I spent the vast majority of my time in college in a drunken haze thanks to Keystone light, and the fact that you could buy 30 of them for like 12 dollars. Between the six people who actually wanted to drink with me, we could usually come up with enough cash to buy a 30 rack of stones and a pack of cigarettes, and we would be set to stumble awkwardly through house parties and try(fail) to talk to girls on a Saturday night.
If 20-year-old pookasaurus could see what he spends on beer these days, he’d probably punch me in the mouth.
I started bartending shortly thereafter, and I learned that beer was allowed to… taste… good?
And so, my craft beer enthusiasm(obsession) began. Baby steps, at first. Starting with local-ish breweries that I could find at the grocery store- mind this is a decade ago and local breweries have grown much more widely available. Schlafly* out of St Louis, MO, Rogue out of Newport, OR, and Stone Brewing Co. out of San Marcos, CA laid the foundation for my passions.
Eventually I worked my way to imperial IPAs dry enough to make your nose bleed like you’re in the middle of a Midwest winter, and hop bitterness that punches you so hard in the face that you spit out a couple of teeth and fit in well at beer league hockey night. Barrel aged stouts that’ll make you see double after one glass all the while make you feel like you’re drinking fresh fudge brownies. Crazy and somehow traditional spontaneously fermented open barrel beers that sometimes taste like deliciously sweet sour cherries and sometimes taste like a barn.
Don’t get me wrong, I still shot-gun PBRs when the mood strikes- but we’re all human, yeah?
After all these years of drinking for the taste and drinking to celebrate and drinking to forget and drinking because you wanted a drink, I’ve come across some truly life changing beers. The kind that make you sit up a little straighter and really look at what’s there in the glass, and then order three more. And sometimes you drink a beer that’s so incredibly, mouth-wateringly, life-changingly delicious that you absolutely need to have more… and then you forget what in the hell it was that you drank (just me? Fine), so you start chasing flavor.
I’m pretty sure it was a cryo hopped IPA, and it was so incredibly delicious. I buy every new cryo that comes through the doors of my local store now, hoping to reinvent that taste. Who knows? I probably imagined it, or I’ve hyped it up in my head so much that even if I find it again I won’t know that I did because it won’t taste the way I remember (memories are funny like that).
I don’t regret a single purchase. I’ve been exposed to so many great breweries, and so many great beers- not to mention met great people- because I’ve been chasing flavor.
“…so I’ve spent every day since then chasing Amy, so to speak.”
-Silent Bob
* Side note- I love their naming convention. Every craft brewery wants to call their beer something crazy and extravagant. Schlafly says: “This is our IPA, its called IPA. This is our Oatmeal Stout, it’s called Oatmeal Stout”
Pookasaurus Rex 