Beer Stories: What our Favorite Beer Means

     Without fail, when I tell someone I’m from Wisconsin, they’ll ask if I’ve had Spotted Cow. Of course I have. There’s a case of it in my fridge right now, that infamous yellow-and-green New Glarus branding grinning at me everytime I open the door. I have memories attached to that beer; my dad grilling on the patio and asking me to fetch him a Spotted Cow from the fridge; sneaking off to the basement at family Christmas with my cousins, the bottles we pinched off the counter rattling in our pockets; dipping out of prom early to drink New Glarus on the dunes of Lake Michigan (Mom and Dad if you’re reading this, I’m sorry). I’ll sip it on my porch now and think about home. I’ll share it with friends in Louisville, and tell them that’s my favorite beer. I’ll tell them why. 

     Like music, art, and fashion, craft beer is an outlet for self-expression. Beer has personality today, which is created by brewers and celebrated by beer drinkers. Beer can remind us of a happy time in our life. It can connect us with others. It’s one of my favorite things about the craft beer industry; it’s another way humans can get together and express themselves.

     Like Wisconites to Spotted Cow, I’m sure everyone has a beer they identify with in some way. And I believe every beer drinker has a “beer story”; the first beer they called their favorite, how it shaped their palette, their interest in beer, or perhaps them as a person. (That’s probably a touch too far–I don’t know, keep reading for Sam’s story.)

I was curious about our teams’ “beer story”—the beer they first called their favorite, and how it shaped them as beer drinkers!

T Mart

Favorite beer: Bells Oberon. It’s one of the first beers he really enjoyed. “I didn’t like beer for a very long time,” he told me, until he finally tried Bells Oberon. It simply was the first beer he sipped and thought, “hey, this stuff is kinda good.”

Favorite ATG beer: Sol Mate reminds T Mart a bit about his first favorite beer. Sure, our wheat ale is quite different from Oberon’s, but for him it’s nostalgic in a way—we brew Sol Mate with orange peel, and that reminds him a bit of the first beer he truly enjoyed.

Alex Vogt 

Favorite Beer: Taurus Boulba 

Okay, so this wasn’t Alex’s first favorite beer, because he’s liked many beers for many years. But Taurus Boulba remains his favorite beer of all time. Why? “It’s a brewer’s beer,” he said. “It’s a pale ale that is almost an IPA, and it’s really really good.” To him, it represents creativity from brewers. 

ATG Fav: Louisville Pale, for the same reason— “It’s a brewers beer that we got to design from the ground up, for an everyday drinker.” When I asked how he identifies with his favorite beer, he answered (with as much attitude as possible, because I guess that was a redundant question) “I’m a brewer, and that’s a brewers beer.”

Sam Cruz 

Favorite Beer: “My first favorite beer in my life was Coors Light. It was the beer that the guy who bought beer for me got when I was 14. If I was gonna treat myself it was Dundee’s Honey Brown Ale. That was something special.” But let’s focus on Coors Light. To this day, Sam still loves the ole’ Silver Bullet. He always loved the taste of beer, and since the first time he had it at his friends house he thought, “this is great. I’ll have this all the time.” 

Growing up for Sam, the culture was hanging at the softball field, throwing beer back, trying to be “cool like the older kids.” The light beer he drank as a kid (illegally, we don’t condone that!) was something light he could enjoy all day. 

ATG Pick: A Beer. According to Sam, this rendition of A Beer is simply perfection. It’s light, it’s crisp, you can throw it back all day and dream of our days of the older kids sneaking you a 24-pack. 

Jerry Gnagy 

First Favorite Beer: If you thought Sam was rebellious, Jerry home-brewed his first beer when he was 14, called “Fish Boi”. When his dad found out, he was pretty upset. It must’ve been pretty good, because Jerry named it as his first favorite beer. To toot another horn besides his own, his first favorite craft beer was New Belgium Fat Tire. A friend of his smuggled a pack from Colorado to Kansas. This little act of rebellion exposed him to different malts, notes, and expanded his interest in beer.

Favorite ATG Beer: “It would probably be Louisville Pale Right now,” he said. It’s just the perfect craft brew!

 

     Your favorite beer probably means more to you than how it tastes. We can identify with beer, whether it’s the cheap brew we had our older siblings pick up for us from the gas station, or a small batch we helped create.