A Look Into the Evolution of a Beer Lover: All I Need In This Life Of Sin, Is Me and My Beer Can

Welcome back friends to the least updated blog you don't follow. You may be wondering what took so long for me to scrap together another post exploring the depths of our snobbery. Well, it was about 4 parts laziness, 3 parts sloth, 2 parts lack of inspiration and 1 part working on a marathon of an article. Thus, it took damn near a year but I would now like to reintroduce you to your best source for any and all croissant related articles. I wish I could tell you that you're about to read that aforementioned marathon of an article I was working on all year but in true French Ass fashion, that article is still under construction until further notice. Instead, I give you the answer to the oft-asked question of "How did you become an alcoholic?" "How did you become such a beer connoisseur?"




To answer that question, we must first begin with an appreciation for the age that we live in currently. Back when I first dipped my toes into the craft puddle, The Bruery was a small brewery that was less than two years young. Other Half, Finback, Trillium, Off Color, Maine Beer Company, Westbrook, Toppling Goliath, and Prairie were still a bunch of homebrewers doing their thing in garages and basements. The gose style was almost extinct. The only decent places to get beer in the city were Blind Tiger and Waterfront Ale House. Firestone Walker 13 had just been released. Then, starting from about 2012, the craft beer industry entered into a Golden age of sorts. New breweries were opening seemingly every other week. Innovation reached peak levels, as brewers began to revive dead styles and take risks with tweaking firmly established brews. Barrel aging became the norm, new hybrid hop species were invented, and the introduction of brett and lacto into beers, long considered taboo, became the key to kicking the door down to make way for sour beers' current domination.  This Golden Age is one that I predict will last until about mid 2019-2022, when the whole thing will crash from either oversaturation on the part of the brewers or the replacement of true beer fans with whale hunters who lack true love for our beverage of choice and seek only the top 50-100 beers simply for the sake of having tried a "top" beer. Used to be that one could find Bourbon County variants without having to wake up at 6 in the goddamn morning to beat these culture vultures, but that time is long gone. Whew. The point I was trying to make before I veered into angry old man ranting territory is that, for better or for worse, it's never been easier for the casual drinker to get into craft beer. And that because the magical world of craft is so different now than when I first got into it, my journey might look vastly different from what yours will be.

So this article will focus on only ten beers, listed in chronological order of beers had. These ten beers were not chosen because they were the best beers I have ever had. In fact, none of them would make my top ten (though some of them would come quite close) and one of them almost turned me off to beer altogether. They were chosen because they had the biggest impact to my beer drinking career and because I vividly remember my experience with each and every one of them. Also, because this is an article on craft beer, Miller High Life will not be among the ten listed. But let me make this clear. The Champagne of Beers is the GOAT. And without further ado, I present this "beery" long overdue post (I'm making corny puns. I should stop drinking beer while writing. Seems appropriate to continue though, given the topic. I'll go one more bottle.)

Cheers.

1. Harpoon IPA

Harpoon IPA is an OG. Compared to modern heavyweights, this IPA may look completely outdated and dull, but when it was first released, this brew rocked a beer industry still dominated by lagers and flavorless pale ales. It's still beloved by those in the New England region and in the Northeast, even in the crappiest of sports bars, you can usually count on this (and Sam Adams Boston Lager) to scratch your itch. So it's only fitting that this was my first exposure to craft beer outside of Sam and also my first exposure to IPAs. It was also the first time I drain poured half my beer down the sink. Hoppiness truly is an acquired taste and without that taste, this beer tasted quite literally like ass. It took a full year and a half for me to give IPAs another try and while I came to love the style for the same hoppy flavor I used to hate, this first experience will always be burned into my memory. And so, my journey began with a bang.

2. Ommegang Three Philosophers

For the next few months, I kept myself going on a diet of Samuel Adams Brick Red, Harpoon UFO White, Anchor Steam and copious amounts of Miller High Life. And then came the beer that completely destroyed any and every preconception I ever had of what beer could be. Three Philosophers was unlike anything I had up until this point. It was almost as if this beer was playing a whole different game altogether, which... I guess it kind of was, being that it was my first exposure to Belgian ales. Three Philosophers was deliciously complex and each sip revealed more and more layers that were previously overlooked. I speak of this beer with the same reverent tones that others speak of their first loves. And that's because, this right here, is indeed my first love. From this point on....nothing was the same.

3. River Horse Oatmeal Stout

In the early days, I often drank beer in phases, whether by style or by brewery. I had a white ale phase, a Harpoon phase, an IPA phase, a Sierra Nevada phase, etc. Thus, after I discovered the sultry embrace of Three Philosophers, you may have concluded that I went into a Belgian phase. You would be wrong. While I did continue to buy Three Philosophers and while I did eventually discover the perfection that is the Ommegang Abbey Ale, I was distracted by other brews. River Horse Oatmeal Stout was one of those brews. Up until this point, I had not even considered that stouts could be anything other than a pint of Guinness at the Irish pub down the street. This stout showed me that I could not have been any more wrong, and kicked off a fascination with stouts that lasts to this day. I have had an innumerable amount of stouts in my life and in comparison to many of them, this stout seems downright pedestrian now. Still, nostalgia is a killer and I find myself craving this from time to time, right before I pop open another vastly superior brew.

4. Southern Tier Pumking

Sometimes, you drink a beer and the world stops. You look at your friends and you can see it in their faces. They, just like you, have realized that this moment, right here, is something special. You'll only have so many of those in your life but when it happens, you will know. My friends and I have tried to recapture this moment with Pumking year after year with various degrees of failure. We still enjoy it very much but have now come to terms with the fact that due to the constantly changing nature of life, some moments can never be fully experienced in the same way ever again.

5. Sixpoint Resin

By this point, I had already gotten over my Harpoon fiasco and have started to appreciate a good level of hops in my beer. Lagunitas IPA was a staple drink of mine and Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale was my favorite winter seasonal. But until I took my first sip of Resin, the style always seemed second tier at best to me, and definitely not worthy of a phase of its own. Resin was the first IPA I had in which I fully saw the hop flavor as one that had things to contribute beyond just bitter. Resin was grassy, juicy, citrusy, and all in all, absolutely incredible. I would become addicted to hops from this day forward. As a native New Yorker, I could not be any prouder of the fact that it took a beer from Brooklyn to finally make me realize that IPAs are the truth.

6. Samichlaus Classic Bier

Remember the moment I spoke of back in the Pumking paragraph? This beer brought about a similar sort of moment. One in which I looked around at my friends and saw that they came to the same realization that I had. Except in this case, that realization was, "this. beer. is. the. worst." Seriously, I've never had anything close to how bad I thought this beer was. Not even Magic Hat's Pistil seemed this bad to me. Logic tells me that with the years of additional beer experience that I have today, I would probably find this beer a lot more palatable if I were to have it now. Logic can suck it. This beer almost made me stop drinking beer and run back into the always open arms of a good Jack and coke. Fortunately. I came to my senses soon after. But this beer is the worst.

7. Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout

This beer is a legend. If Harpoon IPA is the OG of the IPA world, this beer is the creator god of the barrel aged stout world. Before Goose Island decided to release BCBS unto an unsuspecting craft market, barrel aging stouts in bourbon barrels just wasn't a thing. Now every brewery worth its weight has a stout aged in some sort of barrel. Just as with Harpoon IPA, it's only fitting then that this beer served as my introduction to the bourbon barrel aged world. Unlike my experience with Harpoon, BCBS blew me away from the first sip. Barrel aging unlocked a whole new level to the depth that stouts had to offer. As I mentioned before, this beer and its variants (including the absolutely perfect Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout) become more and more of a hassle to get every year. It should be a testament, then, to its greatness, that I am still willing to put myself through that hassle to get it.

8. Cantillon Cuvee Saint-Gilloise

This beer was my first experience with the legendary Cantillon brewery. This beer was what brought about my "a-ha" moment with sours. This beer was the centerpiece of my very first rare beer night/beer club. So, yeah. This beer is kind of important to me. Just like Belgians and barrel aged stouts, sours are a doorway to an entirely new and different aspect of the beer world. There is just nothing else like the mouthpuckering tart and funk of these brews.

9. Stone/Aleman/Two Brothers Dayman

Fact. I bought 4 bottles of this beer back in early 2014 because the brewery offered advance purchases on it, even though they have no idea when it will be released again. It might take me 3+ years from purchase date until the date of enjoyment and since tomorrow is never promised today, who knows if that date of enjoyment will ever even come. And yet, I would make that purchase again in a heartbeat. That is how much I enjoyed this beer when it first came out in 2013. Dayman is on this list because this is the beer that truly brought about my willingness to obsessively research and travel to the distant corners of the city and beyond all in the name of finding beers that I love. Also, the name just makes the whole thing that much more enjoyable. Excuse me while I listen to Charlie and Dennis on repeat 100x. This as well.

10. Other Half/Trillium Street Green

These two breweries are easily two of my favorite new breweries of the past 2-3 years, along with Grimm and Tree House. They are also currently two of the biggest IPA powerhouses in the Northeast. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that when I heard they were collaborating on a beer, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I also couldn't believe that when I showed up an hour early to the brewery on release day, there was already a line of people that wrapped along two corners of the block. 2 hours into my eventual 4.5 hours wait, I realized I had reached a new level of dedication. One that I hope to not repeat any time soon, but a new level regardless. Was the beer worth the wait in the end? Just barely, but when the first bit of this beer hit my tongue, on the steps of some random person's house around the brewery, I couldn't help but think, yes.

And there you go. The ten most influential beers in my life. Years and years of cans and bottles and drafts condensed into an article that can be read in less than ten minutes. Hopefully, this gave you some insight into how I got to be where I am today. Hopefully, I was wrong when I said the craft beer industry will soon fall under its own weight (and new drinkers who only chase "rare" shit). Hopefully, craft beer will continue to evolve and innovate and thrive for centuries. And hopefully, the next time I update, that long article I've been writing all year will be ready to go. For at least one of these four, probably not though.




As a bonus I'll leave you, my two readers, with a list of my top ten favorite relatively easily obtainable in NYC beers, and my top ten beers of all time.

Favorite Off The Shelf Beers (In no particular order)
1. Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen
2. Ommegang Abbey Ale
3. Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin
4. Rodenbach Grand Cru
5. Unibroue La Fin Du Monde
6. Founders Breakfast Stout
7. Maine Beer Co. Lunch
8. Lindemans Cuvee Rene
9. Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break
10. Stone Enjoy By IPA

Top Ten All Time (no particular order)

1. Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout - Probably the best stout ever. Maple, coffee, chocolate and barrel in perfect harmony.
2. Evil Twin Double Barrel Jesus - Until I've had the Pappy aged version, this is the greatest beer Evil Twin has ever made.
3. Russian River Supplication - Sour perfection. It pains me to see how far it's dropped in the BA rankings but at the same time, that means the whale hunters will seek this out less and that's fine with me.
4. Hill Farmstead Double Citra - Maybe the best IPA I've ever had.
5. Westvleteren 12 - Belgian perfection. And the catalyst behind another one of those world stopping moments.
6. Gose Gone Wild - My biggest regret is not buying bottles of this while I could. It was the perfect marriage of hops and sour.
7. Alchemist Heady Topper - A beer that needs no introduction. A beer that never fails to make me angry when people drink it just because it's the (now former) number one ranked beer in the world. It's not the single best IPA experience I've had. Double Citra and the first batch of Double Dose would be that. However, it is the most consistently excellent beer ever. Even on its worst day, it would be a top 5 IPA. (Related, true story: I have never felt more anger at one of my exes than at a friend's wedding, when I overheard one of them order a can of these from an already limited amount at the bar, while saying to her friends that she heard it was the best beer in the world. I then saw her take a sip, make a stank face and immediately leave it at the nearest table. My friend had to hold me back and talk some ration into my drunk brain to prevent me from going off. End related, true story)
8. Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout - The best stout not named Founders CBS ever. The fact that you can actually get these in bottles compared to the CBS is a plus.
9. Avery Rufus Corvus - I flip flopped between this and a Cantillon beer for a spot in the top ten. In the end, as much as I love Cantillon, no on beer from them stood out to me as much as this one.
10. Trillium Artaic IPA - Honey and hops done right. Take notes, Hopslam.

Honorable Mention. Grimm Afterimage - This IPA just gets me.