What was your Gatewaybeer to craft beer?

When I first turned 21 and would go to the gas station after work since I had the money and didn't want to drink swill I would usually get those big bottles of blue moon. I was already slightly into whiskey so I thought why not do the same for beer and see what's out there. I can't remember what the very first craft micro brews I had, probably some very bitter IPAs that I wasn't into at the time. The first beer I remember really loving was when I got a 4 pack of DFH Palo Santo Marron. That was my first dark beer and fell in love with that thick but smooth tarty bittersweet chocolate taste. Also didn't know beer got that high in abv so I think that's the reason I bought it at first. Back then two would be enough for me. Now I can drink a 750ml of 15% and still want some more later.

Two beers:

In 1996, at a spring training baseball game in Peoria, Arizona, the line for Bud/Bud Light was 20+ deep. So the hockey buddy I was with saw a Full Sail tent and recommended we go there. No one in line, we stepped up and he ordered us two Full Sail Amber Ales. I'll never forget what he said, "This is way different from that crap Bud Light. It's heavy, but you're going to like it. It has flavor." GAMECHANGER!!! Drank three more large drafts that day and came home very tipsy.

Fast forward, as there were no places that I knew of to get craft beer in the Phoenix area in 1996-97....

Next, in early 1998, we stopped in to Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, AZ. I was shocked to find a place that didn't serve hard liquor or BMC, they only served the beers they brewed. I was clueless on what to order, until I saw a waitress walk by with a jet black, white capped pint.

"Excuse me," I asked her. "What the hell is that?"

"Oatmeal Stout," she said.

Yes, please. Simply awesome. My intro to dark goodness.

Cheers!!!

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was without a doubt my gateway beer. Still enjoy it.

I had a revelation this weekend that although I claimed my gateway beer was Sam Adams/Pecan Street it actually was Shiner Bock. Not sure if my palate has changed or the formula did but back in 1991 when we could not buy it in Oklahoma with was the best beer we could (almost) never get our hands on.

Hideout Smuggler's Hazelnut Stout. I'd been drinking craft beer for years (cut my drinking teeth on it, really), but that was the first beer where I thought, "I wonder how that works."

1.5 years and hundreds of dollars later....

After drinking Mickey's in high school, ugh, I wasn't really into beer that much, mostly hard stuff. Then I found Fat Tire, which somehow led to Arrogant Bastard, and from there it's all history.

Tie between Pete's Wicked Summer Brew and McFarlane's Wheat - haven't had either in years.

I didn't drink in high school more than a few times. In college two of my friends owned a beer store that only sold Belgian and English style ales. I was hooked for years. I don't have a taste for them anymore. I brew session ipa. Gotta have hops. My need for hops came from my first time brewing and smelling a bag of hops. All I new was I needed to make something that tastes like that!!!

In high school My grandmother used to bring Catamount beer every time she visited.
That started it all.

For years I did not drink beer for several reasons; not the least of which was the smell of rotting beer I experienced delivering Chinese food to frat houses in college.
Fast forward many years and I started with the standard BMC selection settling on PBR and Zigenbock since a pitcher was $3.00.

Being the adventurous type and not one to pass up something different (you never know if you will like it) I took to sampling all of the beers at the local watering hole. Many were, as the youngsters say, "meh." Then I had a Dixie Blackened Voodoo. It actually tasted like something. Rahr Black Pug was also interesting. Next, I think, I had a Karbach Hopadillo and I was hooked. Within 2 years I started brewing at home, joined the local home brew club, and passed the BJCP tasting exam.

Oh yeah, I also became a lifetime member of HBT, got a like from Yooper :rockin: and a berry-punch from Billy-Klubb

Go Beer!

If it were a single beer I would say either Stella or Sierra Nevada Pale ale.

As far as variety and coming to the conclusion that there was more than light beer then if have to say the Saranac Fall variety 12 pack and the Sam Adams Winter Variety 12 pack.

Keen river brewing company. That started it. Now my wife blames them for "my problem ". I blame her! She should just like the finer things in life

Prob fat tire when I lived in Colorado in the late 90's then it'd have to be Oberon. I'd drink snpa every now and again but it took years before I really like IPAs and the first I really gravitated to were dogfishead 60 and stone IPA.

I grew up with Straub Beer in PA, and came to really like Anchor Steam when I moved to CA in the early 1980s. Also a fan of imported UK and other European beers when I would come across them in a big store somewhere. Of course, I never thought of them as craft beer. They were either local beers--made near where I lived--or good beer (as opposed to mass produced crap beer).

I guess my first real encounter with American craft beer was at the Chapter House in Ithaca, NY around 1990. A year or two after that, my friends and I were regulars at the first Goose Island brewpub on Clybourn. Craft brewing has come a long way since then.

Just seeing a Mr Beer Kit for sale and thinking "I didn't know you could make your own beer?"

Have I got a tale to tell you. I grew up on Busch. That is what my pop drank and I thought that was what beer was all about. I liked that so much that when I went to college and started making runs from dry to wet counties for my dorm building, including my RA Ed, I moved to Busch Lite, Olde English and Mickey's Mean Green. I know all those are terrible now but I was young, you remember those days. Well occasionally I would try an Amber Bock or a Bud Dry and I believe those slightly stronger beers gave me the guts to go farther and try real beer. So I change schools from UCA to ASU and realize I need a job like now. Just so happens they are hiring out at the package store on the county line. I apply and realize that the manager doesn't mind if we snag a sixer at closing time, though in retrospect the owner may have. I grabbed a Turbodog, a Bass Ale, a Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout, a Red Hook ESB and two more I forget. Let's just say fireworks went off in my mouth. These beers were way out of a rookys league and at the time I didn't like them all, but they got me started. Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout is still one of my favorites, though now I make a pretty mean oatmeal stout right here at home and I would say I am partial to Ambers. I brew a pumpkin, honey and even a banana Amber that will set you just right. As far as the hoppy beers go I think Dogfish Head 90 Imperial is the bees knees and I like a Rahr Stormcloud and even a Breckenridge 471 Small Batch IPA if you got one of those in your fridge, but the rest of the IPAs, hah forgedaboutit.

I think I did it backwards. I started homebrewing, which then got me into craft beers.

I'm still not a huge craft beer drinker... Because I rarely drink beer that I don't brew myself.

max384 said:

I think I did it backwards. I started homebrewing, which then got me into craft beers.

I'm still not a huge craft beer drinker... Because I rarely drink beer that I don't brew myself.

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Well it seems to me then that you are exclusively a craft beer drinker! You can't get any more craft than home brew.

From Bud to Sierra Nevada pale ale,first brew I ever made to

I'm not sure if you would call Hobgoblin a craft beer, but it was upon drinking one that I started going to specialty beer retailers and trying anything and everything I could get my hands on. Up until then I had only had domestic trash.

Devil Mountain Railroad's Five Malt Ale.

Widmer Hef. First beer I had when I moved to Oregon many many moons ago.:rockin:

Stone IPA. Man, I remember it being extremely bitter the first time trying it. I had no idea what to expect or what the hell I was drinking, but it was a whole new dimension from Budweiser and Corona. Now I embrace all the hoppy goodness.

Well, I think i can thank my Dad for this. i got my driving time for drivers license taking my dad to the LHBS in our area. We would go next door to the beer store and pick up random sixers that he would try. I think the first beer that he let me have was an Arrogant Bastard. Been a fan since.

Started with Sierra Nevada then had a bottle of Stone Ruination and arrogant Bastard. After that I was hooked!

DFH 90 minute was the first IPA I had and it blew me away.

After that I lucked upon a 4-pack of Founders Backwoods Bastard, having no idea what it was, and was again blown away.

Now, I like beer.

Oak Pond Brewery in Maine. Small place would fill growlers of their oatmeal coffee stout for $4.

Samuel Adams Boston Lager waaaay back when

back home in france the fisher beer used to be my gateway beer

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a classic

sudbuddy said:

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a classic

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Me too, I went to high school in a little town near Chico, before there was a Sierra Nevada brewery but as soon as I tasted that, the yellow fizzy stuff just went out the window. We just visited the brewery in North Carolina earlier this month, well worth your time if you get the chance!

Killian's Red Irish Ale back in 1987, before it switched to a lager and Coors bought them out. Pete's Wicked Ale or Celis White were the first few "small batch" craft beers I tried back in 1993.

I tried Sierra Nevada pale ale in college and hated it. Now it's one of my favorite beers.

Guinness, New Castle, Old Speckled Hen, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. In that order.

I remember trying Arrogant Bastard around this time and thinking that the flavor was similar to licking a 9 volt battery. Now I find it somewhat tame.

Bayou Teche's ___ (don't remember the name) - they have sorta smoked ale, I was smitten by the sensation of drinking liquefied bacon. And Lazy Magnolia's Hopspitality.
I left the States that time clearly knowing what my new hobby was going to be.

Tried a bunch of craft beers on my previous visits to the US, liked them to the point of totally quitting buying megabrand beers, but never thought of brewing my own. However that time I was really wow'ed and thought, They can do it - so can I.

Now this is going to date me. Back in the late 70's I was drinking Leinenkugels. Newsweek magazine did a "best beer in the US" and Leinies topped the list. This was back when they were still independent. They produced a bock once a year that tasted good for its time. I found a local brew shop in north Minneapolis (Semplex) found a treatise on home brewing and made my first ale with canned malt and old haulertau hops. God that was a looooong time ago.

Shiner Bock and Paulaner Hefe

there was a time when killians stout was drinkable; not even close to the watery crap it is now that coors owns it. in the 80's, i was a regular at a bar called the "elephant and castle" in aiea, hawaii that had it, and also had bass (back when it was drinkable, also). they made a black and tan out of those that, at the time, was really good.

Been a while since we've heard any new stories. Anybody else care to contribute?