Which beer pried you from the macro brews?

[HomebrewCraig]

I'll openly admit.. When I was a teenager, we bought (I mean, had someone else buy) Stroh's because the beer came in a 30 pack for the same price as MGD 24 pack case. Never mind that it was absolute swill that served the only purpose of giving us a buzz enough to chase girls out of our league... But in my mid twenties, I tried Guinness... And hated it. But the experience was an eye-opener in that there was other options other than the beers I saw advertised on the sides of NASCAR racers.

The first non-macro beer that I enjoyed was Leinenkugels.. Growing up in Wisconsin and having plenty of Pabst, Blatz, Schlitz, and Miller, that first Leinenkugel was amazing.. Like eating mac and cheese and then having a porterhouse.

How about you?

 

[signpost]

I never even became a beer drinker until I found out there was beer that actually tasted good. Friends would drink ****ty cheap beer, and I just took a pass and was amused by their drunkenness.

But then, I started to hear people talk about beer in terms of actually liking the flavor. That was when I started to get interested. So, I tried some Sam Adams stuff and liked it alright. But the big ones for me were Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Bell's Oberon, Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter and New Belgium's Fat Tire.

As a huge music fan, I was introduced to each of these beers in the context of traveling to visit friends and see live concerts.

 

[sudbuster]

I'll openly admit.. When I was a teenager, we bought (I mean, had someone else buy) Stroh's because the beer came in a 30 pack for the same price as MGD 24 pack case. Never mind that it was absolute swill that served the only purpose of giving us a buzz enough to chase girls out of our league... But in my mid twenties, I tried Guinness... And hated it. But the experience was an eye-opener in that there was other options other than the beers I saw advertised on the sides of NASCAR racers.

The first non-macro beer that I enjoyed was Leinenkugels.. Growing up in Wisconsin and having plenty of Pabst, Blatz, Schlitz, and Miller, that first Leinenkugel was amazing.. Like eating mac and cheese and then having a porterhouse.

How about you?

Fellow brewer,
There was no beer pried me away for BMC. I just love beer of all styles. Be it BMC or otherwise. See back in the '70's there was only BMC. Now there is God only knows what kind of concoctions one may find. That's a good thing in my way of thinking. I may not like a particular beer, but there are others I think are suppurb. I think to many of us get carried away with what is the most popular style at this moment in time and denigrate the others. That, to me , Is a real desecration of beer in general. Macros have their place, as do other beer styles. One is not more exalted than another.

 

[widsith]

Before I was of legal age, I drank what I could get my hands on. But given a choice, I would try something different. Not that there was much choice available back then. But a friends father did introduce me to a scotch ale once, and once in a while I could find Samuel Smith's. Then there was Guinness. Eventually as more beer became available, I drank the greater variety. But I'll still drink a BMC once in a while.


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[balrog]

All through college and grad school in the South I hated the macro beers. Then I had my first Porter and I don't even remember the brewery. Blew my mind. Of course same thing happened all my life when my Dad was a "scotch" drinker, which meant Cutty Sark, and the first single malt I had made me feel like one of those camera-rotates-around-you-Matrix-moments!

 

[soccerdad]

Blatz - that brings back some memories. Did any beer ever sound more like a wet beer fart?

 

[Beernik]

None. I grew up drinking Dorts and Kolsch in Germany.

The first American beer I had that I liked was Pete's Wicked Ale.

 

[limulus]

You punks don't know how good you have it. Back in my day (late 70s), when it was legal to consume at 18, we drank Schlitz and we liked it. We thought moving up to Budweiser was a right of passage that you earned by acquiring a taste for it. It was actually like a move-up beer for us. Then came the 80s and the college years. I remember the very early 80s when Coors came east. We thought we were the schnit drinking Coors during spring break while freezing our pee-pees off at Myrtle Beach. Michelob was just for rich people who could only afford the best and we rarely touched it. For championship drinking, Natural Light was the choice of champions.

To answer the question:
The first real non BMC I drank would have been Killians and I believe that was before they were owned by Coors or whoever bought them. Then the first real micro would have been Pete's Wicked Ale. After that was probably Sammy and/or SNPA. Then the sky was the limit and many of the beers I drank are not even around anymore. I will say this, Sam Adams Boston Lager is not the same as it once was. It used to use Hallertau Mittelfruh hops and definitely tasted different. But for me the king at the time would have been SNPA and I used it as my gold standard. BTW, the first time I tried Guinness, I hated it.

 

[knyland]

Guiness was my first beer every and I hated it. Fast forward to legal drinking age, I was stationed in Seattle a block from the Pyramid brewery thats when I learned there was a whole new world out there.

 

[boydster]

The first beers I drank were Natty Ice and Busch Lite. Then I met one of my friend's uncles, who was formerly a sales rep for Boston Beer Company. He handed us each a Sam Adams Boston Lager, and I thought it was great. Then I tried a SNPA, and again it was like a new dimension in beer appreciation. Those beers were my introduction into the rest of the beer world. Not to say that a well-brewed light lager or pilsner is a bad beer, because they can certainly be great, but I knew nothing about what the rest of the beer world had to offer until I had a Sam Adams.

 

[JPrather]

Like some others in here, I didn't really have that experience. My first beer was a Gordon Biersch Marzen, on tap, on my 21st birthday. I remember really enjoying the first few sips and then feeling like the beer was incredibly heavy and hard to finish after that.

Not long after that I had a bottle of MGD at a friends and thought "ahh, a beer I can actually get through!"