Remembering your first "craft" beer

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale back in 2001.

Stone IPA.

Turbodog

Abita Amber around 2008.

This is hard. The first really interesting "crafty" beer I ever recall trying was a Samuel Smith's oatmeal stout around 1990 or 91. Sort of blew me away. Then, I remember getting Abita and Rikenjaks around the same time and thinking it interesting that people were actually starting to make beer here that wasn't Miller, Coors or Budweiser.

I remember trying the beers around the world or whatever at the Chimes back in the day. I thought most were awful. The first non Budlightish beer I liked was Purple Haze.

I think it was a dogfish head. I remember hating it.

Icehouse

I'll not list Abita or Shiner since I don't consider those craft beer. And while the English beer such as Stones Bitter I had while at Uni in Manchester UK in'89 wasn't craft either, it set me on a quest to find something similar in the US. Someone took me to a craft beer brew pub in Berkley, California in '90 but I was too overwhelmed to try more than a lager. Finally in 2002 I went out to Portland and stumbled upon the Brewers Fest on the river front. I tried 90 minute....hated it. I tried Bell's Hath no Fury Ale and loved it. Later on that trip I tried Full Sail IPA and it was the closest thing I had found to the Stones Bitter I had in Manchester.

The craft beer that made me fall in love with the genre was Bell's Oberon. When I tried Bell's Two Hearted a week later, my mind was completely blown.