Your first... beer?

Borrowed from Punchdrink blog

So a couple nights ago I was perusing what was up on the forums of BeerAdvocate, the beer rating place I hang at electronically on the weekend.  And a mention of some old, not-made anymore made me ask a question, thereby starting my very first thread...

I was just swinging through the Beer Talk and saw a conversation about the old Piels beer. Made me curious: What is the first beer you had? Don't think, "Well, the night I turned 21", but, "When I was a toddler, Grandpa gave me a sip of..."! For me, it may well have been Black Label, as I had a picture of my Dad holding me in one hand as a baby, and one of those in the other. In living memory though, he had changed over to (original) PBR by then, so that would be mine. How about you?


I figured, watch a month or more go by before anyone notices.  Then it started to trickle, and I tried to reply to each one... soon, it became a torrent!  So many people wanted to play the game for the good memories (most of them childhood), of fathers giving a reward for going out to the garage and fetching a round, grandpas wanting to teach 'responsible drinking', parties that allowed for "empty cans" to be tested, and just plain thievery and other forms of adventure.  There are currently 152 posts including my responses; I also put it on Facebook and Twitter Sunday.  And while the response on FB has been a little underwhelming, I had @ed BeerAdvocate's page on Twitter, and have a couple dozen entries from there.

A lot of people were understandably a little fuzzy on what that magic first beer was, and made guesses based on "what the folks usually had in the fridge".  One guy loved that he didn't remember because it involved learning scuba diving with his dad and a kegerator at the instructor's back room.  Only three people so far have thrown up their hands in defeat.

The stories have brought on a lot of big discussions, notably on Black Label, Ballantines, and a mention (but not a 'vote') for Mickey's Malt Liquor- when I mentioned I remembered Mickeys best because half of every set of bottles were skunky.  One guy said something like, that's not skunky, that's how Mickey's tastes.  Before I could formulate an answer, another guy came in right after him and said, "ONLY half?"

So I thought I would let you in on the fun.  If you REALLY wanna go in depth on this, it's in the forums under "Your First Beer".  If not, well, here's some stats from the whole deal.

Keeping in mind that even if they said, "It might have been (names 4 or 5 beers)..."  I counted ALL mentions.

Total mentions so far: 108
Different beers mentioned: 53
How many of them I have tried: 22 to my knowledge, IDK if I ever had Schlitz or not

The big vote getters:

3 votes:  Heineken, Michelob, Hamms, Strohs, and Rolling Rock

4 votes: Schaefer, Old Style, Olympia, Black Label

5 votes:  Miller High Life, Schlitz

And the top vote getters right now, with 7 each...

Pabst Blue Ribbon

...and Budweiser!

As I was getting the pictures above, I just got a second vote for Texas Pride... the votes keep coming in!

So if you like, vote here and I'll count them too!  It's gotta be better entertainment than the Iowa Caucases...