Tag: NFL

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Sports & A Beer – NFL Underachivers

Kansas City already has 3 losses.  Buffalo already has 2 losses.  Detroit is up and down at 4-2 and Baltimore is really struggling at 1-5. Even the last Superb Owl Champs Philadelphia have doubters in their camp following an uneven start.

What this shows, first and foremost, is that the margins in the NFL are thin.  Games that you won last year are not being won this year.  Regression to the mean is the statistical name and in practice, it means if you got lucky bounces last year, they may not show up two years in a row.

It also makes for a more enjoyable regular season when the old adage of “any given Sunday” is true and there are less games that you turn off before the 4th quarter starts.

Putting on my prognostication cap, I think all the teams save maybe Baltimore who were rough with Lamar Jackson and even rougher without will make the playoffs.  There are too many middling and poor teams for this rough stretch to continue for the best in the league.  Refer back to the lucky bounces, it all evens out.  Sometimes even during a season.

Keeping with the even theme, the next time you tune in to some gridiron action, mix it up.  You can do sessionable beers or non-hoppy stuff but why not toss in a Czech Dark Lager or a red IPA so that your next Sunday is as unpredictable as a 2025 NFL game.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Hard Knocks

I like the behind the scenes stuff, especially when it comes to professional sports. It is all too easy to pick apart a team just from watching highlights but that nitpickery becomes harder when you see what has led up to that moment.

And no one is better at creating and curating moments like NFL Films so I was wondering how their Hard Knocks brand would work in podcast form.

Hosted by Andrew Siciliano, the pod is more a recap format. More previously on then new material. That is at first, then they bring in a guest to talk about the episode and the Buffalo Bills overall and it gets more interesting. Plus I do like that at the end of each podcast, Siciliano anoints an MVP of the show. It is a fun touch to see who gets the nod.

There are a few football related names in craft beer but I will task listeners of the podcast to find a beer in your nearest NFL city and crack open a can. For me, here in Los Angeles, start with Crowns & Hops which is in process of an Inglewood taproom near SoFi Stadium or Los Angeles Ale Works and/ or Common Space in very nearby Hawthorne.

And if you do go to an NFL game or two this year, make sure to buy craft inside the stadium. The more you buy, the more they might just stock.

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Superb Owl 2025

This year’s Super Bowl will be contested by two teams who despite getting loads of digital ink spilled about their offensive woes both made it to New Orleans for this years finale to the NFL season.

Reigning champion Kanas City Chiefs will be attempting trifecta of wins while the Philadelphia Eagles behind a monster year from new running back Saquon Barkley will try to snap the streak.

First off this is a long afternoon or long day if you tune in to all the bluster and repetition of football pundits earlier in the day. So have plenty of water handy as well as snacks. The big game is a great time to bottle share so find that hard to find beer and share with whomever is watching with you. I would recommend starting out with the low ABV beers for the first half before moving on to the bottle share portion because sometimes the game is only close in the first half and you want to enjoy that competition and the good commercials too.

I would also suggest having food late in the 4th quarter in case folks feel like jetting off at the final whistle. You don’t want bigger beers on an empty stomach.

I will be posting what I am drinking on Untappd and social media if you want to see what I am sipping.

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Sports & A Beer – Managerial Changes

For every sport, every season brings the coaching carousel.  A coach gets fired and then by the next year is coaching somewhere else.  In the National Football League both the Jets of New York and the Saints of New Orleans have parted way with head coaches and surprisingly the Premier League in England has only seen one high profile departure ( so far ), that being Erik Ten Hag being booted by Manchester United.  It is too early for NBA firings but there are plenty of coaches whose hot seats are warm.

After the changes, the team may win a few games and the word leaks out that the coach had “lost” the locker room as if a character in The Importance of Being Earnest.  It is more likely that any given sports team is a fragile state of being.  It is why dynasties are so intriguing because they are not the natural state of affairs.  United can rule Manchester and then can be usurped by City.  Red replaced by light blue.

Coaches are integral but so is a dominant player or healthy players and luck.  Lots of luck.  A football in America can bounce so many ways and a football in Britain can ping just under or just over a crossbar.  Which makes coaching changes such an object of discussion because the avid fan cannot really pinpoint why a coach will succeed or fail. If indeed they did either.  A true bad coach is rare and may just be someone who is better as an assistant in truth.

Tying this into craft beer.  Is there a brewery that you think could use a change in brewer.  Not because one is bad per se, but just as a means of refreshing the current beers and dreaming up new ones?  Maybe a brewery that has added a beer(s) to their line-up that are not in their wheelhouse while discontinuing others that were legend?  Next time you are beer shopping, check out the beers that you think could use a new direction.

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Sports & A Beer – Hard Knocks

Since the Hard Knocks documentary series has come to HBO streaming ( gonna pass on the dumb Max name ), I have become a fan. And the roster of shows keeps expanding with pre- season and in-season now joined by off-season.

We only follow the team over five episodes and by team, I mean the back of house team. The GM, the owner, the scouts. Players are not far from mind, but they are not the focus. The ultimate episode is the draft which is a bit anti-climactic since the Giants basically got the wide receiver they wanted as well as a defensive free agent they coveted as well.

Future seasons may have more action to them, but this one, though illuminating pales in comparison to the pre-season version.

For beer, you can go two ways. Find any New Jersey beers you can or failing that, New York. Or you can pull out the biggest abv beer that you have on hand and wake up the next morning like you had been hit by a linebacker.

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What to Drink on Feb. 11th

Of course, 2/11 is the finale of the 2023/2024 NFL season….

And there are some pigskin themed beers out there to try, like the below:

I have a few picks based on the two teams in the big game, starting with the first team to advance, the Chiefs of Kansas City…

Gotta start with the obvious, Swift Cider would make an excellent first quarter drink. Since Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are Hall of Fame bound, the Heirloom Cuvée would be classy choice.

There are not a plethora of KC beers in L.A. so if you may have to get creative. Look for beers with red labels to match the uniform color (as well as the ubiquitous State Farm ads featuring Mahomes, Maauto and Coach Reid). Or load upon Red IPAs, there are more and more out there.

On to the NFC and the 49ers of San Francisco where you probably need to start and finish at 21st Amendment Brewery where you should start with the Run CMC IPA named in honor of do it all offensive threat Christian McCaffrey and then go on to the Find Your Fortune Toasted Ale. Or, find yourself a version of the California Common and toast both the team and Anchor Brewing.

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Sports & A Beer – All Star Games

All-Star games in the U.S. have morphed quite a bit in the last few years alone. Who would have thought that there would be flag football played with NFL players or that the NBA would have playground style captains picking teams.

Overall an All-Star game has turned into a weekend of entertainment and not a true celebration of the best players and it has suffered along with awards shows like the Oscars and Grammys with what is the best anyway.

Injuries and just being worn down also play a role. NBA players with a third of their season still in front of them just don’t want to aggravate anything and thus no read defense is played and the NBA finally had to change the rules to a first to this point total rule. The NFL plays after a long season, that is now even longer right after the Super Bowl so no Chiefs or Eagles are going to play.

My idea is to put the game at the start of the season. Have the sportswriters choose the starting line-ups and give the fans and coaches input on reserves. Make it a shortened game and have each team play for a charity with the winning team donating a larger amount. Add in three point shooting or field goal kicking contests to round it out.

This would hype up the coming season and add a little competition back into the event.

On the beer side, choose your beer rating app of choice and find a starting five of the best ranked beers. Saison Dupont. Pliny the Elder. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Those would be on my list.

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Footbahlin

The NFL is back in stadiums but the Steelers will be without their long standing QB1 Ben Roethlisberger whose has moved behind the mic to podcast.

Footbahlin will not just be about football though, there will be a craft beer component as well.

I watched the first episode on YouTube because I could not find the just audio version and it has a California backstory. The title of the show is a nod to Anderson Valley’s Boontling dialect.

It is a good example of people not deep into beer just having fun. Something that I lose sight of and have to reel back in. The show is an hour which I find a bit too long. It is more regular conversation instead of tight and edited.

But it is a good education on tasting because kids and QBs say the darndest things.

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SoFi Super

Thankfully, no Brady. No Cowboys. No anti-vaxx Rodgers or Patriots. I can say, it doesn’t matter who wins Super Bowl 56, I will be happy. That leaves us the mental energy to plan great beer choices.

Home team Los Angeles Rams (who by NFL rules is the away team for this game) will face the surprising Bengals of Cincinnati.

So here is the plan for your beer buying:

Buy Local

Buy Crowlers to share or split 4-packs

Load up on low ABV beers…

but have a big TIPA or barrel-aged beer for the last part of the 4th quarter

Have plenty of water.

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Are You Ready for Some… Three Weavers

It may not be ready when T. Swift opens the new Inglewood Stadium next year but Three Weavers will have a large 20,000-square-foot  presence in the stadium.  There will be a beer garden + opening in 2021 in the Hollywood Park development.

The beer garden per sources “will feature plenty of room for on-site brewing, as well as seating by way of outdoor tables and space for live music.” It is quite amazing that any sort of true craft presence is being invited into one of these projects.  The big beer cabal usually puts the kibosh on any sort competitors even at lesser pro sports venues, let alone a biggie like the NFL.