Beers Of The Bowl

What’s an unconscionable amount of beer to keep around your house, if you aren’t intending to age any of it?

That’s probably a good question for my new craft beer friends. The thing is that a lot of beers decline with age. So I thought this would be a good hobby for me, because it would encourage me to drink what I have on hand before I go out and buy more.

Surprisingly, it hasn’t quite worked out the way that I had imagined.

Last night I opened something called The LIzard King by Pipeworks Brewing Company out of Chicago. It was delicious and delivered some lovely pineapple notes. And then I sat down to a plate of Indian food which totally destroyed any chances of me tasting the rest of this beer. That was a dumb.

In just a couple of days the big game is coming up between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. I’ve got a bunch of spicy, Frank’s Red Hot drenched food on the menu, so I felt compelled to run out and buy even more beer just for the occasion.

I’ve found it always helps to have a plan.

Part of me thinks that spicy foods are best washed down with cheap beers. The overwhelming spice that will kill your tastebuds actually makes cheap beer taste better. Give me a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon with some fiery wings, and I’m a happy guy. Truly.

That is indeed a very tempting all-American approach for this all-American holiday. And let’s be honest, it’s absolutely a national holiday. Really, it’s the Monday after that should be the holiday. But I digress.

No, PBR was not the call of the day. It felt too generic for such a special occasion. I really like trying to find some kind of theme to what I do. I’ll blame this on my lifelong friend ADS who has spent far too much time at Disney parks and has somehow convinced me over the decades about the importance of themes.

So I went with states.

Carolina versus Colorado. And luckily for me, one of our local beverage stores has its vast selection of beers divided by political boundaries.

Counter-intuitively, Carolina was the easier state from which to select a six-pack. In the Carolina section, I found Westbrook Brewing Company. I’d heard the craft beer guys talking about them in the past. And I found a lovely rye pale ale that weighed in at a perfectly reasonable 5.5% ABV. It’s called One Claw, and I’m really looking forward to trying it.

Colorado was a bit harder, because there were just so many choices. I’ve had a few of the Oskar Blues, so I shied away from getting more of their stuff. Left Hand was an option, but those beers were all in bottles, and these days I have an irrational preference for beers in cans. It turns out that Avery Brewing Company makes a 6.5% IPA instead of their 8% Raja Double IPA (or 10.2% Maharaja Imperial IPA).

The idea was to keep the ABV down to modest levels so I could drink a few beers and still not burn myself while trying to heat tater tots in the oven or fetching my next slice of pizza.

Oh the debauchery.

I may choose which beer to drink based on which team is winning. Or perhaps if the scores are tied, I’ll decide to root for the team who has the beer that goes best with the food. I’m still not sure. All I know is that I’m excited to finally watch a football game this year. Hopefully it’s a good one.

And I can’t wait to see the Death Wish Coffee ad in the game. If you helped me vote for them a while back, thank you. You are part of the groundswell that made this happen. I really hope the publicity pulls well for this small local company. I suspect it will.

Have a great game day, and I’ll see you back here on Monday. That is unless I’m able to sneak off to Chowderfest on Saturday, in which case I’ll see you there first. Cheers!