What is the beer that changed your life?

Question

what was your "epiphany beer"? the beer that made you realize that beer is just beer anymore. that beer can be more than just something to get you "S" faced. the beer that made it okay to pay more because it's worth it. the beer that lead you to search out other high quality beers? what was your "epiphany beer"?

mine was stone arrogant b*****d ale. some guy at a party asked me if i could hold it for him in my cooler while he went to the bathroom but he never came back. about an hour and a half later, after i was done with all my beers, his was the only one left. it wasn't open and i'd never seen it before. so i figured no sense in wasting beer and i opened it, after the first taste...everything changed...

Answer 1

Anchor Steam.  It's the best damned beer I've ever had the pleasure to actually enjoy the taste of.

Answer 2

umm Keystone. its good and cheap.. i prefer 40s over them

Answer 3

i guess the first really good beer i ever had was sam adams cream stout and since then guinness now i love beer and i love trying new beers

Answer 4

I think I have an unusual beer history.  Mainly since I waited until I was 21 to begin drinking, and even then I was closer to 22.

Anyways, I've never had Bud/Miller/Coors, anything similar to that, or any light beers.  The closest would be Killian's, and that's not a bad beer.

My first beer was Sam Adams Summer Ale.  I moved on from there, Samuel Smith's IPA, Sam Adams Black Lager, Harpoon IPA.  Never really drank them to get drunk, that's what liquor is for.  Then I tried converting a few friends stuck in Coors land.  They were impressed by my findings and quickly joined me in a quest for good beers.  Together, we found a lot.  As well as fairly standard stuff like Sierra Nevada and Newcastle, there was a night that 3 of us split Ommegang Abbey Ale, North Coast Brother Loni, Stone Smoked Porter, St. Bernardus Abt 12, Rogue Chocolate Stout, Rogue Shakespeare Stout, Bear Republic IPA, and Victory Storm King (which we were interested in because of Victory Hop Devil).  Granted, we were drunk that night.  And that was months after we found Stone Arrogant b*****d, purely by chance.  The store had 2 of them left.  

... Now, if I know someone who wants to drink good beer, I'll suggest a Sam Adams Black Lager, Newcastle, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  All really easy to find, good beers, easy to like even if you're a BMC faithful.

Answer 5

Pint of Guinness.  It's what introduced me to the Boston drinking scene... and I've been missing it since leaving two years ago.

Answer 6

the best beer that I've had has to be Framboise Lambic which is a raspberry belgian beer. I haven't been able to find it since I had it at a bar at college... someday... someday...

Answer 7

Bud.....  The wife said if I drank that sh*t she would divorce me.

I been divorced 25 years now

Answer 8

Lagunitas IPA, it led me to even better IPAs like the one from Stone Brewing Co.

Answer 9

Flying Fish Hopfish, an IPA. It's not a great beer but it is so much better than the swill I had been drinking that I went on a quest to try as many beers as I could.