The beer that got you into beer

I remember getting a hold of one of my Dad's Sam Adams back when I was a teenager and drinking it, thinking wow, this doesn't taste like Red Dog.

Sierra Nevada did it for me. My dad would always drink it when I was younger, maybe 20 yrs ago, and would always give me a sip...ahhh the cascade freshness.

Several years ago my oldest daughter bought me some"Dortmunder Gold" from the Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland, Ohio. Then we visited the brewery, did the tours, etc.. Year before last SWMBO and I did a 6500 mile tour of the northern half of this great country and visited 22 microbreweries in the process.
It is a wonderful and delicious life.

I was doing work for a client and he offered me a homebrew that his brother had made...I think it was a stout, not sure but it was delicious. Anyhoo...I was ordering my equipment off of Amazon within 2 days.

Magic Hat #9. I don't drink it too often anymore and I know it gets flack but it was a revelation coming from the college wastelands of Coors and Natty Light.

Allagash White for me.

I "grew up" in the 1970's drinking Bud. In Highschool we would go for the occassional Lowenbrau or Heini. there was a great beer from Portland, Or called Henry Weinhard's... thats when we drank the good stuff... but years later when I visited San Fran, i went into a pub that had tons of different beers on a chalkboard (because they changed so frequently)... I was blown away by a red ale and I can't for the life of me remember the name. So for a year or so I drank red ales everywhere, that was in the early 1990's. Then I started to get braver.
Then, about 15 years ago I saw a LHBS and was blown away. Since I like to cook, i decided to give it a try, bit it took me anouthe 10 years... now I am hooked

Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Odells IPA, went to college at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Grew up in San Diego drinking Coors and corona through HS. Dad drank New Belgium fat tire but was never a huge fan. Had my first IPA from Odells and became an instant hop head. From there it expanded to all styles of beer but IPA is still my go to style and Odells is still the best IMO but love all things hoppy maybe its cousin is what made me enjoy it so much bit that's a whole nother story.

kf

Well,after growing up on tastes of dad's beers,or out-n-out jacking them,the taste of blatz,black label,poc,etc back then made me get into homebrewing to re-creat that "real beer flavor"of the recipes used back in the 50's & early 60's. Still have yet to achieve this,although my hopped & confused hybrid lager is getting closer.
Now,having said that & listening to you guys to try IPA's,etc a couple years ago,I realize y'all did this to me! I now am always searching for the best IPA, or at least to me in terms of balance & hop load. From Kona to new belgium to the brew kettle...oh nooooo...please God help me!......(Insert tritone here)!

FoCobrewguy said:

maybe its cousin is what made me enjoy it so much bit that's a whole nother story.

kf

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Word, I spent quite a few years in SD during the 80's also drinkin Coors

Sam Adams winter lager..One of my first beers besides Miller, Corona, Bud and Coors..

Henninger, Bitburger and any other beer I drank while stationed in Germany.

As hard as it may be to believe, the first beer I ever had was a Gordon Biersch Marzen, on tap, with my dad, on my 21st birthday.

I remember going "man, this is good" initially, and then about halfway through the glass it seemed to thick and filling I didn't think I could finish it.

I snuck some of my dad's Duvel when I was 13 and that was it really

TerranceKwong said:

I snuck some of my dad's Duvel when I was 13 and that was it really

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That must have been nice. All my father ever drank was Stag or Old Milwaulkee.

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Guinness, then Left Hand Milk Stout.

Growing up it was always BMC products or the like, generally speaking. I started drinking the "good imported" Lowenbrau. Had to acquire a taste for the dark imports, Heineken, St Pauly Girl, to Henry Weinhards, to Chimay. But the clincher was my LHBS. He always had something on tap for sampling, free, and will you spare a donation?. The first beer that really cemented it was Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout.
My wife, knowing I could cook very well, (ex chef) decided to get me a HB Kit for Christmas 2 years ago, and as they say, "The race was on..." I won my first contest last month in Best of Category, Stouts and Porters. Talk about stoked! It will be quite a while before I enter another contest, because all I wanted to know was if my method and procedures were correct and consistent. The day I brewed that beer, they were.

I started out with Coors light and PBR. Then one of my buddies introduced me to Stone's Arrogant Bastard. I didn't like it at first, but soon found myself wanting more of it. It just kinda went on from there.

It's not quite an answer to the question of the thread, but I'm going to over-share anyway... Chimay Red was the first "non-BMC" beer I introduced my dad to. When I ordered it, I said "Let's split a beer", to which he gave me a look like "Are you f'ing nuts?". Then we got the 750ml bottle, he had it, and his world was changed. Until then, the most exposure he had to non-american-style-pilsner-lagers was warm British ales with lemon juice floated on top. Then, a few years later, he introduced me to a Belgian Golden, St. Sebastiaan's, and eventually bought me my first homebrew kit. I the last time I had a BMC style beer was in 2005 in Puerto Rico, at my ex-wife's grandmother's birthday: it was a Coors Light, and when I took a sip, I asked her to taste it, because I thought they had mixed it up and put in club soda. My ex, a CL fan, gave me the stink eye and said it tasted fine. I honestly thought it was a mistake.

My NEW wife, however, LIKES beer!

Yards brawlers and victory golden monkey in the same night. I remember sitting on the couch after a few golden monkeys wondering what the heck just happened.


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I spent 2 weeks near Chico California a couple years ago and went to a party where they had a keg of Sierra Nevada pale ale, prior to that I didn't really care for beer.

The fact that linenkugel stopped making apple spiced beer.

So back in high school did a little bit of partying and all we ever drank was always miller high life, pabst, ice mountain.. Basically anything that came in a 30 case. I remember it always being hard to drink and I would have to force myself to drink it. At the time I was working at jewel osco (I live in Chicago btw) and I would see this yellow case of beer that people would buy all the time. 312 wheat ale is all it said on the case. I was very intrigued. So I convinced a couple of my friends to get a case of it. At first they looked at me like I was crazy. Why spend 15 bucks on 12 pack when we can get 30 beers for the same price?!? The first sip was magical. Didn't taste like any beer I had ever tasted before.. It actually tasted good and was very enjoyable unlike the dirty thirties. This made me want to try all of goose island beers and not just their beers but all the beers that I had never seemed to notice before. Till this day I'll have a 312 here and there but I always think how it opened up a new world for me. The world of craft beer.


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