What Beer Was Your Point of No Return?

Williams 728
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Mirror Pond Pale Ale before they started bottling it. Now that beer is just kind of meh....
 
Fuller's Vintage!! Yep, believe it or not. I had started tasting new beer before that as a best friend had a store with tons of different beers. I had no idea there were even so many different one's back then so I would buy and taste all the different ones. That was my start to the wonderful world of beer. But one night out at dinner I was in a Scottish restaurant (Manhattan) and their beer list was really long. One thing stood out to me - the word Vintage. So I ordered the Fuller's Vintage and it blew me away. It was so different than anything else I'd tasted I hadn't really known beer can get that different. So from then on I ramped up my beer connoisseuring and have been at it now for about 12 years. My favorite beer to this day is Franziskaner but I love so many others.

That's why it's funny it took me so long to start brewing. I guess being busy making music I never really looked for something else to do until the wife got me my kit for christmas. Now I'm hooked and seriously getting into brewing, though still a total n00b, but I'm learning.


Rev.
 
I always had the desire to try something "different." First that I can remember was Warsteiner (5 years before legal drinking age.) I quickly tried all Sweetwater had to offer, but it was their IPA that really did it for me.
 
In 1980 I discovered Premier Malt Extract at the grocery store. It wasn't the greatest beer but it stood up against BMC. I also learned that I could make a case or two of beer for what a 6-pack cost.
 
Mine was Obsidian Stout And Black Butte Porter(had them the same night) Both from Dechutes Brewery in Bend Ore.
 
Bass on tap @ The Old Shillelagh in Detroit, listening to live Irish music...
 
There wasn't one in particular, but there were standouts along the way.

In roughly the order they got me:

Newcastle
Killian's Irish Red
Bass
Avery's The Reverend
Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale

I actually had an interesting conversation with some friends about this recently. If you look at my list, it leans to the malty and yeasty. My buddies got hooked on good beer through Sierra Nevada. What we each mainly brew now are, respectively, British/Belgian ales and hop bombs. When you trace it back, it kind of makes sense.
 
Easy. Old Chicago's Beer Tour, which i'm unsure if they still even do. (they closed up in Columbia Missouri near my old apartment).

Got 57 out of 101 before they shutdown.
 
It used to be that all I'd drink was Kieth's or Sleeman's Honey Brown.
Then I tried Strongbow Cider, and it become my alcoholic beverage of choice.

After that, I went to a local brewpub and tried some of their in-house raspberry wheat. After that, I just started devouring random styles and brands, and then I tried Trafalger cherry ale, and Hoptical Illusion.

I haven't gone back, except to drink some Grolsch now and then for the bottles.
 
I had never really liked beer because all I had ever had was BMC or at best Shiner bock.

Then I tried the following all within a week: Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Old Rasputin, and DFH 60m

I started all-grain homebrewing within a month.
 
My dad was a Black Label drinker. He used to go to either the bottling plant or the distro location and get cases of beer that were mislabeled for realllllly cheap; can you imagine, CHEAPER Black Label.

So when when I had my first Sam Adams - that was important. Later one of my sister's friends from childhood opened a brewpub (Gritty McDuffs) in Portland, ME - life is good when I go home!
 
Mightyscoop said:
I always had the desire to try something "different." First that I can remember was Warsteiner (5 years before legal drinking age.) I quickly tried all Sweetwater had to offer, but it was their IPA that really did it for me.
Click to expand...

I was a BMC guy all the way until I moved to Atlanta. I went to Sweetwater and tried everything on tap. I think I hated the first sip of each beer, but I fell in love with each one, especially the IPA, by the end of the glass. Never looked back.
 
My first non-BMC beer was actually a Sam Adams Boston Lager, but it wasn't until a friend gave me a Sam Adams Octoberfest that I really jumped on to the craft beer bandwagon.
 
For me it was kilkenny irish red. It's been a long time since I've had it, and I would probably not care for it much anymore. But it got me into craft brew so it's hard for me to bash that beer.
 
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Loved the combination of floral hops and the caramel notes.

I have been a hophead ever since. :rockin:
 
Victory Hop Devil. I discovered it while working in a restaurant my senior year in high school and was hooked. I always had a sixer of it in my fridge throughout college and the best part was that my roommates never drank it because they thought it tasted like **** (BMC crowd).

My palate has changed somewhat since then and I don't get it much anymore but every once in awhile the mood will strike me and I'll grab some.
 
Guiness was my first trip outside of BMC (funny now I really dont like it after homebrewing)

My first sip of Sierra IPA made me want to know more about this thing called Hops? Now I am a Hop head. Still my go to when I need an IPA and I am out.
 
Honestly, it was a Hacker Pschorr that got me looking around. Then Hoegaarden followed and my first "craft" brew that got me turned around was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
 
Discovered Rogue and New Belgium beers in the summer of 1994 while backpacking across Colorado. Started brewing within months of those discoveries.
 
starrfish said:
Talk about showing age...I remember when blue moon and killians red weren't owned by the big BMC ... DAMN they were both GOOD in the late 80s early 90s! big reason I continued brewing... some of my favs got sucked up to the big BMC. Kilians USED to be good BLUE MOON USED to be good...
Click to expand...

you're not showing your age, you are showing that your are quite misinformed though.

Blue moon is, and always has been, brewed by coors. Coors created it in 1995.
It was created at their sandlot brewery at coors field, where all their craft brews are done.

:drunk:

Killians is a different story, dating way back before Coors bought the brand.
 
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale 10 years ago or so. Still remains tied for my favorite beer.... next to Firestone Double Barrel Ale
 
i guess to answer OP, my first real beer was fat tire. surprised no one else mentioned it yet. It was about 8 years ago.. I stuck with fat tire though still drinking bud light a good amount of the time, and hadn't really dove into craft brews, until about 4 years ago, i came across a variety pack of flying dog.. at that point is when i really dove in deep, and haven't look back since.
 
metaltim said:
you're not showing your age, you are showing that your are quite misinformed though.

Blue moon is, and always has been, brewed by coors. Coors created it in 1995.
It was created at their sandlot brewery at coors field, where all their craft brews are done.

:drunk:

Killians is a different story, dating way back before Coors bought the brand.
Click to expand...



That brewery is actually named the Blue Moon Brewery nowadays, and they mention it on the tour of the ballpark.

The idea is genius in my mind. Try out some creative beers and have 50k fans on hand to test it for you?

I would love to be a test subject for something like that, wish they'd do it in NY, although it's hard to complain about the beer selection at Citi Field.

To the question at hand, I'd probably say Guinness was my gateway beer to beer in general (Really didn't care for the stuff in general before that). I think Sam Adams Chocolate Bock was what really started turning me on to craft beers though; really introduced me to how exotic and different beers could get.
 
For me it was Rogue... Dead Guy, St. Rogue red and many more! Tasted them on a family vacation waaaaay back when down in Oregon....

In fact it was a desire for beers like those that lead me to homebrewin' Rogue is a wee hard to come by up in my neck of the woods (and like 8+ a bottle at places that do sell it)

So i got me a clone kit.....a bucket.....
 
I guess it was Bells Amber Ale that I had many years ago. mmmm yummy. Still one of my all time favorites.

The second one that really kicked it off was the bottle of Chimay Blue that my wife brought back from Europe before it was available here (at least where we lived) at the time.
 
metaltim said:
Every brewery in denver has about 500K beer fans to test their brews out on...
:mug:
Click to expand...

That's more of a preaching to the choir thing though. at the ballpark you've got pretty much the target demographic, at least of big breweries like Coors, beer drinkers that aren't necessarily connoisseurs.

Those experiments could very well lead a casual beer fan to be posting in this thread about it.
 
For me it was in the early 90's. I discovered a lovely beer brewed by Widmer called hefeweizen in a small dark bar in Ann Arbor Michigan. The smell and taste was heavenly. 1 pint turned into 6 then a cab ride home :) That was my point of no return.
 

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