I was having a few crappy, commercial beers with my brother-in-law one Sunday afternoon. I never really drank much beer because I considered beer to be tasteless and generally, quite bad.
We somehow got into talking about why we were drinking this piss and why all beer tasted the same. My father-in-law, who is a winemaker by trade, suggested we try make our own beer. At first we thought that it'd be too difficult to do, after all, if beer was easy to make, more people would be doing it. The seed however, had been planted. Later that night I Googled the subject and was blown away by how easy it all seemed.
I didn't know of any LHBS in the area. In fact, I didn't even know that such a thing even existed. I went to a super market the next day, hoping to find ingredients. When I couldn't find anything there, I went on the hunt and eventually found some dried extract in a health food store. I couldn't find any hops or yeat so I made beer with only extract and some bread yeast. Needless to say it tasted crap and was undrinkable but that experience put me on a path in a search of better beer. I eventually bought some ingredients online, made one or two extract beers, enjoyed them but realising I could do better, made the jump to all-grain. It's now 7 years later and I've enjoyed every minute of creating great beer.
My brother-in-law though, lost interest after that first failed batch. He still drinks comercial pig swill.
