppy beer I tried where I thought hmmm maybe I can drink these. Then the beer that made me realize I really do like hoppy Ales and IPAs was Bell's Two Hearted.

Black Butte Porter from Descutes. First non BMC I ever had. It was tough to get through the first time, but it remains one of my favorites. It is my go-to if I can't find anything brand new on the shelf.

20 years ago, my best friends dad made some homebrew.

Looked at that glass of dark brown beer and with trepidation and shaking hands gave it a sip, and it was life changing, maybe even life saving. Passed it to my girlfriend (now wife, and I think she was more nervous than I was), and she couldn't believe it either.

We thought we knew what beer was, a good MGD, a Michelob, a Löwenbräu, we were wrong, we were lied to.

And while I have since been buying micro-brews, it took 20 years to start brewing myself.

Today I am brewing a Pale Ale.

Anchor Steam, 1989, my first non BMC beer. It was my sister's fault.

Heh. I'm a musician. Across the street from the music building at the Univesity of Oklahoma (literally across the street - less than a 30 second walk) is a bar called The Library. Inside they have about 25 beers on tap, and no BMC in sight. If a philistine comes in and asks for BMC they will grudgingly retrieve a bottle from somewhere hidden out of sight.

I never tried BMC until later - I started with stuff like Franziskaner, Harp, Bass, Hoegaarden, Spaten Oktoberfest (and Optimator), all on tap.

I don't even really object to BMC, but I HATE it when someone shows up to a party with freakin' Keystone. Gah. I'll drink High Life before I drink that piss.

About 6 or so years ago when we went riding (motorcycles) we would find a wine bar for the girls to sit down, cool off and have a few glasses of wine. I had recently began drinking beer again after a 15 year hiatus (raising the kids) but was only drinking BMC style beer.

Anyway, while we were at this one particular wine bar, they had a small glass door fridge with some beers in it. Most I had never heard of. So I tried a Fullsail Amber Ale I think it was. Then on another trip to a different wine store/tasting, I tried a St. Sebastiaan Golden (Belgian) Ale. That started me on my quest to try different beers. NEVER asking for a BMC again.

Then for X-mas 2007, I bought a friend of mine and my son (who lived in Colorado Springs at the time) a Mr. Beer kit. Then one day on a motorcycle forum I frequent, someone started a "Friday Beer Thread". In this thread were some guys that were showing their homebrew setups. One of them posted a link to MoreBeer (B3) in California. After some research on that forum, I bought my first homebrew setup and started brewing in January 2008. Then I went to all grain on July 4th of that same year.

Hard to really pick a breakout beer. There was just a progression from more common and available products to more exceptional and obscure.

A list of each significant benchmark:

Whatever Alcohol Available >Molsons Canadian >Rickards Red >Guiness >Unibroue >Homebrewed Oktoberfest >Brooklyn Lager >Inversion IPA >?