This month’s Session is hosted by Steve Lamond at Beer’s I’ve Known. The topic is “beery guilty secrets.”
I am a man without a beer epiphany. At least one of the aha sort.
I don’t remember the what, when or where of my first beer. Or my first “better” beer. Or my first “craft” beer.
That’s my beer confession. I don’t feel guilty about this. Just a little embarrassed. It seems that since I’ve been around to report on much of what has happened within niche beer the last 20 years that I should recall that first xxxxxx beer in xxxxxx bar in xxxxxx city.
Instead I realize I come from a different time (before New Albion Brewing; or before CAMRA) and a different place (central Illinois). The beer options changed gradually. The quality of imported (mostly German) beer in the bottle was all over the map, but on draft it was definitely a step up from Stroh’s at $11.15 a case (inflation adjusted) and Michelob (on draft, which I only drank if somebody else was buying). And some year along the away I remembered that Sierra Nevada Celebration tasted pretty good last year and was back again.
That’s why, for me, the guilty pleasure will still be the next beer I drink.
I don’t know about a confession. That might make many a beer nerd jealous. That’s the beer transformation that comes with experience. It’s slow and methodical. It’s wise. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t think I can pin down a particular epiphany either! Thanks for the contribution Stan.
Me too. Beer just slowly got better.
There were a few early high points — one used to be Anchor Christmas beer release day in SF in the late 70s, when we would run to the store after Thanksgiving to see what it was like this year. There was the summer when small town brew pubs starting adding a porter to the light/amber/brown line-up and some were really good. What nice car camping and California weekend road trip distractions. There was a friend who suggested we go by the Toronado Barely Wine festival back in the 90s to try a different style of beer, and that opened a door of awareness to the world of competitions and serious tasting, but I can’t tell you who won that year. I just know I liked the second place much better and wanted to know what the criteria of the judges could possibly be. Then there was the first flight of sour beers. Interesting, and kind of appealing, but it took some return visits to fall in love with the Lambic family. So no mountaintop moment.
There were more moments of happy discovery, and they continue. They are little epiphanies, ongoing, like a long hike along a high ridge, rather than one big trip to the summit.
Thanks for making me feel like less of a freak!