I did too until the prices got outrageously outrageous.
Sam Adams brews ipas now
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Yeah well, Lagunitas cans now. Something Tony said would never happen.
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Oh and Social Media. I used to walk in and out of bars, hoping id find a new score. Often doing 20 bars for less than 10 beers.
Now i can just goto https://tapsaff.net/ and that covers half of the Edinburgh bars that i have an interest in, untappd gets a couple more, and then Random Twitter , or heads up messages from Barmen takes care of a few more, there prob only 2 bars that i just need to check on spec. So tend to drink there less than i used to
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Well said, I share this horrible experience with you.
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I remember in the mid to late 90’s, the only US craft beer you could buy locally was Pete’s Wicked Ale.
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Gawd, that’s a dire pic you paint.
No! Pete’s Wicked Ale was like cool, chill water in a huge desert.
I was referring to his comment aboot it being the “only”.
A couple Anchor products were available also. But yeah slim pickins.
Damn. We already had Deschutes, Odell, Snake River to name a few. Also Spanish Peaks.
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Yeah that Black Dog Ale was the shit!
Of course Anchor had been around for a while but nobody I knew was about to pay those prices for that shit. Not sure about Sierra Nevada, don’t remember seeing it.
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Luckily ignorance was on our side in the 80s and 90s - you can’t miss what has never existed.
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I got into the world of beer in the late 90s. There were no Double IPAs yet. There were some Barleywines, which usually got the big line at the festivals. Most beers on the shelves were semi-old, at least by today’s standards. No craft cans whatsoever. People would scoff at American beer. I worked for 4.80 per hour. Sierra Nevada sixpacks were about the same price as now.
Just went back in time tonight…had 2 pints of SNPA on tap and a couple of bottles of McTarnahans Amber Ale…and you know what they were still OK to good drinking beers
Was a bit of a break from all the hazy/fruity/imperial/double this and double that/barrel aged with snail shells and pube yeast etc etc.
Simpler times
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Then:
-one importer handling “special beers” really. Then two. Shit availability, months between new ticks. Few relevant places in the country. Maybe a single digit number of people knowing what craft is, a single digit number of people homebrewing in the entire country. “Craft” down to traditional styles brewed by people who had no inkling of craft beer outside of their breweries.
Now: a thriving craft and homebrewing scene, experimental beers, more and more people trying “weird” stuff.
Still… there are entire towns where you simply cannot sell beer smaller than 0.5l, stranger than wheat beer and more expensive than 20HRK (2.70€, 3.30$). It usually takes a dedicated place taking some risks, educating their quarters or towns, and they are void of that. The large percentage of people with really low purchasing power doesn’t help.
Actual proper knowledge and education doesn’t follow the scene fully either. But we try to help.
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I can also remember reading Roger Protz and realising how difficult some of the Good Beers are to find, mainly limited by region, with as mentioned American beers being difficult if not nearly impossible to find in the UK and some Europeans like Oktoberfest and other seasonal beers being difficult to try without travelling abroad.
drank pre-russian river blind pig in around '93 or '94; everything has changed since then although i don’t chase beers, trade beers, or rate anymore. a can of pizza port swami’s IPA a few times a week is good enough for me these days. cheers.
The good: cans and in the U.S. all the brewpubs.
The bad: the loss of adventure.
