My dad let me taste a Schlitz (gaaaaaa!) when I was around a 12 - just a sip, mind you. That was enough to do the trick - I didn’t have another until I was probably 20. I believe that was a Genesee Cream Ale when I was in college.
January 26, 1990. Michelob light on draft. Doc’s Sports Bar, Tallahassee, Florida at 9:00 PM.
I didn’t really drink beer until I was old enough to start going out to bars. Mainly drank vodka or other hard liquor that people had at parties.
I was 18, on vacation in Germany with my high school German club. There was some kind of street festival going on in Munich, and I bought a beer for a mark (I think). It was fantastic. No idea what kind of beer it was, except that it was dark.
I had had sips of various boozes up until then, but here is how I remember my first full can of beer:
I used to spend a lot of time in the back yard swinging on a homemade swing that my dad had hung from a high branch in a big black walnut tree. It was really a peaceful place to be, a place to meditate. I must have been around 14, out there on that swing one summer, when my dad came down the path, and from about 10 feet away tossed me a cold Hamm’s. I can’t remember if he had one with me there, or just left me to enjoy by myself. Made me feel alot like Trupa in his beautiful story, although there had not been any frustrations in the day (that I can remeber). Just icing on the cake.
Not so much as a “first” beer, because I had the sampler pack from the local micro-brewery as my first introduction to beer culture. Chili Beer, Oil change Stout, Honey Wheat ale, Ed’s APA, Indian Pale Ale, and the Octoberfest.
This was last year, when I did turn 21 (I was one of those good kids, who never drank before) the total cost for all six was $6. Amazing with burger and fries.
I was about 14-15 and at a friend’s house. He stole a Budweiser from the fridge. I took a couple sips and hated it. Over the next few years I’d try it now and then, usually after friends asked me to (You’ll like this one!), but I kept on hating it.
Until one day, one wonderful magic day, I tried a sip from a friend’s beer and it was great. I went right to the store and bought a six pack of the stuff. It wasn’t even a good beer, I think it was Bud Ice, but I’ve liked beer ever since.
I don’t know, honestly.
I’m told I was 3, at hooters with my dad and his friend, and I stole his Budweiser and went bottoms up on the thing. I’m also told I was in a rather decent mood the rest of the evening.
Shipyard Pumpkin Ale, a beer local to Maine. Like drinking a pumpkin pie.
I can’t remember the brand but it was at a friend’s house, and I was attempting to look cool by drinking it. I hated it. I hated the two beers and several samples of other sorts of beers (dark, light, pilsners, raspberry, whatevers) I’ve had since. I just don’t like the stuff.
It was a Yuengling Black & Tan on my 17th birthday. My dad bought me a six-pack of the stuff in the hopes that the somewhat darker nature of the beer would ensure I’d stay away from beer for a long while. Much to his chagrin, I loved it and ended up polishing that six-pack off in the following couple days.
I still maintain that Yuengling is a superb brand for the price. Can’t get it up here, though.
Probably an Olympia or a Lucky Lager when I was about 17. Tasted like crap, but we convinced ourselves that it was great. First malt liquor (and last) was a slug out of a Colt 45. Nasty stuff.
11 or 12-it was my dad’s idea. I found the stuff so loathsome that it was a a major reason why I completely swore off alcohol at that point (tho a bigger disincentive was seeing firsthand the effects of alcoholism on both my father and his father).
I was about three or four – we were at a family BBQ, and my older brother and his friends thought it would fun to get a toddler drunk. They didn’t give me much – probably not even half-a-beer – but it was enough to make me spend a very unpleasant evening puking (and earn my brother a parental ass-kicking).
Hamm’s when I was two.
My late grandmother (mother of 16 kids and we’re still on a running count with grandkids) gave me sips me under the table when we over there for a big dinner.
It’s a story I’ve heard for many years. It was supposed to keep me quiet and, I as am told, I took a nap very soon afterwards. So it seemed to have worked.
Of course I didn’t know what it was at the time. I asked her many years later and she said that was the only kind she would drink.
Though I’m sure I must have tasted beer as a kid (a sip here and there to see what it was like), the first one I remember actually drinking the whole bottle was a 40oz bottle of terrible St. Ides beer for $3.25 from the dépanneur. I was 15 and at a friend’s house, whose parents were out of the country for most of the summer. I soon learned to dig deeper into my pocket and spend the extra 50 cents on Molson Export or Labatt Bleue.
I was in 7th grade. It was a nice spring day and when I got home from school, instead of going in the house like I usually did, I went down the hill behind our house to the lake. I noticed a fishing line leading from the weeping willow tree into the water and curious to see if my brother Paul (a Junior in High School at the time) was fishing illegally, I started pulling the line in. It was heavy. There was something on the other end.
I was rather surprised when I pulled in - - - not a fish - - - but a 6-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Knowing my parents wouldn’t be home from work for at least an hour, and also realizing that this opportunity might not come up again for a long time… (My parents didn’t drink beer so we had none in the house.)… I pulled a can off the 6-pack, popped the top, drank some beer and said to noone,
“This tastes like crap!”
PBR cooled in lakewater tastes like, well - - -, Tinny PBR cooled in lakewater.
I was about to dump the rest of the beer out when, for the first time in my life, I heard my Mom’s voice in my head saying,“Clean your plate. You do know there are starving children in Africa who would kill for nourishment!”
Confidently realizing the irony, I finished that crappy beer and then threw the remaining 5 back into the lake. (Still attached to the fishing line.) The year was 1975 or so.
About 10 years ago, at a funeral, I told this story and found out that the beer had been my brother Mark’s (he is one year older than Paul) and that Mark had blamed Paul for the disappearance of his beer for 30 years. This had been one of their constant points of brotherly contention.
Back when I was in high school, not all states had the same legal drinking age. I lived in Indiana near the border with Ohio. Drinking age was 21 in Indiana and 18 in Ohio but you could only buy beer and wine with 3.2 percent alchohol.
My first beer was a lukewarm 3.2 Pabst Blue Ribbon from the trunk of a car whose owner had just made a beer run to Ohio.
I was about 16.
Michigan was about an hours more driving but you could buy full strength booze at 18 there.
I was probably 12. Dad and I where making a walking bridge over a big drainage ditch. Dad gave me one.
trupa - that was beautiful.
My first was a bud on a camping trip with my much older brother. I was going to be a freshman in highschool so 13 I think.
About age 8, with my older sister. Genesee. We were having a cookout with family at out lake cabin. My sister got a beer from the fridge and we drank it. Then we re-filled it the bottle with kool-aid. My uncle got the “kool-aid” beer and spewed all over the yard.