What beer(s) got you into craft beer?

ronnie3585

I was discussing this with a mate over a few brews in the Salthouse recently and I thought it would be interesting to see how people here got into craft beer.

For me, I don’t think it was any one beer that turned me onto craft beer, it was more of a gradual process that happened as I got to the end of my college days. Like a lot in college, I drank purely for impact and had nothing but the usual slop from Anheuser-busch and Diageo. I grew fairly weary of that and initially started dabbling in Belgians. When I moved to Dublin I had easy access to Drinkstore in Stoneybatter and that was when my interest was really sparked. I’ve always like stout so I stuck to that and dark ales to begin with. Two beers in particular stand out in my memory were Narwhal and Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale, which was still being imported here at the time. I remember those being real game changers and on a different planet in comparison to anything I had drank before.

At that stage I really had no interest in IPAs, I didn’t really like the bitterness. All that changed with a trip to the east coast of the US. A friend who we visited in New Haven, Connecticut brought us to a local craft beer pub. They had Dogfish Head 90min and Ballast Point Sculpin on tap - it was life changing! I spent the rest of the trip drinking awesome IPAs, the Cambridge Brewing Company in Boston had some mind blowing stuff. Since then, for me, the hoppier the better!

L1011

Many years ago my traditional first-drink-of-the-next-day on heavy weekeneds (which don't happen any more) was Smithwicks - when that was unavailable somewhere I was recommended Brewdog 5am which couldn't be any more different really. That started it.

I had been 'encouraged' to drink Harveys whenever I was in Brighton for football but never took to it - still haven't.

dan1895

Visited a craft brewery in Greymouth New Zealand a few years ago. The free samples given out were all so different from each other and everyone on the tour was conversing about the different beers which made me curious about ones I hadn't sampled yet.
As I was travelling at the time I was well up for trying new foods and drinks but this brewery really opened my eyes and tastesbuds to how good beer can really taste.

catbear

dan1895 wrote: »

Visited a craft brewery in Greymouth New Zealand a few years ago.

Montieths? If so what an absolutely beautiful beer, especially the double velvet stout!!!!!!
They had a good few brewery pubs around, got smashed in their Hamner Springs pub.
Little known fact but Greymouth and Westport to the north were mostly settled by miners mostly from Ireland, the Castlecomer mines in particular. It would be great if they could make something of that and enter the Irish market.

Mesrine65

Punk IPA

slayerking

Chimay Rouge.

Long before I could even stomach hop bombs, Belgians & wheat-y beers were the gateway beers for me.

brevity

Mesrine65 wrote: »

Punk IPA

Ya, Punk IPA for me as well. I don't really drink it anymore though...

eurokev

English ales did it for me. I still like the occasional hobgoblin.

Carawaystick

Darcy's stout.

I lived in a house with a brewer from the brewery for a month or 2

eyeball kid

Worked over in London 10 years ago and really liked trying the variety of different ales in each of the pubs. That experimenting always stayed with me and was always on the lookout for something different since.

Lovely Bloke

I also had an epiphany in Monteith's in Greymouth about ten years ago. Weird.

When I got back to Ireland there was really only The Porterhouse, Messrs and the rebadged Fran Well beers in the B&C and Gingerman.

Tesco did a limited range of stuff like Fullers and I just kept going from there.

I resisted the call of the hop for ages, sticking mainly to malt forward styles like reds and stouts. Never thought that one day I'd be able to enjoy hop bombs.

Helps that my Mrs is into them too. I know some lads who won't go to particular bars because they don't serve "girly" drinks that their wives like.

Trond

Having a friend living in Belgium helped move me and my taste buds away from the mass produced crap.

I always liked stout and made a point of tasting as many as I could (granted that wasn't a lot 7-8 years ago!).

tang1

Started off on Eastern European lagers like Budvar then progressed onto wheat beer Erdinger, Hooegarden etc. Was in Diceys Off Licence in Ballyshannon one evening with the misus when I seen Kinnegar Scraggy Bay, that's where my fondness for IPA's started and it's still my favourite one.

White Horse

I was down in Dublin for a football match and someone took me to the Porterhouse. I had a pint of Wrasslers and could not believe that I had been drinking muck for years and thinking it was great stout.

quadrifoglio verde

Five years ago I had my very first Pont of erdinger at the Christmas market down at chq and I couldn't get over how tasty it was compared to what I had been drinking before that, mainly heiniken, Budweiser and Bavaria

Took me two years to be able to enjoy drinking IPAs.
I've been fortunate to know only tasty beers for the 5 of the 6 years I've been drinking

tony 2 tone

What really started it for me was Leann Follain, couldn't go back to Guinness after that.

catbear

tony 2 tone wrote: »

What really started it for me was Leann Follain, couldn't go back to Guinness after that.

Yeah, O'Hara's finished me with Guinness too. I actually prefer their regular stout though.

Edit to add: someone told me that O'Hara's supply Aldi under a secondary label which I can't remember the name of but which I have tried and it's very reasonable for about €1.70. However it hard to beat 4 O'Hara's for €9 in Dunnes; I'm stocked up for festivus.

Losty Dublin

My slippery slope started in 1993 when I was 17. My Dad was visiting the pub that he drank in before he moved to Dublin and having been warned off drinking Sonny's keg beer, I noticed on the shelf these red half pint bottles of a strange beer called McArdles. I tried one and, having deduced that it was a lot nicer than Smithwicks, the one became several and a taste developed.

A few months later in Carville's of Camden Street, I saw a beer called Smithwicks Barley Wine. It cost my school going self £1.49 but it too was spots over anything else I'd tried. It was hard to come by and, then contenting with Newcastle Brown Ale, my local off licence McCormacks on the SCR arrived in with some weird beers. There was cheaply priced Theaskons Bitter and bottles such as German Fransikaner, Belgium's Duvel and even an US lager called Samuel Adams. At this stage, knowing that something better than Harp or Guinness was out there I was hooked and wanted more.

And then by chance, a Sunday paper article informed me of a body who ran beer festivals in England. After writing to said body, a copy of CAMRA's What's Brewing landed in my letterbox and led me to an antique dealer in town, David Carlyle, who was their man in Ireland. He told me about a soon to be opened pub in Dublin that would brew it's own beer; the Porterhouse duly opened and my life was changed forever

dan1895

Yep Monteiths was the one

murphyebass

tang1 wrote: »

Started off on Eastern European lagers like Budvar then progressed onto wheat beer Erdinger, Hooegarden etc. Was in Diceys Off Licence in Ballyshannon one evening with the misus when I seen Kinnegar Scraggy Bay, that's where my fondness for IPA's started and it's still my favourite one.

very similar to this..

For me it was Erdinger and Warsteiner (probably spelling that wrong)
Then onto Paulaner as it became available.
Then 5pm Saint and Punk...

The rest as they say is history.

We're very lucky now in offi's and pubs that you have a choice.

Back in the 90's to get the above was tough in particular outside of Dublin.

BeerNut

Porterhouse Red, probably: drank loads of it around 1996-1997. Then the usual route through Erdinger, Hoegaarden, the trappists and beyond.

murphyebass

BeerNut wrote: »

Porterhouse Red, probably: drank loads of it around 1996-1997. Then the usual route through Erdinger, Hoegaarden, the trappists and beyond.

Jaysus forgot about porterhouse red. Enjoyed plenty of pints of that when I moved to the big smoke. Probably before or in and around the time I found Brewdog.

SlipperyPeople

hoegaarden on christmas eve when I was 17.

Always gone for something different from your usual diageo suspects if its on the menu since then.

Herb Powell

I never drank before I was 18, so I was never really into the whole pisshead scene. I was curious about the different types of beer available, so I started trying as many different kinds as I could, I never "switched over" from the normal lagers really.

The first one I remember being blown away by was Hoegaarden. Still a favourite of mine tbh, though I've been told the recipe is nowhere near as good as it used to be. I've liked pretty much any style I've tried, save for those god awful beers labelled "porter" in Europe. They taste like flat coke.

Bulbous Salutation

Galway Hooker. My local got it in around 8 years ago. I'll try some of that I thought. Still enjoy a few pints of it.

Insect Overlord

Cobra was the first beer that got me to think outside of Bulmers. Tried Asahi and Galway Hooker shortly after that, and then Shepherd Neame 1698.

Hoegaarden and Leffe opened the door to Belgium, then Erdinger and Fischers got my to try German, and Trouble Brewing got me into Irish stuff. That's all since 2010. Still not a fan of lager though. :P

pa990

Hoegaarden, the glass made me try it.
Followed by duvel, kwak etc

Technocentral

I used to work nearby in 98/99 so going to Porterhouse Temple Bar back then and trying their beers and other ones they stocked made me realise what I'd been drinking for years like carlsberg and smitwicks was piss.

tomhalloween

Hobgoblin and speckled hen in the late 90s

WeeBushy

For me it was Little Creatures Pale Ale.

At the time I lived in Perth, Aus and their brewery and bar were fairly close by, I tried it as it was a cool bar and a local beer, and was blown away by how tastey it was. I had barely heard of craft beer and gave it no more thought than that I had found a tastey beer.

It was only a good few months later that a friend who was a very good homebrewer (who now brews for fourpure in London, incidentally), said he'd brew a batch for a party I was having, and I helped him out. That really got me interested in beer in general, and he introduced me to the concept of good beer vs crap mass produced beer.

I now live in England and have a very good local off licence with a very passionate owner, so he's introduced me to more new beers and styles. Still trying to get him to stock Irish craft beers but distribution is a big stumbling block.

He had some little creatures pale ale in a few months ago and I was delighted that I enjoyed it as much now as when I first had it. That beer brought back a lot of good memories!

poitinstill

my first break from the usuals was Erdinger in the Raven in Cork and also Wattau belgian ale ...same time as Breo was out too , think i liked it.
i travelled a fair bit around europe and would always drink local as it = cheaper than heiniken etc. Also have been in and around the Fran well since its opening week. coors/nocoors its still improving ( bar the jax).

andekwarhola

Seems like my path was very similar to a lot of others. Was mainly a Guinness and occasional lager drinker. Went for stuff like Duvel, Hoegarden, Erdinger, Maisels Weisse or stuff in the Porterhouse whenever I got the chance. When I had kids, I got more into home drinking (which I hardly ever did before that) and started trying out the Tesco (when they first started doing a 5 for 10 euro) range: all the stuff like Proper Job, Fullers, O'Haras etc. After that, the timing was good as I discovered the good off licences here and the Irish craft scene as it expanded.

yknaa

Spotted the zombie thread on Dublin Brewing Company. Really enjoyed No.1 Brew back in the day. One of my early introductions to craft beer.

matrim

I used to occasionally drink porterhouse beers around 2000-2002 but mostly stuck with the lager (Chiller) or occasionally oyster stout but what really got me started down the route was when I worked in an off-license for about 6 months in 2005. They had a fridge with loads of belgian beers and english ales. We used to get a free beer when closing up so I made it a mission to try everything in the fridge.

I really liked the beers and then started to experiment with the Irish beers such as O'Haras, Messers and more of the Porterhouse range and really haven't looked back since.

BeerNut

yknaa wrote: »

Spotted the zombie thread on Dublin Brewing Company. Really enjoyed No.1 Brew back in the day. One of my early introductions to craft beer.

That was the Irish Brewing Co., in Newbridge. DBC's lager was called Beckett's.

Bigcheeze

Probably Sam Adams about 7-8 years ago. I was fascinated that it said lager on the label but was tasty so I started trying anything new that I could get my hands on.

theteal

I saw Porterhouse Red mentioned earlier in the thread. I worked on Grafton Street for years back in the day and had many pint of that good stuff after a crap shift - I never even considered it to be "craft", it was just nice and something different.

squonk

Hard to pinpoint for me where it started. Like virtually everyone I started out on Diageo's finest back in the day. I was always adventurous tastewise and when Breo came out I tried it and liked it. That gave me the apreciation for wheat beers but it was later trips to Belgium to visit some friends that got me drinking good beers. I devleoped a taste for Hoegaarden then and, maybe around the same time or a bit earlier I also got a tste for Guinness Tucan Brew which seemed tasty enough at the time stout wise. Also in the late 90's I was in and out of the Porterhouse often enough and really liked the Porterhouse Red. From there it was onto Messrs as a regular spot so I think that started to cement my tastes for different beers. I only trully got seriously into the craft scene from 2010 onwards when I moved to Galway and found the Salthouse. It kicked my interst in various beer varieties into overdrive.