Do you remember your first time? I do. I was, I think, 6 or 7 years old, and it was a horrible experience; I was crying by the end of it. I am, of course, speaking of beer. But before I get to that story, I’d like to talk about the so-called “epiphany beer”.
Epiphany beers is a great topic of conversation because it’s something you can talk about as long as your mind has been opened to the possibilities of flavour beyond what you would taste in bland mass-produced lagers that dominate the market. Chances are, whether that happened days or decades ago, you will still be able to remember how it was that you were thrust into this wonderful and occasionally weird world of craft beer. It’s one of those topics of conversation to which the answer can change radically from person to person, ranging from specific to vague. My story is one of the latter.
I’m notorious for trying to show off so it’s not unusual to hear me name-drop beers like Kwak or Arrogant Bastard when I’m talking about what got me into drinking better beers, but in the same sentence I might also drop an unexpected name: Stella Artois. Yep, you read right. In my early days of drinking, I tried a lot of different types of alcohol and lots of different types of beer, probably because I got easily bored and/or repulsed by the drinks that I had had up to that point. While I don’t hold it in any high regard these days, I do recall Stella being one of the first beers I tried that tasted different the ones that I’d been having. Not necessarily good, but certainly different. Suddenly, I was interested in finding out what was possible from this amber liquid rather than finding which ones wouldn’t make me retch. Don’t be fooled, though, because Stella wasn’t my epiphany beer; it was simply one of many firsts.
The fact is that it’s hard for me to pin my epiphany down to one particular beer. No one beer turned my world upside down; it was a gradual change. Stella Artois introduced me to a different flavour, yes, but it wasn’t Pauwel Kwak, which, on my first visit to the Belgian Beer Cafe, made me realise that beer could have a complex flavour profile and could be stronger than your standard 5.5% ABV. Nor was it Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard, which, at a random pub in San Diego, drew me in with its notorious label, blew my taste buds away with its aggressive bitterness, and brought the word “hoppy” into my vocabulary in the most spectacular fashion. And that’s not even the end of it, because there are so many other beers I can talk about, like my first wheat, or my first sour. I can’t (and won’t) decide on one particular epiphany beer because so many different beers have contributed, and will continue to contribute, to my taste.
Of course, your story may differ, and that’s great. You may recall the exact time and place that you had your beer epiphany like it was yesterday - perhaps it may even have been yesterday! That’s the beauty of it, and that’s why I love to hear other people’s stories and to share mine.
First ever beer? That one can sometimes be a more interesting question, mainly because the answer is often something potentially embarrassing. It certainly is for me, as I have already alluded to. Okay, I’ll stop waxing lyrical and get on with it.
I don’t remember exactly when this was, only that I was very young, still living in the Philippines, and there was some sort of party going on at my family’s house. My throat was parched from running around and generally being a brat, so I made a grab for the first glass I could find that contained liquid. It was my dad’s glass of San Miguel, his favourite beer and the Philippines’ most (in)famous alcoholic export. Naturally, I didn’t find this out until I had taken a gulp of it and, almost immediately, spat it out in disgust. My dad laughed, I cried, and I swore off beer for the rest of my life. I’m glad I didn’t follow through on that, not because the next beer I had, late in my teens, was Victoria Bitter, or because it took me years to figure out there's more to beer than just the flavourless things they market to you on TV, but because if I hadn’t broken that promise to myself, I would not have had the chance to try the Kwaks or the Arrogant Bastards of the beer world. And, yes, even Stella Artois.
So, what was your first beer, and what opened your eyes and your tastebuds to craft beer?
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