All I have to say is I am sooooo thankful for that old boyfriend of mine who introduced me to Chimay.
Until then, I had only been exposed to a couple different beers. Strohs. Corona. Rolling Rock, and this wonderful brewpub stuff I had in a pub in Brighton, England (and the strange lager shandy that one of my English hosts made for me)
Corona was "okay" on a hot day with a slice of lime and a big basket of corn chips.
Rolling Rock was cheap, readily available in Central Ohio where I was living at the time, and it seemed to be the "beer of choice" for the area. I was not impressed.
Belgian beer knocked my socks off. Dubbels, Tripels, Saissons, they each were unique, flavorful, and wonderful - more like wine than what I knew of "beer". It was Belgian ale that inspired me to finally take the leap and start homebrewing.
My poor boyfriend is a diehard BMC guy. Nothing is going to make him choose Allagash Dubbel over his Bud Light. Occasionally he buys some Sam Adams, or some flavored wheat beer - sometimes he makes a good choice and sometimes not.
I really think that with the homebrew crowd - foodies and "geeks" (chemistry, computer, history, etc.) will be the ones who appreciate homebrew the most. Trying to convert Joe Average BMC guy to drink a homebrew IPA may just be an exercise in futility - I think that sometimes the BMC crowd drinks that stuff like other folks drink soda.