A Brief Beer Story In My Life or Going From Big Box Beers to Craft Beer

 
My First experience with Beer that I can remember was High School. A Few friends and I paid another dude to buy some beer for us. The beer in question was Busch beer. Cheap “name brand” beer we could afford to buy in bulk, if you could call a 24 pack bulk.

We would hide it down on the salt marsh on the street we lived on and suck down the very warm beer before school dances. It was horrible. Not because it was Busch beer but because it was warm Busch beer.  I would guzzle it because let’s face it I just wanted the liquid courage from the can so I could talk to girls I would normally probably not have talked to or even asked to dance.
If I were famous, this would normally be the point in the story when I go to the reasons why I attend AA meetings, hit my low and made a glorious return like they do in most rock star books, but I ain’t no rock star. Although I had a low point in my life, I drank way too much I stopped (for a few years) and realized I could drink and not have to black out to enjoy life. Enough said. Way too depressing, life is too short not to enjoy.

Fast forward to my adult years and having my fill of Bud and Miller products as the “go to” beer, I stepped out of the big box comfort zone one day and had a Samuel Adams. It was something completely different. The beer had taste, real taste not at all like the watered down crap I had been drinking (sorry Bud, Miller, Coors) As life flung me forward even more I slowly tried smaller craft beers, IPAs, lagers, ales, porters, and stouts of all types. I discovered the good the bad and the ugly. (the ugliest coming on a trip to Spain where the beer was so unbearable I started drinking wine. It would actually make the big box beers seem to have taste.)

As seasons passed marked by the season beers of Sam Adams, and the occasional Guinness on St Patty’s day or trying a six pack of some new beer, a friend of mine from my Air Force days and still a good friend now started brewing his own. Some was good, others even better (to be honest I believe he had one type I did not like and that was because he was trying to match a Miller lite style beer for his dad)

I believe he liked that I was honest with it, in laymans terms I would tell him less after taste, or something that was nice about it or even I did not like about it. . I remember one night watching a UFC pay per view he brought a Sam Adams specialty brew and some of his own. At the start of the night if he said you will only like one of these I would have bet on the Sam Adams but on this occasion I liked his brew better.

I wanted to try and create my own Lager's Ales and stouts. I asked Rob if he would teach me the basics of brewing, although I have started to research it myself, I am better at doing than I am reading and following instructions myself to get started in anything. Once I have the basics down it becomes a lot easier for me to follow instructions (or recipies) myself.

So my journey into brewing was officially on.....To be continued