Beer Journey

I have enjoyed beer for all of my adult life…and for some of my not-yet-adult life.  But for many of those years, my enjoyment of beer was limited to what I now consider pretty dull and lifeless stuff…mostly light domestic lagers that are best used to quench one’s thirst and satisfy the need for cold liquid on hot days.  The past few years, though, I’ve begun to develop an appreciation for other styles of beer.

My first departure from traditional U.S. lagers, I suppose, was more than a few years ago, maybe thirty years ago, when I first started traveling to England, when I was introduced to English bitter, a brew enjoyed best at temperatures considerably higher than the ice-cold temperatures I’d come to expect from domestic brews.  And it was amber in color, far from the golden hues of the likes of Coors and Budweiser.  But I enjoyed bitter only on trips to England because, at the time, it was simply unavailable where I lived and probably in most of the U.S.

Skip ahead several years.  I began enjoying beers that were more complex and whose flavors were richer and stronger than the mass-produced light beers I’d been used to.  I remember tasting New Belgium Fat Tire for the first time and appreciating how nice it was.  And I recall Anchor Steam, a beer with nice malt flavors and a crisp hoppy finish.

There were others.  Over time, I’d experiment with beer styles with which I was unfamiliar.  Some I liked, some I didn’t.  But I kept on experimenting.  Somewhere along the line I developed an affinity for Guinness Stout, a very dark and creamy light bodied beer with a touch of hop bitterness and flavors of coffee.  For a long while, I thought Guinness must be my favorite beer.  I still like Guinness; but it’s not my favorite beer, nor my favorite stout.  Not by far.

A couple of years ago, I started meeting a friend for a beer at a local beer emporium called The Flying Saucer.  The place is a welcoming establishment with a huge and ever-changing offering of beers of all types.  I tend toward draught beers because they always taste fresher to me, but I drink bottled beers there occasionally, too.  My friend and I would sample different beers and talk about their flavors.  My friend, and his friends, spend much more time there than I did, though, and they became more knowledgeable about beer than I.  In addition, they bought into the marketing genius of the place by joining the UFO Club, which allows members to keep track of the beers they drink.  After sampling 200 different types (no more than 3 in a day), the club member is awarded a plate (a “saucer”) with his or her name, the date of accomplishment, and a brief phrase 0f his or her choice imprinted on it.  The plate is then affixed to the ceiling or an upper wall.

As I watched them make their way toward their plates, and as I enjoyed meeting them at the Saucer and hearing them tell of the different beers they tried, I got the bug.  I, too, joined the UFO Club, on December 19, 2012.  What follows is my beer journey thus far, through June 2, 2013 (every day is the “posting” date, i.e., the day after I actually drank the beer)…it is a long way from over, but I’ve made progress, tasting 47 out of my target 200: