What Beer Turned You on to Craft Beer?

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cbrewcrew

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Mine was from a local brewery called Turtle Anarchy. Their Portly Stout is amazing.
 
What got me into craft beer was Widmer Hefeweizen. Pretty good beer, very approachable to a guy who (at that time) knew he didn't like light lagerbut didn't know what he liked.

And it all snowbaes from there
 
My first 2 craft beers were Schafly Number 15 and Boulevard Wheat, never looked back to cheap beer after.
 
It started with Great Lake's Edmund Fitzgerald. I could barely drink it at that time :eek:, but it was so completely different from anything else I'd had before.
 
Growing up in Boston, I had steady availability of Harpoon and Sam Adams. But, it was a Stone IPA when I was 21 that totally changed my world. Drinking beer was never the same.
 
I guess it was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. When I first tried it back in the 80s I realized that beer did not have to be bud Coors or Miller.

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Not sure if there was a specific beer, honestly. I spent 6 months in Cambridge, England in 1989-90. We frequented a number of pubs during my time there, in particular a small, unassuming place called The Grapes... Six months of good English brew and a month traveling the continent... beer was just beer to me at the time. It wasn't until after I'd returned to the midwest that I realized how good I'd had it in Europe, and how crap the normal swill that I'd been drinking in the US really was.

There was a certain amount of enlightenment that occurred at that time, and the general search for beers with flavor and substance began shortly thereafter. Proud to say that I've been drinking "better" beers ever since.

Thinking back, I think the first microbrewed beer that I actually remember drinking was Pete's Wicked Ale. That and beers from Anchor Brewing.
 
Some pretty cool stories. I just recently tried Widmer Hefeweizen for the first time. I have a hefe in primary right now. ��
 
Hahaha fleeba....no wonder beer is an aquired taste. everybody starts off drinking cheap lager.
 
It actually wasn't that long ago. Middle son worked at a Pizza shop (Al's Pizza in Enola,Pa) who recently installed huge coolers that were filled with Microbrew beers. Everytime I went to see him he bought me a mixed six pack. After I tasted the stouts, IPA's and off the wall beers every week I was hooked. Granted before then I usually only drank Guinness. It became a new hobby soon after, and even my first extract brew blew away anything you could buy. My wife and family still talk about the bourbon barrel stout I made, that was my first beer ever!! After you taste homebrew, the only beer you can drink is microbrews and homebrew.

I'd say if I had to pick one beer, it was a bourbon barrel stout from Fegley's Brewworks here in Allentown,pa.
 
New Belgium has been my gateway into craft beer as many other styles:

First craft beer: Fat Tire
First IPA: Ranger IPA
First dark beer: 1554
First sour beer: Eric's Ale
 
Long Trail Ale. I also remember drinking a lot of Killian's around then, which inspired my first brew. But after I made a red ale and compared it to Killian's I thought Killian's tasted like water. Long Trail's Double Bag probably sealed the deal
 
NB's Fat Tire as well as Oak Creek Nut Brown from Sedona, AZ

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Three that I can think of:
Sierra Nevada Porter
Southern Tier 2X Milk Stout
Saranac mixed packages

Yet I'm a hophead at heart.

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A old friend was into home brew in the dark ages, early 1980's making brew from hard to find canned malt and home grown hops, The dark stuff was wonderful and so different. We had the first copies of "Joy of Home Brewing". Montana Brewing Company in Billings Montana was the first tap room and NB Fat Tire the first bottled Craft Brew.
 
Rogue Deadguy really sealed the deal for me. Even though I drank bud and miller when I was younger, as I got older I aquired a taste for something much better with more flavor and uniqueness. My father in-law and a few buddies always made fun of me because of the beers I would buy and drink....they would be sluggin down nasty old natural light and I'd be having a Grolsch blonde, or Heffeweizen....they said fancy beers...then I would always rebutt with "Look if I wanted to drink your kind of beer, I could just piss in a bottle and drink that...after all I have spare time!" Deadguy is one of my favs, but I love any hefeweizen or german beer.

-Sapp
 
Living in Germany in the early 1990s pre-college did it for me. After that, I could not enjoy the swill. Of course, I drank a lot of beast and crap in college but in Baltimore Well's Discount Liquors used to have six packs of import stuff (Czechvar, Jever, Pilsner Urquell) for under $5 back in the mid-1990s so when I could afford it, I bought good beer. Pete's Wicked and Baltimore Brewing Company turned me onto US microbrews.
 
I don't consider it a craft, being of the BMC decent, but Blue Moon was the beginning. The first ACTUAL craft brew was Sam Adams Boston Lager. I have been a huge fan of SA until recently. I can taste A LOT of diacetyl in the winter lager and a lot of their seasonals are started to be terrible too. I do still like a lot of their brews though. Their new Rebel IPA is a pretty tasty one.
 
My trip down the rabbit hole was Three Floyds Alpha King. Hop hound, you bet!
 
Leinenkugel's Red was the first non-BMC I started drinking. That was just as Miller started having a lot more influence over them, so they were a lot closer to craft than now.
 
I remember the first inspiration - seeing Grolsch swing-top bottles in my grandpa's refrigerator when I was 15 years old.

The bottles were unique to anything I had seen, so I decided that when I was old enough I wanted to drink the fancy beer. This started with some of the bigger commercial beers - Guinness and Yuengling but really shot off with a visit to the local micro store. Asked a guy to help me put stuff together.

At first I couldn't even finish a bottle of Bell's Two Hearted ale, and loved the sweeter Belgians. A lot has changed since then :p
 
Pete's Wicked Ale.

My friends and I were working in San Antonio back in the early '90s when we found Pete's Wicked Ale. We didn't know it was (or didn't think of it as) craft beer at the time, but we liked it. It wasn't much later that I tasted my first Full Sail Ale, which I also liked. Then I made a few trips to the UK, which totally ruined my taste for for BMC for good!
 
Mine was Widmer Drop Top Amber ale. I love malty beers and it wasn't until maybe a few weeks ago I even had any desire to brew anything hoppy. Of course now I'm hooked on Ipas trying to find and brew the perfect one lol.
 
I realized my love for craft beer when I first tried terrapins moo hoo! Made me realize there was a lot more to beer than a suitcase of Natty and that it could actually be very enjoyable.
 
I'd have to say that Grolsch was also my 1st non BMC beer. That was in '81. After that Lienie's Big Butt Bock (pre Miller ) for awhile. My very first beer was a warm Red White and Blue (cheaper Pabst)..
 
Meason...i just tried Moo Hoo for the first time New Year's Eve. I drank a whole growler in about 20 minutes. Flipping delicious.
 
My first IPA which was longhammer by red hook. I loved it and it was completely different than any of the natty light I was used to.
 
Firestone Walker's Wookey Jack. Still my favorite beer. Luckily the grocery store that's less than five minutes away has them for $2.50 a pop.
 

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