I'd say that Dogfish Head 90 is the beer that convinced me that I don't like hoppy beers per se; while I do like a good Stone Ruination, the 90 was just much worse and less balanced to me compared to the 60 (though the Ruination is a demonstration that you can have balance alongside a lot more IBUs of hops than the DH90 has). Which is clearly 100% opposed from many people's thinking, proving the glory of people having their own tastes (and exhibit A as to while I'll never mock the guy who really likes Bud Light or whatever other beer just doesn't do it for me).
I'd say that it was a combination of a few things:
1. An element of 2 beers (one not so highly regarded) that I want to figure out; it's a "peppery" characteristic of both Weeping Radish Corolla Gold (a Helles lager) and Flying Dog Doggiestyle. They're not very similar beers aside from the pepper bite in the aftertaste, which I quite like and would love to isolate.
2. An interest in learning more about beers; there are a lot that I like, but since getting into brewing I've actually started learning a bit about different kinds of hops and what makes various brews in a similar style taste different from each other.
3. A general interest in DIY foodstuffs; I make cheese, butter, pasta, yogurt, and all kinds of other stuff, so beer from scratch was a natural progression.
4. Anchor Steam, as a concept more than as a beer. The idea that a fairly novel, truly innovative kind of beer could be developed 1500+ years into the history of organized brewing is a really marvelous thing.
5. Belgians in general, and the video of the Allagash coolship in particular. That's just neat.
