I like lots of beers, but by no means a "snob". I hate beer wordsmiths that stink up my buzz with their hops-this and ferment-that. FUCK. OFF. It's weird, but the "cheap" beers up here never actually crossed my mind when I first started drinking yon Nectar Of Thee Gods. None of my friends liked the college beers like Lucky, Wildcat or the beers with "Lake" in the title (I think Lakeport Pilsner is the best cheap beer up here). So I went with patriotic native beers to start my near 19-year love affair. I started off in high school with Labatt Genuine Draft and Labatt Copper. In college, it was Labatt Blue and Moosehead. I would always love Moosehead after the first time I tried it. Just after that time I started drinking Corona, which is presently my favourite beer (I know. Blow me.). Now, I have a slew of beers that I love: Corona, Moosehead, ALWAYS Rolling Rock in the States (I have a case in my friedge right now as I type this yessssssssss), Labatt Blue Light, Mill St. Stock Ale, Big Rock Warthog Ale, Big Rock X/O Lager, Miller Genuine, Alexander Keith's Pale Ale, Stella, all beers that I love. However, there isn't a free beer I won't turn down if offered to me in somebody's house. Not even O.V. That shit is in the Bible.
Started out drinking Bud, Coors, moved onto Heineken blah blah blah. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale changed my taste. I had one and my palate was overwhelmed. Never tasted hops like that before, never had an amber ale with a thicker body like that where the flavors of the individual malts are so precise. Still dig that beer. My tastes are all over, I'll drink any style. They all have their place. Now, it's mainly Yuengling for price and taste. Bell's Amber would be my go to beer if it wasn't twice as expensive. Solid session beer that doesn't blast you with too much hop; perfectly balanced. My biggest problem with craft beer is how goddamn over priced it is. Drinking well shouldn't be a privilege. Second, there are so many redundant beers. For every amazing IPA there are 50 that taste identical or worse. Some fantastic breweries doing God's work though. Olfabrikken, Bell's, Dogfish, Stone, Cigar City (HOLY FUCK try that), Orval, Westvleteren, Chimay, Pannepot, Great Divide (really haven't had a bad beer from them), Spaten. My favorite seasonal is out. If you find it, get it. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin. 8%, tastes like real pumpkin pie and not some extract flavoring. I have massive boners for this thing. It's one thing not to appreciate poopy beer, but the skill it takes to churn out 100 million barrels that taste identical is mind blowing. One little thing like an infected batch, a few degrees off temperature, yeast that doesn't activate, bacteria, etc would render a significant amount of beer unusable, considering the mash tuns at Budweiser are about the size of a house. It's kind of funny the highest paid and respected brewmasters in the world are producing some of the most loathed by the craft beer community. Still, mad props to those guys. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogue3w/2301460081/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogue3w/2301460081/</a> I want to swim in that.
Oh, you Americans/Canadians complaining about beer prices are so cute. Here, the cheapest pint in most pubs is $11. A carton of Stella costs $50... on special. ($65 normally). Something actually good? Yeah, $75+/carton. I came late to beer, partly because my worthless friends drank Tooheys New for years, presumably as a result of some birth defect ruining their sense of taste. I'm trying to think how best to describe it, but words fail me, almost as badly as their taste testers. Garbage. Throughout Uni I drank a lot of Stella, Becks, and Heineken, because they had the best price/inoffensiveness ratio. I'll still drink the odd pint of Stella in a bar where there's nothing better, and I don't mind Heineken for beer pong, but Becks tastes like the sweaty asscrack of a long distance runner with a severe yeast infection to me now. In my serious drinking years, I struggled to achieve the blackout drunk I required from typical beer and moved to Coopers Vintage. 7.5% ABV doesn't sound like all that much, but it was devastatingly effective. Unfortunately at $90/carton, it didn't come cheap, but my close friend worked in the same bottleshop where my Dad was on a first name basis with the owner, so I was usually getting it for about $55. I still enjoy this to this day, but it's a heavy winter beer, and mostly in winter I drink Scotch or bourbon. When I got my first grown up job, I had huge disposable income, and I drank mostly Belgian beers brewed by Trappist monks in an abbey. Seriously. Oh man. I love, love, love this beer. Chimay is just unbelievably good. The Triple is my favourite, and I highly recommend this beer to everyone, for every circumstance, including pregnant women and children. It's just that good. It sells for $10/bottle here, so now I rarely drink it, but I went to Belgium a couple of years back and every bar I went to had this on tap for about $3. I was in heaven. I'm salivating just thinking about it. At $186/carton though, it's not an everyday drink unless you are rich, or young and fiscally irresponsible. Now, I'm not really a beer drinker. My all time favourite beer, Trumer Pils, is hard to find, and my 2nd favourite, Pilsner Urquell, damn near impossible, so I don't bother much these days. (If you go to Prague, I swear PU own the town. Every restaurant, building, sporting event, etc, is sponsored by PU, and they all sell it. In litre jugs. Prague is fucking awesome.) I keep a carton of Henninge/Hahn Super Dry/Corona in the fridge because bbqing / swimming in the pool just doesn't feel right with a bourbon instead of a beer, and I occasionally play beer pong with them (although truthfully I prefer wine-in-a-box and lemonade for beer pong.) Hmm. I have to say though, after reading this thread, I'll probably grab some for old time's sake and rekindle a lost love. Cheers!
At 36, I'm still acquiring a taste for bitter piss water. It helps that I've finally tried out some decent beers/ales in the last few years, such as Chimay Blue. That stuff ain't bad (if a bit pricey).
In high school, I drank whatever was gotten from the convenience store that didn't card. Well, by didn't card I mean asked you if you were a cop, and then when you said no sold you the beer you wanted. In college, I tried pretty much everything. My two favorite beers at this point are the Flying Dog Raging Bitch and the Flying Dog Doggystyle. Both holy shit awesome beers, and the Raging Bitch will get you drunker than a skunk in half the time. Both are awesome, Flying Dog is my favorite brewery right now, followed by Southern Tier which also has a nice selection. But yeah, if you want something that'll get you drunk and tastes like heaven, get a Raging Bitch.
-Antipodean beer warning- 14-17 - anything I could get my hands on, although when I had a choice it was always Flame. Probably because it was cheap, 5.2% and tasted like water. 18-19 - I progressed more to cheap liquor once I was old enough to buy booze because I was still in the get-as-drunk-as-I-can-fast stage. If I was drinking beer, it was always cheap shit like tui and export gold. I never quite dropped to the double brown/tasman bitter level though. 20-22 - I started to move onto Monteith's and Macs beers more depending on whether I was at a DB or Lion bar. In the past six-seven years Montieth's has gone from a couple of boutique bars to pretty much anywhere DB beers are sold. I went from drinking golden constantly to pilsner constantly to original constantly. 23-now(25) - Monteith's Original has remained my staple beer if I can get hold of it, but occasionally I'll move to pilsners like Macs Hoprocker which is on tap more often. I've had a few nights at boutique beer bars since they started popping up, usually drinking pilsners (Moa, Tuatara, Emersons etc). In general I drink a lot more in bars now than I used to, probably because I work in the middle of town and it is more pub after work drinking than taking a box to a party drinking. I never got into dark beers at all. Beer snobs always look down their nose at me for this.
I was 15 when I had my very first beer, which was a VB, or Vomit Broth which is more descriptive of its true taste. Unfortunately this night I also drank half a bottle of Vodka and ended up passed out on a trampoline wallowing in my own filth. This led to a long standoff between myself and and the amber nectar (though for some reason I did still drink Vodka. Go figure). I eased my way into beer over the next few years, though never really enjoyed it and always preferred bourbon. I put this down to only being exposed to nasty cheap swill, which is completely understandable given we were nasty cheap teenagers and nobody ever had anything decent. I eventually moved on to European lagers, with Carlsberg being my go-to beer well into my early 20s. At this point I discovered Pale Ales, and the sweet delectable crack that is Little Creatures Pale Ale. I'm also partial to Fat Yak, who recently ran a brilliant promo where someone got to go to Mongolia to race a Yak (either themselves or sponsoring a local, their choice). The best value/taste beer for my money however, is Coopers Pale Ale. Around $40 a slab and I've yet to meet a beer drinker who doesn't find it at least decent. I now try to grab a new kind of beer on most bottle shop trips, and the best discovery I have recently made is BrewDog Punk IPA. They're a Scotland-based brewery, with an amazing lineup of beers including a 41% IPA called Sink the Bismark. Unfortunately I've only found one other beer from them in Oz, though I hope to make it to Europe next year and will be happy to detour to Scotland solely to drink my face off at one of their bars.
I'm not old enough to have developed much of a palate for specialty beers. I also didn't start off drinking beers--my first alcoholic love was port. I later moved onto whiskey and wine, and even later, beer. This being said, I really love Yuengling (it's better draft, but it's my go-to beer when I buy a case). I also like Amber Bock. I won't turn down a Bud or Miller Lite or whatever, but I never purchase them for myself.
I had my first beer at 14 which was a warm Budweiser. High School: Mostly Coors light or PBR (I grew up in Wyoming, we didn't know hipsters even existed). College: I went to college in Denver and drank a ton of New Belgium, O' Dell's, Left Hand, and Great Divide stuff. Left Hand Milk Stout is awesome and would highly recommend it. Everyone in Colorado has a hard on for New Belgium but some of their stuff gave me terrible hangovers. Also, Fat Tire may be the most overrated beer I've ever had. If you like wheat beers O' Dell's Easy Street is awesome (drank a ton of it). I had my first Guinness in college and it has become my go to beer. The bar in the ice arena where I played rec hockey had two dollar Molson pitchers at happy hour after our games so I guess I went through a two year Molson phase. Now: I've always got some Guinness in the fridge. I've been drinking a lot of Shiner beers lately and Killian's due to the fact that Killians is the same price as bud and coors at a bar I frequent.
I walked in to my first bar in Sydney and ordered a Bud Light. After a hearty laugh from the bartender and surrounding patrons, I was served a pint of VB and told it should be made my drink of choice while visiting Australia (do as the Romans do). After pint number two, I began to wonder if the water was bad in NSW and had somehow fucked with everyone's taste buds. That shit is terrible. The best beer I had in Australia was XXXX, by far. FOCUS: Bud light was my go-to beer for years, mainly because it seemed to be the beer that everyone drank, therefore was always available at parties. Plus, it doesn't taste as bad as Miller and isn't as watered down as Coors Light. Now? Sign me up for the Sierra Nevada PA bandwagon. That shit is delicious. For anyone in the New England area, be sure to try Sarnac Oktoberfest while it's available. probably the best Oktoberfest I've had out of the store.
The only beer I've ever had that was worse than VB is XXXX, and I drank some terrible canned swill in New Orleans. Even Fosters is better than XXXX and nobody drinks that shit. I'm surprised they didn't give you a Tooheys-something in Sydney, that stuff isn't half bad, especially the darker Tooheys Old. Has anyone been to decent breweries in South America? I'm taking off for an extended backpacking holiday in a few months and would love to visit some good local breweries.
I had Tooheys New in Cairns. I think diving trips to the GBR and beautiful beaches took my mind away from the acrid taste. And I was told by an Aussie chick that ordering, of offering an Aussie a Fosters is a quick way to get hit in the teeth.
As of Friday night, I've quit drinking beers. I suspect my GI tract has a gluten issue, since I've been farting like a howitzer (not much stink but rather painful) a few hours after drinking beer for some time now, regardless of how much I've had and get beer shits soon after that. Looks like I'll have to drink vodka or rum now - I'm pretty sure neither of these has grain involved anywhere. BUT, when I did drink beer, I preferred Guinness or a pilsener (we can get the locally produced Hansa Pilsener, which I believe originated in the Netherlands, as well as Pilsener Urquell, since SABMiller owns it), but I'd drink Heineken. Miller Genuine Draught or Carling Black Label was in if money was tight. I will NOT touch Castle Lager, but Castle Milk Stout was pretty good, if difficult to get. When I was younger, though, I didn't drink beer at all - I used to drink schnapps, vodka or brandy - a bottle of Wellington Brandy was only about a dollar more than a six-pack of Black Label, and Russian Bear vodka was even cheaper than that and made you feel like death the next day. Now, it's rum or whiskey (I haven't died from farting from whiskey yet, so maybe I have no issues with that. Holding thumbs...)
Just a heads up, you do know that vodka is often distilled from grains? I'm hoping you aren't under the assumption that is distilled from potatoes.
I started with corona and lime. I didn't like beer at first, but it was a cheap drunk. Switched from that to Bud Select. Then I ran the gamut of macro brews: Bud Light, Coors Light, Natty Light, Keystone, Miller Light, then back to Coors Light. The only reason I don't still buy Coors Light is that the cans won't fit in the racks in the mini-fridge I have next to my bar. High Life is my bulk beer of choice now. I didn't really develop a taste for the nicer stuff until later, I'd say 19-20ish. Before I turned 21, I would drink whatever was available. Once I could legally buy on my own, I started with Fat Tire and tried the range of New Belgium. I immediately developed a taste for the darker stuff, which morphed into mainly IPAs and porters. Initially, I couldn't stand pale ales, or wheat ales. My taste buds settled into island lagers, bocks, amber ales, and pale ales. Longboard, Shiner, Newcastle, and Fire Rock are my favorite, widely-available ones in those categories. I'll enjoy the occasional Stone Smoked Porter or Hoegarden, but it's not something I stock my fridge with.
Like most beer drinkers, I started basic ant the worked my way up the food chain. First love was a local drop called Boags. Crisp hoppy beer that was only available in my home state, it’s since become a pretty big player nationwide. This is more to do with marketing than quality. It’s not a bad beer on a hot day when it’s ice cold, shits on the likes of Coors, Millers, Bud but those are pretty the much the same as sex in a kayak (Fucking close to water.) Now as a grown up beer drinker I like my big hoppy ales.
I used to drink Rolling Rock religiously. And that's not a metaphor. I worshiped at the shrine of Rolling Rock. That's because it was a great beer. It was still made in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and was owned by a microbrewery. And the kicker was that since it was so close, it was really cheap. But Budweiser bought the name, shipped the manufacture to New Jersey and changed the basic recipe. Since that I switched to Killians and then Sam Adams beers. I'd still be drinking Sam Adams if it wasn't so expensive. So now I drink Lord Chesterfields Ale from Yuengling.
I absolutely hate beer snobbery. You're welcome to enjoy schmancy beers, but don't look down on me because I don't enjoy it or feel like ordering something else that evening. Being in Pennsylvania opens up the door for a lot of regional beers that I really enjoy. I love summertime because it means Bell's Oberon is in stock. Their Two Hearted Ale is also quite good. The Great Lakes Eliot Ness is a fantastic lager. In undergrad we used to enjoy drinking Keystone Ice (higher alcohol content so you get more for your money!). I still enjoy it now and then. My standby has always been and always will be Yuengling though. It is always relatively inexpensive here, and you know every bar is going to have it. I just think it's a great no frills beer that still has a decent amount of taste. A bit of an anti-focus, but the one popular beer that I absolutely cannot drink is Guinness. I've never liked dark beers, and can't even bring myself to finish one glass. Anytime I'm at a pub I wind up getting a Harp, Bass or Killians in order to avoid ridicule. I remember when a friend's father took us out for drinks once and bought everyone a round of Guinness. I felt very bad, and tried very hard to force myself to do so, but I couldn't drink it. Strangely, I used to be able to do car bombs (until I had a particularly bad experience).
The first beer I actually got drunk on (as opposed to stealing sips from my dad's cans as a kid) was Miller High Life cans. It was the cheapest the store had, like $3 for a sixer. Throughout high school & college, it was pretty much whatever I could get that was cheap and had the highest ABV. Natural Ice, Bud Ice were always good. Then I got on a Milwaukee's Best & High Life kick to celebrate my white trashedness. When I was able to start going to bars I switched to Miller Lite, since the Beast isn't on tap around here. Now, I'm pretty much strictly Pale Ales and IPA's - with the occasional Belgian thrown in. Never like stouts or porters unless they're served with ice cream or a brownie - and I don't really like heavily roasted or malty beers. Can't stand brown ales. Some of my faves on rotation now: Deschutes Mirror Pond Deschutes Twilight (get it while you can, it's a summer seasonal and almost gone) Stone Pale, IPA, Cali-Belgique Kona Brewing Fire Rock Firestone Pale 31 New Belgium Hoptober (just came back, excellent beer) Oskar Blues - Dale's Pale Ale (it's in a can, but it's good - I promise) Lagunitas IPA Sierra Nevada Glissade Sam's Noble Pils (have to wait until next year for these two) Sam's Latitude IPA is a pretty solid beer as well AleSmith X Is Bell's really as good as I've heard? They don't distribute to the west coast, but I really want to try their beers. Feel free to ship me a case. And if you've never tried to figure those puzzles out on Lucky Lager caps, you don't know what you're missing.