The Bar Towel

What's your story? What conditions brought you to this interest? A particular beer? Brewery? Relationships? Do you remember the first "aha!" beer moment?

I posted my story (it's not exciting) in the "trendy" thread and thought I'd start a new one.

Extra points for super-dramatic stories like,

"My Granpappy was a Cooper! Used to age his own beer a 400 year old Bordeaux barrel, that he later divorced my Gran for...Used to make me kiss that barrel and pose with it for pictures - when other kids in Sunday School made Easter crafts for their real grand parents I had to make one for the barrel - usually it involved mineral oil...and ever since those horrible days, I swore I'd never, ever drink a sip of beer!"

What? No, wait...

Germany about 20 years ago. 'Oh, THIS is what beer is supposed to taste like!' I'd never seen a glass of Hefeweizen before in my life, let alone tasted some of the finest and freshest alive.

Not to forget the Helles and Pils, which were usually outstanding compared to anything I'd ever tasted. Layered plush and delicate in flavor, with a silky texture. Yes, Lager Beer can be that good. Yes, it's why traditionally they hated cans and bottles over there.

I used to be in the crowd that firmly believed that "beer sucks" and couldn't understand why anyone would drink such garbage.

The first beer I drank was a bottle of Labatt Blue when I was 12. A girl I was interested in at the time had smuggled it from her dad's cooler and asked me if I wanted to drink it with her. I bravely took the first swig and, with a herculean effort, resisted the urge to spit the horrendous, evil liquid out. We took turns choking down the rest of the bottle and I did not drink another beer until I was 18. Although I can't hate Blue all that much because I'm pretty it helped me in getting my first kiss that night.

The next I had a beer it was the greatest night of the teenager's life, prom night! At the after party various people were drinking various spirits, wines and beers. A friend of mine approached me with two Coronas, jammed full of lime wedges. We're talking about five per bottle. He gave one to me and said "man you gotta drink this, it's so good!" I obliged him and once again mustered every ounce of self-control I had to resist vomiting. This cemented my belief that all beer was swill. I told him that "beer is fucking nasty dude", handed the bottle back and went back to hitting on the woman that would eventually become my baby momma.

Three years later I was home from college for the Thanksgiving weekend, and a friend I hadn't seen since high school invited me out to a small pub (Foster's, for anyone that knows Stratford) for a Guinness. I had heard stories about Guinness being the beer that could "hold up a fork" or that "drinks like a meal". I voiced my reservations about drinking a beer, informing him that I hated the stuff. He told me Guinness was different than regular beer, so I had a "oh what the hell" moment and gave in. He was buying anyway. I drank the beer and it really was different. It tasted nothing like those putrid yellow concoctions I had previously choked down. It had this weird roasted coffee thing going on, and the rumours about it being "thicker than syrup" were certainly incorrect.

So after this positive experience with beer, I applied my Universal Theory of Quality, which states the popularity of any given item in any given field shares an inverse relationship with that item's quality. I began doing some research about beer on the internet which led me to Beer Advocate and an entire world I never knew existed was opened to me, and I have never looked back.

The first "Aha!" beer moment I had was the first time I drank a Stone IPA, which was about six months into my beer journey. I had never had anything before that was so complex, powerful and unforgiving. Then I had a Victory Storm King, which sealed my love for craft beer once and for all. Five years later and still going strong.

tl;dr = Hated Blue, hated Corona, had a Guinness which moved me on to bigger and better things like Stone.

I remember back in the late 60's, yes I'm up there in age, my dad sending me to the fridge to get him a beer. He drank 50. I would snap the top and take a whiff. I loved the bitter aroma. Then I would take a sip, then would go and give dad his beer. "They're not filling these as high as they used to" he'd say.

When Steam Whistle first started I bought a beer, cracked the top and the aroma brought me back to that time. I also enjoyed the fact I was drinking an all natural beer.

One morning I got up and found my wife had started a Blog for me, Booze Reviews and Other News. I was unsure what it would be about, and decided it would be interesting and fun to try a new beer, that I had never had before and Blog about the beer and brewery. That was the big step that took me down the road to world of Craft beer and now my fridge always has a variety of craft beers. the search is on for a beer fridge.

Now when my wife travels she brings me back craft beer from other provinces. Some of her co-workers have started doing the same. I'm pretty lucky

So far I have done 125 Beers of the Week from 24 Countries, 109 breweries and 8 provinces. Next up is a beer from a Quebec Craft brewery.

What a fun hobby!

Swordsman wrote: When Steam Whistle first started I bought a beer, cracked the top and the aroma brought me back to that time. I also enjoyed the fact I was drinking an all natural beer.

If there is one phrase I hate it's "all natural". Doesn't all natural mean something just comes from the earth? So a beer could be 10% crude oil pumped straight out of the ground and still be considered all natural.

For me, like many, it was a trip to the US (Chicago) where I had Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Later on that day I had Fat Tire. I was hooked.

Kel Varnsen wrote: If there is one phrase I hate it's "all natural". Doesn't all natural mean something just comes from the earth? So a beer could be 10% crude oil pumped straight out of the ground and still be considered all natural.

Yeah, if you want to be pedantic, what most people mean, I assume, is the ingredients are without additives and preservatives.

I was always kind of the 'beer guy' in my group of friends. I would find new and exotic beers to try like Newcastle and Sam Adams Boston Lager while others stuck to their lakeport and budweiser.

I always loved that Newcastle and Sam Adams stuff, but always felt like it was missing something. I had a few friends that were in to craft beer who would always try to engage me in their conversations. One night they invited me for tasting, the first beer I tried was Stone IPA. I was blown away. And it started.

That was a little over a year ago. My fridge has been overflowing with craft beer ever since (until recently... need to make room for my first batch of homebrew).

Think it was around late 1986 (just turned 16) that I had my first pint of cask ale, Thwaites Best. The barmaid who served me was a girl from my old school who I had a real crush on...........I used to go there quite often to get drinks as I was under age, plus cask was quite hard to find at that time.

Before then it was just cans of Stone's Bitter, Heineken, Party 7, John Smith's, Tetley.....oh the shame

I hated beer... hated wine too, was a strictly vodka drinker up until the 2nd year of uni. Then I got intrigued by Upper Canada Maple. Shite beer, but the possibilities were interesting. Planned a trip to Belgium and never looked back.

I was always drawn to the smaller (all-natural?) breweries, rather than the big factories with large marketing budgets. I enjoyed Wellington and Creemore, but I think it was an Upper Canada Selection pack around 1993 that really made me curious about different styles. Then I quickly became a fan of Unibroue.

I was never a fan of the mainstream BMC beers, but was into "premium" beers like, Keith's, Stella, and Heineken for a bit.

Then on one birthday, I had a joint party with a friend and his roommate was really into beer and let me take home a bottle. That bottle was a Westmalle Tripel, and I was a little shocked that that was beer. A couple months later for Christmas my friend got me a 6 pack, with 2 each of Deuchars IPA, Fuller's Vintage Ale 06, and Fullers 1845. That started a habit of going to the LCBO almost every friday after work for a couple months, and buying a bunch of beers I had never tried.

At that point I still didn't know too much about beer, but then I found out about the Castle on King (RIP) That's when I first truly learned about good beer and the OCB, prior to that, it was just misadventures with Trafalgar. Sadly, I only knew the Castle for about 8 months before she went away, but that started me on my path of drinking craft beers regularly.

I always try to introduce friends to craft beer now, and for the most part they enjoy it a lot more then macro's.

What got me intrested in different beers is when the lcbo had those cardboard six pack holders. Friends and myself would go and try to make a mix pack of beer each one being from a different country. Fast foward a few years and I started fermenting my own hard cider. While on a cider forum i noticed a d homebrew side and thats what got me started. First american craft beer I ever bought was dfh 60min ipa.

Years ago I noticed that contrary to the advertising of the big brewers, it was in fact the craft beer drinkers that were the best looking, got all the chicks, played in hot air balloons, shot the rapids in tire tubes and partied all the time.

I wanted to be just like them so I forced myself to tolerate complex malt and strong hoppy flavours. And guess what? It worked!

A trip to Vermont years back. We stayed in a hotel across from Magic Hat, and I really liked what they had in comparison to what I was used to drinking (though I did get a few Northern Breweries beers back home before BIll sharpe ruined them). After that it was discovering the Granite and I haven;t gone back, except when friends throw parties and I think it would be rude to bring my own beer.