Earlier this week, whilst out on one of my usual runs with a brewing podcast keeping me company, the host asked his guest a simple but fascinating question:
"What's your beer journey?"
It got me thinking.
For those of us now firmly in middle age—and in my case, beyond the half-century mark—our journey into beer was very different from those discovering it today. People entering the hobby now arrive in a world of hazy IPAs, pastry stouts, craft taprooms and brewery social media campaigns. That simply wasn't the landscape many of us grew up in.
So I thought I'd attempt to chronicle my own beer journey. At least the bits I can remember.
It's a long one.
So grab a pint.
A Familiar Starting Point
Anyone who enjoys reading about beer, rather than simply drinking it, has almost certainly stumbled across the work of Pete Brown.
If you haven't, you really should.
His first book, Man Walks Into A Pub, is quite simply one of the finest books I've ever read. I've bought copies for friends, family and anyone unfortunate enough to mention an interest in beer within earshot. It's that good.
The reason I mention Pete is because I strongly suspect our beer journeys started in remarkably similar fashion.
Pete comes from my home village in Yorkshire. He's a few years older than me, but his local pubs were my local pubs. The beers he describes are the beers I drank. The pubs he writes about are the pubs I remember.
As a consequence, many parts of our beer stories overlap.
Grandad's Homebrew
If I'm being honest, my beer journey started embarrassingly early.
My grandad used to brew beer kits at home and every so often he'd pour a tiny amount into a little glass tankard for me.
Do I remember it tasting good? Not really. But then was that because it was 1980s homebrew made from a Boots extract kit?
Or because I was still years away from reaching double digits in age? Probably both. Either way, if it was good enough for Grandad, it was good enough for me.
The First Pint
Fast-forward a few years.
The next milestone came on my fourteenth birthday. Different times…..
After my birthday party, my dad took me and a couple of mates to his local pub. He explained to Howard, the landlord, that it was my birthday and that I was now apparently old enough to start drinking.
Should we cause any trouble, Howard was given full permission to throw us out. Or clip us around the ear first. More likely both.
I vividly remember sitting there nursing my first pint of John Smith's Best Bitter. As a fourteen-year-old lad, was I enjoying it?
Absolutely not.
But that didn't really matter.
It was a pint.
And that felt gloriously grown-up.
The Yorkshire Bitter Years
Over time, my palate adjusted. John Smith's became my beer of choice. Not necessarily through preference, mind.
More through lack of alternatives.
Back then, John Smith's effectively dominated much of West and South Yorkshire. The occasional pub offered Stones Best Bitter, which was lighter and sweeter. Others might have Tetley's, which I remember being maltier. But by and large, John Smith's ruled.
The exception was my grandad's working men's club, where Sam Smith's Best Bitter held court.
I remember that one well too.
Sweet.
Very sweet.
And not always hugely agreeable a few hours later.
We'll leave it there.
Friday Nights T’ Tarn
Eventually, we graduated to going t’ tarn.
For non-Yorkshire readers, that translates loosely as "going into town."
The objective was simple.
Drink beer.
Chat rubbish.
Attempt to impress girls.
Fail.
Repeat.
Most of my mates gradually migrated towards lager and, later, alcopops.
I didn't. I remained stubbornly loyal to cask ale.
In fact, my local pub didn't even serve lager for most of my teenage years. Foster's only appeared shortly before I left for university. Imagine that today. A pub without lager.
The downside was that while my mates drank small bottles of fizzy macro lager, I was drinking full pints of bitter. This created a pacing problem. By a pacing problem, I mean I regularly drank eight to ten pints every Friday night.
The economics helped. One local working men's club reportedly sold the cheapest pint in Britain. John Smith's Best Bitter.
Forty-nine pence.
A pint.
Read that again.
Forty-nine pence.
It's hard to imagine now.
University: The Wilderness Years
Then came London and things went downhill rapidly.
The first shock was financial. Coming from a world of fifty-pence pints, arriving at university to discover beer cost around £2 a pint felt outrageous.
The second shock was cultural. There was no Best Bitter. Only lager. Specifically Coors. Lots of it.
To make matters worse, when you did occasionally find cask beer in London pubs, it arrived suspiciously flat and entirely devoid of a proper creamy head.
What's wrong with using a sparkler? It's one of life's mysteries. These truly were the dark years.
Like many students, I also attempted homebrewing. Like many students, I failed spectacularly. Looking back now, it was hardly surprising. Poor sanitation, poor equipment and yeast packets that were probably only marginally alive didn't exactly provide a recipe for success.
Enter Guinness
After university, I followed my now-wife to Birmingham. The beer landscape wasn't exactly inspiring. Most nights out revolved around macro lagers that I drank but never particularly enjoyed.
The objective wasn't beer exploration. The objective was having a good night out.
When we eventually settled down and bought our first house, the local pub offered fairly average cask ale and plenty of mainstream lager. But it also had Guinness and that changed things. I've always maintained that Guinness is wildly misunderstood.
People talk about it as though it's some sort of liquid Christmas cake.
It isn't.
It's relatively low strength, surprisingly dry, lower in calories than many alternatives and incredibly drinkable if you enjoy bitterness.
Which I do.
For many years, Guinness became my default choice. Reliable. Consistent. Available almost everywhere. And yes, my wife drank it too. Although she did improve it with a dash of blackcurrant.
The Great Dublin Myth
Whilst we're on the subject. Let's address the claim that Guinness tastes significantly better in Ireland. I don't buy it.
For my thirtieth birthday we went to Dublin and did all the tourist essentials. The brewery tour. The Gravity Bar. The perfect pour demonstration. The shamrock in the head. The lot.
Supposedly the finest pint of Guinness in the world. It tasted exactly like the one in my local.
I strongly suspect the Irish Tourist Board has been involved in a highly successful marketing campaign.
Gateway Beers
Things began to improve when our local pub changed hands. The new landlord introduced beers from small local breweries. Enville stood out.
At around the same time supermarkets started stocking beers from independent regional breweries.
Names like:
- Wychwood
- Badger
- Wye Valley
Looking back, were these craft beers?
Maybe. Maybe not. They were certainly independent. But they belonged firmly to the traditional brewing world. What they were, however, were gateway beers.
And gateway beers matter.
The Craft Beer Revelation
The first genuinely modern craft beer I remember drinking was almost certainly BrewDog Punk IPA. Like countless others, it completely changed my expectations of what beer could be. Soon afterwards I became fully invested.
Literally.
I became an Equity Punk shareholder. Still am, actually, mainly because I've never quite worked out how to sell the shares. At the time my favourite beer wasn't Punk IPA.
It was Dead Pony Club. I loved it. So much so that I've attempted to clone it numerous times through homebrewing. My version was called Deceased Nag Society.
I thought it was clever.
Nobody else did.
The Real Turning Point
The biggest turning point actually came during lockdown. By then, my mate and I had established our now sacred Saturday 4pm Beer O’clock sessions.
At the time our beer choices were still relatively conservative. I was drinking things like Dead Pony Club and Wye Valley HPA. My mate was drinking Strongbow Dark Fruits and Doom Bar.
There was work to be done.
As a Christmas treat and birthday present combined, I bought us both BrewDog advent calendars. What a revelation.
Inside were:
- Pale ales
- IPAs
- Stouts
- Porters
- Sours
- Weird things
- Wonderful things
Some were challenging.
Particularly for my mate but they opened the door to an entirely new world.
Down the Rabbit Hole
After that, there was no going back. Our Saturday sessions evolved into a mission to explore the best breweries in the country.
Verdant.
Cloudwater.
Northern Monk.
Duration.
Moor Beer.
And many more.
We explored everything.
Helles.
Mild’s.
West Coast IPAs.
DIPAs.
Imperial Stouts.
Barrel-aged beers.
Eventually even sours, although that took considerable effort.
Some styles became favourites.
Others remain works in progress.
Where We Are Today?
Fast-forward to the present day and I've sampled beers from well over fifty UK craft breweries. Alongside my homebrew setup, my fridge is rarely short of quality pale ales, West Coast IPAs and the occasional darker beer.
I've developed a real appreciation for proper German lagers and Czech pilsners.
I've enjoyed some excellent American beers when I've been fortunate enough to find them fresh.
But contrary to popular opinion, I've never really fallen for Belgian beer. I know that's bordering on heresy in some circles. But there we are. The greatest beer nation in the world? Not for me.
Full Circle
Which leaves one final question.
Would I still enjoy a properly kept pint of John Smith's Best Bitter?
Honestly?
I'm not sure.
Part of me suspects I'd dismiss it as a relic of the macro-brewing world. Yet another part suspects it would transport me straight back to Yorkshire pubs, working men's clubs and simpler times. Either way, I'm pretty happy with where the journey has led.
From Grandad's homebrew kits to modern craft beer.
From John Smith's to West Coast IPAs.
From drinking beer to brewing it.
It's been quite the adventure.
And thankfully, it's one that's still ongoing.
Cheers.
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