What beer opened your eyes?

[weithman5]

The beer i had this morning whilst fixing breakfast

actually i too was a big fan of henry weinhard as well as - wait for it-  Rainer dark, which i could only find in the wheel house tavern in bremerton wa

[rjharper]

I honestly can't remember.  I think it was more like I found homebrewing and then started looking around for good beer.

+1.  Same for me.  Learning how to make beer led me to better beer

[punatic]

This is going back to the "dark" ages.  Schlitz Dark on tap at my favorite pizzaria.  In the early 70s I was yearning for beer that had some flavor.  Schlitz dark, back then (IIRC) was a pretty damn good beer.  My friends and I would get tuned up on pizza, dark, & doobs, and then go next door to the footsball parlor and play footsball "fo days!"

Perhaps it might have happened even earlier.  My dad and I used to watch baseball on TV together when I was just a wee lad.  Dad used to send me to the frig to fetch him a can of Ballentine IPA.  My reward for the effort was a sip.

Certainly the beginning of my homebrew (modern) era was when my parents lived in Bavaria in the 80s.  I fell in love with Bayerisch weissbier.  Truth be told I fell in love with a plethora of European beers, but it was the lack of fresh Bayerisch weissbier in the States that got me started homebrewing.

[Joe Sr.]

Reading through all this, I can remember buying Grant's Celtic Ale at American Liquors on Clark Street.

They did not keep it in the cooler, but in a stack on the right in the rear.

American is long since closed (too many sales to minors) and my daughters now take ballet in the old store front.

Grant's were a favorite back then.  Wish I could still get some.

We drank a lot of Grant's, Rogue, Guinness, Harp, Bass, Hacker-Pschorr and Sam Adam's back then.  I couldn't say which opened my eyes, but the Grant's is the most memorable.

[The Professor]

This is going back to the "dark" ages.  Schlitz Dark on tap at my favorite pizzaria.  In the early 70s I was yearning for beer that had some flavor.  Schlitz dark, back then (IIRC) was a pretty damn good beer.  ...Perhaps it might have happened even earlier.  My dad and I used to watch baseball on TV together when I was just a wee lad.  Dad used to send me to the frig to fetch him a can of Ballentine IPA.  My reward for the effort was a sip.

I'm with you on the Schlitz Dark...during my college years 40 years ago, whenever I got dragged to a Pizza Hut or Shakey's I was always happy that there was a dark beer on the taps  to kill the taste of what was usually fairly  lousy pizza.  LOL!  (usually it was Schlitz, though occasionally Pabst,  Miller, and others also sometimes showed up in these places).

A nit-picky side note, however... The canned Ballantine your dad let you sip  was their standard XXX  (a very good ale indeed back in those days).  Ballantine's famous IPA, however,  was never sold in cans.

[beersk]

I got started on beers like Newcastle and Boddington's, but the eye-opener was New Belgium 1554.  I think I had it for the first time sometime in late 2004 or early 2005 before I made my maiden voyage out to Colorado to drink good beer at New Belgium, Odell, Fort Collin's Brewery, and Estes Park brewery.  I was only 21 as I hadn't started really drinking anything until the previous summer.

[aubeertine31]

For me it was going to college in Portland, ME. Me and my roommates scoured beer stores looking for the coolest beer caps. This led to lots of tastings and trying out some local brew pubs like Sebago, Gritty's, and Shipyard.

[theDarkSide]

$.10 Genessee drafts on Tuesday night, downtown Burlington, VT in the 80's...no wait, those were the eye-closers.

Sam Adams Boston Lager in the early 1990's.  Back then I couldn't tell you the difference between the Boston Lager and Boston Ale, except they had different labels.

[punatic]

A nit-picky side note, however... The canned Ballantine your dad let you sip  was their standard XXX  (a very good ale indeed back in those days).  Ballantine's famous IPA, however,  was never sold in cans.

Right you are.  I asked my dad and he says he drank XXX and IPA back in the day.  My memories are of him opening cans, but the church key had a bottle opener on it too.  Guess I musta forgot about the bottles.  I liked the way the cans hissed when punctured by the can opener. Sometimes a big bubble would slowly form over the holes.  Dad was amazed that I remember that long ago.

I do remember the Balantine's commercials during the ballgames too.  Beer & baseball...  does it get any better than that?

[morticaixavier]

$.10 Genessee drafts on Tuesday night, downtown Burlington, VT in the 80's...no wait, those were the eye-closers.

Sam Adams Boston Lager in the early 1990's.  Back then I couldn't tell you the difference between the Boston Lager and Boston Ale, except they had different labels.

let me guess, ackes place? did youcatch and The Wards shows back then? Man I always wished I had.

[stihler]

Many many years ago (i.e. the early 80's) I was an American piss water pilsner drinker.

Being a Michigander my beer of choice was Stroh's, of course. Stroh's was a fine beer but it was still an American piss water pilsner. What can I say? At the time I did not know better.

Each spring Stroh's released their version of a bock beer. I tried it and was smitten.  It was interesting and flavorful and showed me there was more to beer than just your standard pilsner.

Of course, this beer was nothing like a true bock but it was a good introduction to flavorful beer. This led me to trying genuine bocks and other imports. A whole new world of beer opened up to me.

I was a student so, of course, I continued to drink American pislners but I did know better and when funds permitted I purchased imports from time to time.

Then there was craft beer revolution and I became a homebrewer in 1991. The die was set and I never looked back. I haven't had an American piss water pilsner for about 17 years. Why bother when there are so many more flavorful beers out there?

Stroh's bock changed my life. Kind of scarey, huh?

- Scott Stihler
  Fairbanks, Alaska

[The Professor]

....Stroh's bock changed my life. Kind of scarey, huh?

Only a little bit. 
Back in the college days (1970-75)   I drank a fair amount of Pabst, Schaefer, and Ballantine bock beers.
They were all pretty good, too, especially the Pabst version.

I took some good natured ribbing for my beer choices back then  ("...why can't you drink normal beer???" ), BUT...I 'm proud to say that the PBR Bocks that I handed to some of my friends back then actually got them thinking outside the usual choices of the day.

[ibru]

I recall going to Bert Grant's Pub in Yakima and enjoying the Imperial Stout, IPA and especially the cask conditioned Scottish Ale. What a treat! Twenty customers was a packed house. I was working sales in Yakima in those days. We'd go there for lunch, a couple beers and play darts. A few years later they moved accross the street into the depot. It was much bigger and fancier but the quality of the beer was never the same after that.

Next would have to be trips to Bend and drinking Mirror Pond. Still love that beer....

[chumley]

When I was in college (1979-1986) I usually drank cheap, but did enjoy "the nicer beers" at the time, which were Henry Weindhardt, Rainier Dark, and the occasional Anchor Steam.  I moved to Pennsylvania for work in 1986, where I still bought cheap beer (cases of Lionshead and Lord Chesterfield Ale for under $10).

My "aha" moment came in 1988, while I was working on a project in Easton, PA.  I went to some German restaurant, and they had Pilsner Urquell on tap.  Wow. I started drinking better after that, and homebrewing in 1990.

[punatic]

....Stroh's bock changed my life. Kind of scarey, huh?

Only a little bit. 
Back in the college days (1970-75)   I drank a fair amount of Pabst, Schaefer, and Ballantine bock beers.
They were all pretty good, too, especially the Pabst version.

I remember being told by more than one person that bock beers were made by breweries when they did there annual brewery cleaning.  Bocks are made from all of the guck settled to the bottom of the fermentors.  Too funny!