I just picked up a bottle of Stone's 2011 Russian Imperial Stout. The past 2 years have not been as great as previous years, but 2011 is a rock star!!
Back in 2006, I found my 1st Stone Brewing beer.. their RIS. It was an amazing inspirational beer for me. It had been a long while since I had tasted something that slapped me in the face and made me feel like a giddly schoolboy sneaking into the girl's locker room...
It was that beer that rekindled my interest in tryng new beers. It was that beer that brought me & an old friend to a pub where we hatched a business idea that we have been working on the past few years. It was that beer (maybe the 2007 version) which begged me to get back into homebrewing. And after a few batches of poor to failed beer, ultimate to this forum and so many great friends & brewers.
Anyways, as I sip this delicious 2011 Stone RIS ... it has inspired me again, to ask everyone about an inspiration beer in their past.
--LexusChris
"A woman drove me to drink, and I hadn't even the courtesy to thank her." – W.C. Fields
For me it was Sam Adams Boston Lager, maybe not as worthy as Stone RIS, but still my 'turning point beer'. Prior to discovering that beer, I wouldn't drink "beer". On Friday's after work, we'd hang out for a little while and I used to get a ton of shit because I'd drink the wine coolers and those were "just for the girls". Well I certainly wasn't going to drink the tub of Budweiser, I was nauseous and hung over before I was buzzed.
Then I found myself at a wedding where the only person I knew was the groom and it was going to be one hell of a long day (That's a whole 'nother back-story). The bar had Bud, Coors and... Sam Adams. So I gave the Sam Adams a try and it opened my eyes to a whole new world of beer that I had no idea even existed.
In college, I moved up from Natty Light to Keystone Light finally to the "expensive" beer, Miller Lite. I would occasionally go for things like Guinness, Beamish, Harp, Bass, etc, but I certainly wasn't anywhere near a beer geek. I even remember watching, drunk on a keg of Miller Lite, the Super Bowl "Wardrobe Malfunction", and bleary-eyed rewinding it to make sure it happened...
It was sometime around then that, instead of going to Bevmo for a 4-pack of Beamish and a 30-pack of Lite that I found Arrogant Bastard and Maredsous (both around the same time). I'll admit that the Arrogant Bastard was purchased PURELY based on the name, and I can't even recall why I bought Maredsous. But the two of them together were probably my true "beer awakening"...
When I went down to UCSD as a 21 year old transfer student I already fancied myself a bit of a beer guy because I liked to drink things like Bass, Guinness and maybe the occasional SNPA (but it's so bitter... ). My fellow transfer students and I discovered a great little pub on campus where we'd grab lunch, a game of foosball and a beer with a crazy name like Dead Guy Ale or Arrogant Bastard. That led me down a dangerous path where I started experimenting with things like Bigfoot and various IPA's. Before I knew it, entire weekends had been lost in a pungently bitter malty haze.
Black Dog Ale (Spanish Peaks Brewing) did it for me ... Black Dog was "featured" at the basement bar of the local Hungry Hunter because the band favored it and I was a big Black Lab fan so Chugwater Charlie was the other part of the draw (I had a lab named Thor back then ... my brewery is named for him ... Big Head Brewing). My roommate and I would go on Friday nights for Blues and Brews ... the local band was called The Buds and consisted of Chet McCraken (Doobie Bros drummer), Buddy Sklar (Spencer Davis bass player) and Chris Pinnick (guitar player for Chicago) . They had a lot of great folks sit in too, Bonnie Bramlet (she did a great rendition of several Janis Joplin tunes), Keb Mo (great guitar player) , and when Buddy wasn't there Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck) would step up and play bass and sing ... ah those were some great times. Just down the street was the local Home Brew Shop called the Brown Derby ... on select Friday's, we'd go over for the homebrew demo, and then on to the Hungry Hunter where The Buds were playing. It was during intermissions that I decided to take up brewing ... it took me almost 10 years to realize that decision but that is another story ...
In college, Newcastle and then Guinness were the beers that made we realize that there is a lot more out there than BMC.
The beer than finally pushed me into home brewing was Stone's Sublimely Self Righteous Ale. Had it for the first time in 2008 and had an epiphany: "I should learn how to brew this stuff!" Now it's my favorite recipe. Dry hopping a batch tomorrow actually.
This goes back a few years... but the beer that opened my eyes was Pete's Wicked Ale. Back when Pete still owned it, it was a much different beer than it is now. But even back then Pete's Wicked was a extract beer and a hybrid not a true ale. Anyways it open my eyes to more than the Guinness or Newcastle I was drinking (still love some Newcastle though).
Second on the list is Stone's Ruination. My 1st all grain batch was supposed to be a clone of that beer. Didn't work out, but was still a good beer. Honestly when Stone moved from their old brewery to their new location Ruination in particular changed and I don't really care for it that much anymore.
lars wrote:This goes back a few years... but the beer that opened my eyes was Pete's Wicked Ale. Back when Pete still owned it, it was a much different beer than it is now. But even back then Pete's Wicked was a extract beer and a hybrid not a true ale. Anyways it open my eyes to more than the Guinness or Newcastle I was drinking (still love some Newcastle though).
Second on the list is Stone's Ruination. My 1st all grain batch was supposed to be a clone of that beer. Didn't work out, but was still a good beer. Honestly when Stone moved from their old brewery to their new location Ruination in particular changed and I don't really care for it that much anymore.
+1 on Pete's. That was my next step from Sam Adams. Shame it's not the same beer anymore, it was very good.
Well like Derrin my inspirational beer was Sam Adams. The funny thing about it is that I first tried it back when I was 18 in my first apartment. I hated it, and this is almost embarrassing to say now, but I remember it then being to bitter. Later on when I was of legal drinking age and was getting burned out on MGD I decided to give Sam another try. Low and behold it was good. That lead me to their website where it talked about the process of making beer and I thought ”wow I bet I could make beer at home” that is awesome, I want to do that.
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). My fellow transfer students and I discovered a 
