It was the summer of 2002, and I was staying in Spearfish SD (still in Moose Drool Country) trying to finish my field camp requirement for a degree in Geology.
After 10 hours in the brain-baking South Dakota sun (which really isn't that bad compared to summer days in Mississippi, which is where I was born and raised and still reside, but for the sake of the story...it was still hot as hell), on the first day of field camp, I stopped in at a watering hole/biker bar in Spearfish.
The first beer that I had since I left Mississippi was a Moose Drool (except of course the beers that I had in my cooler). I immediately knew that I was in for a real treat if all of the beer up here was this good. The next beer that I tried was some kind of "hemp ale?". Swing and a miss! OK, 1 out of 2 ain't bad. I'll try another. Tasted some kind of wheat beer...It too left me wanting... To shorten this up a bit, I pretty much drank one of everything else that they had on tap, and (to get the bad taste out of my mouth) I polished it off with another Moose Drool.
The next night I came back and kicked back a few pitchers of Moose Drool with some newly acquired buddies while we worked on making maps.
That was pretty much the routine for the rest of the summer for me... enough Moose Drool every night to drown a horse followed by wandering sinuously back to the dorm with a belly full of fine ale and beer-stained maps.
I am yet to drink a finer beer.
Cheers to Big Sky Brewing for giving a Mississippi boy a good reason to go back out west the very next summer.
-Pat
p.s. I got the second highest grade at field camp that summer...the highest grade was awarded to another Moose Drool fan my drinking buddy Tim.
