What can I say about beer? I
love beer. When I first started drinking beer I was like everyone else: I drank a lot of terrible light beer, I played beer pong...with terrible light beer, my beer drinking was limited to lagers and pilsners (and I didn't know what those were), and I didn't even think about getting something that was more expensive and/or different. This is not to say that I was against buying something more expensive and/or different, but I
was ignorant about what else was out there. That is how the great majority of beer drinkers are out there and I am sorry for them.
When I think back about how I first started to drink more diverse and better beers, it came very gradually and was not a sort of revelation for me. There is a Texas brewery down here (in Texas where I live) called Shiner and they have about five "flagship" beers (bock, hefeweizen, blonde, light, dunkelweizen) and they come out with seasonal beers and anniversary beers every year as well. None of them are what I'd call exceptional but some of them are very good. Trying out these different styles I'd say is what got me on the right track to start trying out the more diverse and fascinating beers.
Since then I've become a sort of beer connoisseur. I am fortunate to have parents who live in Alaska which just happens to have a number of microbreweries that are all extraordinary,
Midnight Brewing Company especially. One summer up there, I worked at a specialty beer and wine store. Over the span of the three months I worked there I tried 85 (I think that's the number) different beers. And oh, what a great summer that was. At my apartment, I have a portion of my beer collection on shelves on my walls. Here, I'll show you,
That's over 120 beers up there - and that's not all of them, if you recall the 85 I tried up in Alaska - divided to where they are from in the world. I try to get something new and interesting about two or three times a month and I'll review them (if you're a friend of mine on Facebook then you might have read them).
So, what's your story?