First Beer Sometime in 1967, when I was either 15 or 16 years old and playing keyboards in a Top 40 cover band in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. I drank my first beer, a Budweiser from a bandmates basement refrigerator. Its bitterness did not sit well with me. I had an innocent mouth. But I had seen my dad drink Miller High Life in the summers, particularly when eating steamed crabs. He kept a six pack of Michelob beside his teak bar in case guests came during the weekends. Yes, I grew up in the age of corporate beer when vast corporations (not so vast as today) controlled what appeared on the grocery store shelves and gets poured at the tap of the local tavern. Lager ruled. Since I lived in the Washington, D. C. metro area you could go to select stores near Dupont Circle and find German and Czech imports (not Hieneken). Lots of our neighbords in Rockville and Gaithersburg MD were connected with the diplomatic community in D.C. American beer did not rate among this crowd. My first foreign beer was Dinkel Acker, served by the parents of one of my Rockville High School friends. The depth of flavor was shocking. Yet again I was not use to the bitterness of the brew.
ISSUE 34, HOME BREW, Part 6: First Beer
ISSUE 34, HOME BREW, Part 6: First Beer
ISSUE 34, HOME BREW, Part 6: First Beer
First Beer Sometime in 1967, when I was either 15 or 16 years old and playing keyboards in a Top 40 cover band in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. I drank my first beer, a Budweiser from a bandmates basement refrigerator. Its bitterness did not sit well with me. I had an innocent mouth. But I had seen my dad drink Miller High Life in the summers, particularly when eating steamed crabs. He kept a six pack of Michelob beside his teak bar in case guests came during the weekends. Yes, I grew up in the age of corporate beer when vast corporations (not so vast as today) controlled what appeared on the grocery store shelves and gets poured at the tap of the local tavern. Lager ruled. Since I lived in the Washington, D. C. metro area you could go to select stores near Dupont Circle and find German and Czech imports (not Hieneken). Lots of our neighbords in Rockville and Gaithersburg MD were connected with the diplomatic community in D.C. American beer did not rate among this crowd. My first foreign beer was Dinkel Acker, served by the parents of one of my Rockville High School friends. The depth of flavor was shocking. Yet again I was not use to the bitterness of the brew.