How To Get Started On Your Own Beer Journey

I will certainly admit that I’ve spent many years drinking what I would designate as crappy beer. Nobody knows what they’re doing in the beginning. We all start out listening to the opinions of others until we find our own way. When you become interested in learning more about a subject you have to accept that it is okay to admit that you don’t know what you are doing. Learning about anything is a journey.

While the craft brewing industry was growing in my early drinking years, there just wasn’t a lot available at the time. Like most people, I started with the most popular and then branched out a bit until I found something I liked. My beer journey has become more directed since I started touring breweries. The science of brewing and serving beer is fascinating and I’ve gone from just drinking beer to enjoying beer. I now better appreciate how various styles differ and am more in tune with the reasons behind my personal preferences. So how do you go from being casual beer drinker to beer connoisseur? Here is my advice for how to begin your own beer journey.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by beer choice

If you head to the beer section of your local grocery store, or specialty stores that supply a greater variety of alcoholic beverages, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of choices. According to the Brewers Association there were 7,450 breweries in total in the United States. Over half (4,522) of those were microbreweries. You’ll have a number of imports to choose from as well. Imported beers make up 18.4% of beer sales in America.

So what do you do if you’re ready to learn more about beer? Should you start at your local brewpub or grab a build your own six pack at the store? IPAs are popular. Should you start there? That depends. While IPAs are certainly preferred among many beer enthusiasts, it doesn’t mean they’re the best. Don’t let someone else’s preferences direct your choice, including mine. So much of taste is subjective. To get started, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is: what is out there and what do we actually like? I’ve been fortunate to live in Columbus which over the last few decades or so has developed a respectable brewing scene. If you don’t live in a city, you may need to travel a bit in order to try something new.

Get started by beer style

The Cicerone Certification Program focuses their Beer Savvy Bootcamp course for beginning beer specialists with 6 main styles that everyone should know: malty lagers (what most people think of when they think about beer), hoppy lagers (Pilsners and Kolsch), hoppy ales (like IPAs), dark ales (Porters and Stouts), fruity/spicy ales (Belgians, Saisons), and tart/funky beers (Goses, Wild ales).

The broadest way to start is to become familiar with beer styles, using classic examples of those styles as references. This is what I would call the “I was an Honors Student and I like rules” method of learning. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) 2015 Styles Guide is very useful for this. It’s an overwhelming read if you’re new, but I would recommend using the examples they give for each common style as a starting point. Most of these are widely distributed and should be available in your location.

Get started by brewery

You can also start your beer journey they way I did: at the brewery level. Most breweries offer flights (basically a sample platter for a set of beers of your choice), and will have descriptions of their beers on the menu. You’ll start to recognize the characteristics of the different styles after a while, usually because you’ll begin to notice which ones you like and which you don’t. Let’s call this the “why do I need to go to school, the street is my classroom” method of learning. Either of these methods works perfectly well, as long as you’re drinking the beer and not just reading about it.

If you don’t live in a city and need to travel: many cities have brewery tours or ale trails that you can use as a guide. My hometown of Columbus puts out an ale trail passport each year, and every year I get a new one and collect stamps. It can be a good place to start if you are visiting an unfamiliar city, and it is a fun way to explore the city and try new styles that you may not normally encounter during a run to the local bottle shop.

Don’t let other’s beer preferences affect yours

There is one last piece of advice that I’ll give you, which I’ve already briefly touched on earlier in this post: don’t allow your experiences to be overruled by someone else’s preferences. Your beer journey is a personal quest. Taste and smell are pretty subjective senses. What one persons likes might not work for you, and that is fine.

I love beer, but I DO NOT love IPAs. At all. I will occasionally drink one if I’m in the mood, but I am not a fan of very bitter foods in general so that style is not my favorite. And I will not pretend that I love them because they’re the most popular style among beer connoisseurs. You don’t have to love any particular style. Figure out what you like, an enjoy the journey.