This edition of The Session is sponsored by Boak and Bailey.
how did it all start for you?
Continuing the “Beervangelism” theme, we’d like you to write about the moment when you saw the light. At what point did you realise you were a beer lover / geek / enthusiast? What beer(s) triggered the conversion? Did someone help you along your way, or did you come to it yourself?
In short; how did you get into good beer?
It was a gradual process. There certainly wasn’t a day where I proclaimed: “From this day forward, I will drink only good beer!”
There are, however, two moments in time that represent significant milestones in my journey.
Blech!
My first experiences with beer came from my father. He worked hard, then spent his evenings and weekends working hard around the house. As the oldest and a son, it fell on my shoulders to be his assistant very much of the time. After working so hard he would reward himself with a beer or two. As I got older, he’d share his beer with me and, later, would let me have one of my own. It’s what men did. (Note to Neo-Prohibitionists: Never once in my youth did I ever see my Dad be anything but absolutely responsible with alcohol. I learned early on how to enjoy it.)
My Dad was originally a Schaefer man. As that became more scarce, and he got older, he switched to other things, but always your basic, well-known light American lager. As I started to strike out on my own I, of course, needed to blaze a trail of my own. Miller Genuine Draft was new and their marketing was edgy and hip, so that’s what my friends and I latched on to. Then, as I started working for a living, I started “moving up”. Corona was a treat; expensive as hell and you put a lime in it! Molson was an option; we loved the McKenzie brothers, eh? Heineken…well, maybe not. Okay, once or thrice.
I’m a child of the media, what can I say? I was doing a lot of driving to and from work, and my car stereo was pretty crappy, so I was listening to a lot of radio. Jim Koch, that self-described “golden-throated pitch man” was on the radio a lot at that time, so I started buying Sam Adams Boston Ale. Pete’s Wicked Ale was in the cooler next to it, and how could I not choose a beer with a name like that?
And then, it happened.
I don’t know what the occasion was. A barbecue, a party, something. I do remember that there was MGD there. Ah, I thought. My old stand-by. So, I had one.
That’s…hmm…not what I expected. Is something wrong with it? I must be imagining things.
Then it happened again.
Then I was at a party where there was Miller Genuine Draft and Sam Adams. I had an MGD. Then I had a Sam Adams. And, as if I were surrounded by a chorus of Angels, I had an epiphany: Not all beer is the same.
Wow, that’s geeky
The second milestone came some time later.
Ron, Max, Don and I get together every October to get caught up with each others’ lives, play video games, and drink beer. Our S.O.P. for some time has been that each guy brings four different six-packs of something interesting, we put them all in coolers, and just enjoy. While we ran around pixelated worlds trying to shoot one another with virtual weapons, we’d each go to a cooler, pick something out, pour it in a glass, and declare whether it was a hit or miss.
One year, probably six or seven years ago, I suggested that we should rate the beers we had and keep track. The beers that we all liked, therefore, would be ones we would seek out more often. After all, the beers we all brought with us weren’t the ones we usually drank and, in the past, I’d had trouble remembering which were the ones we’d liked.
So, we did. Later, while I was drinking a beer and thinking about how I would put together the spreadsheet to track these things it hit me: What a singularly geeky thing to do.
Those are only two milestones on a long road. Heck, I’ve been calling myself a beer geek for years. And I haven’t even mentioned what may be the most telling moment of all: Starting a blog to talk about beer.
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