A Little (Personal) History of Beer

The first taste was a stolen swig from my dad's can of Blue Ribbon out back of the house while he was absorbed in the workings of his Pontiac's engine. It wasn't awful, but fell way below my expectations after years of watching my him consume his beers so protectively.

A dozen years later, the first experiences with local beers came on a bicycle tour across New York State. This was the early 1980s, an era of cheap factory lagers. In order to truly experience each place I visited by bike, I decided, what better way than to seek out unfamiliar local beers?

Somewhere between Rochester, NY and the Finger Lakes, I pulled over for refreshment at a small roadside general store and discovered a local New York State beer way back in the cooler. Can't remember the brewery, but I remember the that the beer was fresh, moderately flavorful, and  just different enough from the Miller/Strohs/Pabst clones of central Michigan that it made me realize there were good things happening in local brewing.

To be truthful, in those years attending the University of Michigan, my friends and I mainly drank beer in mass quantities. Dime beer night at Dooley's Tavern was always popular. In the dormitory, we would take up a collection, then someone with a car would make the road trip across the river from Detroit, to Windsor, Canada, for the rare higher alcohol Molson and Labatts beers. Campus Corner carried Chimay, but the beer was so rich compared to anything else we were used to drinking we rarely tried it.

After graduation I discovered Anchor in San Francisco, then Boston and Brooklyn Lagers in New York City. Finally, in 1990, I ended up in Seattle, where Thomas Kemper was brewing a nice selection of local beers out on Bainbridge Island and Redhook's Trolleyman Pub was a popular watering hole in the Freemont neighborhood.

Not long after, craft brewing in the Northwest caught my attention.

Preparing for the First Brewing

Yet another nighttime spring rain taps across our metal roof and drains, gurgling into the downspouts. The sounds make me think about beer. My goal, my obsession, is to actually brew my own good beer. The many excellent products of the modern craft brewing movement have, over the past few years, opened my imagination to the possibility that simple beer is just a starting point.

Or maybe it's that coming up with a simple recipe that is also perfect will be the trickier challenge.