Tag: Sports & A Beer

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In the Tap Lines for July 2024

For me, May Gray and June Gloom are the best time in SoCal but I know that I am in the minority and that most people love the sun. Whichever Angeleno you are, please make July – Visit a brewery month. It is really needed beer fans.

~ e-visits to (3) new breweries in my home state of Oregon

~ special featured reviews of barrel-aged beers from Lough Gill Brewing in Sligo, Ireland

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Napoleon of Crime by Ben MacIntyre

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Finally! A Show About Women That Isn’t Just a Thinly Veiled Aspirational Nightmare

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Sports and climate change

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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Sports & A Beer – NIL

Name, image and likeness.  To universities and coaches, it is a bit of a curse word.  To the NCAA as a whole?  A lot more swear words.  But how will college sports really be changed by this?  Probably won’t know until a few years and college classes have gone through but I have a guess and it involves a power switch.

That switch was from coach to player.  It is on full display here in Los Angeles with LeBron James and Anthony Davis as much in charge of head coach as the front office.  It is seen in the transfer portal where athletes head out of town if they don’t play or get to play in the style they want.

This will expand, in my opinion, to those college athletes who will find that they have levers of power to pull and will start to pull them.  Who will stand in the way of a 19 year old combo guard who is making local commercials really well and whose draft stock is rising?

Not the college who has a marquee name to use as a draw. Not a coach who is on the hot seat. Not a NCAA administrator who needs to keep both happy.  Of course keeping the worker down is endemic in the US so all will keep trying to push the athlete down but they might soon find that they cannot.

Pivoting to beer, the closest analog to a NIL is IP and how breweries skirt lawsuits with beer names and labels.  Who will gain the upper hand there?  So go find a beer with a movie reference or a product reference on it.  How does name and likeness translate in the realm of beer labels?

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In the Tap Lines for June 2024

June is L.A. Beer Week Time so the BSP blog will be celebrating that all month long.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the Sister Cities of Los Angeles

~ special featured reviews of whatever is in the refrigerator throughout the month

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to The Curious History of Your Home

~ Sports & A Beer returns with NIL thoughts

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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Sports & A Beer – Drafting a QB1

The NFL draft and all its many rounds and players is done and now we wait for the season to start and to see which of the plethora of Quarterbacks taken in the Top 10 alone will fare.  Which will play and show promise, which will hold the clipboard (or is it iPad now?) and which will pull a Zach Wilson and flame out real hard and get called out by his owner.

Bear in mind that the offensive coordinator and the receiving corps are integral to any QBs success and some of these passers will not get either and will be harder to grade because of it.  Some will not be able to scale up to the speed of the NFL. And despite more and more mental and physical tests and all sorts of AI and computer modeling, no one is any closer to predicting success.

But I will go out on a limb and give a few guesses as to who will make a mark and who might have trouble….

Good Spots

Caleb Williams the No. 1 pick is walking into a team with two big wide receiver additions in Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze to go with DJ Moore and lowered expectations from past QBs make this a great spot to to land.

J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota also inherits a strong receiving and tight end corp and will not need to put the team on his back. Just needs to get that pigskin to the playmakers.

Drake Maye in New England is following some really mediocre quarterbacks so has a really low bar to clear for success and since the Patriots have a new coach and are clearly rebuilding this can be a learning year.

Bad Spots

Michael Penix in Atlanta. Why the Falcons selected any QB after backing up a Brinks truck for Kirk Cousins is way beyond me. Then the GM says that Penix will be groomed to take over wheb Cousins contract is done in FIVE YEARS.

Jayden Daniels is the new Commanders QB and I don’t know which direction the entire team is going so I fear Daniels will be running for his life.

For beer, see if you can find a brewery from each of those five cities or you can just go get Kansas City beer since Patrick Mahomes is the ne plus ultra of quarterbacks.

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In the Tap Lines for May 2024

With the Craft Brewers Conference in the rear view, it is time to prepare yourself for summer beer festival season. Though not as busy as in past years, there will be plenty to do and plenty of souvenir cups to collect. Below is what is currently planned for the month of May here on the blog.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the Central Coast of California in advance of the Firestone Walker Invitational

~ special featured reviews of whatever is in the refrigerator throughout the month

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Tales from the Tardis

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Drafting for QB1

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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In the Tap Lines for April 2024

Spring sprang a day early this year and SoCal has been getting actual weather with slight variations instead of 80 degrees and dry as hell, so time to celebrate the season and bottom left corner of the country.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from San Diego

~ special featured reviews of Spring beers

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzales James

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to A Crispr Bite

~ Sports & A Beer returns with

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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Sports & A Beer – March Madness

It is easy to get caught up in March Madness. The sheer amount of games, the buzzer beaters and the Cinderella teams, Stetson Hatters anyone. Also the fun of busted brackets, yes fun, no one wins so it is truly a game to play.

The only thing going against March Madness is that a good chunk of games each passing year are played in April. But compared to the shitshow that is the college football behemoth and their three super conferences, college basketball is as pristine as the driven snow.

And making this an even more interesting year is that there is no real consensus best player except for Caitlin Clark. And as much as the boy’s bracket will be tough, the Women’s bracket will feature Clark and the Hawkeyes of Iowa, defending champs LSU and new powerhouse South Carolina. That Final Four will be great games.

There are two ways you can pair craft beer with games. One is to find a brewery that corresponds with each of the four regions and when you watch a game from that region crack one open from that part of the country. You could also select beers based on where games are played.

Another route would be to pick beers from the cities / states where the #1 seeds hail from or if you are here for the upsets, find the #16 seeds instead.

Enjoy the tourney and its shining moments.

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In the Tap Lines for March 2024

Springtime in SoCal as we move into what I jokingly call “early summer”. Hoping to find some bock beers, either strong or dopple would be nice plus the following features this month….

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the newer cities in the NWSL

~ special featured reviews of a potpourri of beers

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Trees by Percival Everett

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Heritage Mezcal

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Thoughts on March Madness

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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Sports & A Beer – What are sports anyway? 

I have been over the Olympics for many cycles now.  Corruption played a part.  NBC never not showing figure skating, even during the summer games a part. But another aspect was the fringe competitions that popped up and then disappeared.  I’m looking at you, flag football.

Ever since Dodgeball the Movie introduced us to ESPN8, The Ocho, it seems your cornhole, your darts, your curling are now considered athletic competitions.  Now before you say I am clinging to an outmoded way of sports thought, they are competitions sure.  It takes skill to throw a dart with pinpoint accuracy but it also is more math as you need to know where to throw it to get the right point total.  

Flag Football is a competition but it is more an anti-concussion one.  And curling is literally sweeping meets ice Bocce Ball.  What’s next, axe throwing as sport?  I know that the streaming platforms are desperate for sports content because unlike the Harry Potter movies that have been on every platform, sometimes at the same time, sports are unique individual events. But they are not going to boost the subscriber base with a mega niche offering like Quidditch.

I have to say that these outliers may be fun, but you will never see Usher playing the halftime show of the Cornhole Super Bowl.

This is an easy beer pairing because we won’t be pairing these psedo-sports with beer.  The next time a dodgeball contest is on and you are watching because you were intimidated by the nearly three hour run time of Part 1 of Mission Impossible, grab yourself a hard seltzer or a smoothie beer that pours like a slurpee from 7-11 and enjoy the weirdness that is the “sports” landscape in 2024. Or you could really zag and find a beer/wine hybrid, that would be the classy way.

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In the Tap Lines for February 2024

Another trip around the sun for this here beer blogger. Time to celebrate with an extra day and some extra special beers along with the usual posts such as….

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from Washington State in honor of George’s birthday that he shares with me

~ special featured review my chosen birthday beer

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer Black AF History by Michael Harriot

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to True Detective – Night Country

~ Sports & A Beer returns with What are sports now anyway?

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.