The Symphony of Craft Beer and Football

This country yearns for the razzle-dazzle of sports entertainment, feasting on spectacular step overs and end zone tumbles with recreational hunger, chomping on the hot guts of point aggregation and victory with the unbridled emotion of unburied zombies buffeting at a senior living center.

We feast our faces on the spoils of breads and grilled meats, natural bedfellows to this nation's primary pastime potable: BEER -- and unless you are reading this article from Kiev or Krakow -- we, as Americans rely mainly on beer to take us from compliant office drone on Friday to defiant middle finger wagger by Saturday.  Its science.

And yet, the single-most confounding abnormality about sports culture in the United States is the propensity to demonstrate all of this courageous backbone and undeniable intensity -- pounding fists to stone in hopeless despair, barking with spirituous celebration in glory, and enduring subzero climates in shirtless solidarity -- but then choose to drink a light beer with absolutely no fucking balls at all.

It just makes no sense.  Its like ordering a double bacon burger with a couple of veggie patties.

The collective sports enthusiast -- most notably 'football fan' -- appears to willfully endorse a spectacularly bland version of boiled lettuce as a means to invoke home team mania, and, of course helping along any social barriers one might experience with opposing fans in the parking lot of some shitty, back-road wilderness like Manhattan, Kansas or Ames, Iowa.  The protocol for survival is typically a 24-count case of American corn lager, a Styrofoam cooler from the party store, and $1.49 bag of ice.  Now just what in the ....

[Oh, hey!  Did you like that so far?  Do yer wanna read more about how perfectly craft beer pairs with football season?  Be sure to pick up an Austin Beer Guide during its release party tomorrow, October 3rd, at Craft Pride on Rainey Street and read the rest of this insightful shit.  Beyond that, you're on your own to scavenge the Fall 2013 issue from the Draught House crapper.]  ... or just keep reading below if yr not in Austin ...

... fuck?

By all means, if tradition is your flavor, far be it from me as a horribly superstitious sports fan to alter your team's good fortune with the suggestion of alternative beer brands.  

But if economics is your barrier, or quality your question, or laziness your impedance, or even intimidation your fear, allow us at the Austin Beer Guide to try to take your pre-game to the next level.  After all, this is Autumn; the season of receiving sweets and giving thanks, cooling off despite the sun shining brightly through depleted branches, raging benders on the patio.  And football.  Some might even call it "The Best Season".

Fortunately for many, living in Austin entitles its townspeople to good football and great beer.  And while the city's brewing tradition isn't as legendary as its gridiron past, it is made up for with the talent and speed of a youthful upstart turning heads across the land.

One way for Austin to immediately impart its brewing cachet on locals, was to create historically relevant and regionally appropriate beer.  This is where many feel the local brew scene excels, and they are probably right in this sense; sessionable, yet flavorful beers that pair suitably with our unmerciful subjective temperatures -- the summer-into-fall weather that appears to be every Austinite's pet-hate. 

Here are a few of our recommendations to get you through the residual hot months before transitioning into the briskness of late Fall and early Winter.  Most of these beers are easy on the alcohol percentage for sustainability, but remain bold on the palate for quality.  But sometimes -- just sometimes -- you have to break out the big guns to get you through the tenuous moments.  We included those too, because in incidents of high emotion, craft beer is almost as serious as football.

Almost.

Kickoff (August - September)

Austin is quickly becoming a city that is easily out-drinking its provisions in beer, and this is because local brewers are absolutely nailing it with mild-bodied American style ales and lagers.  What is abandoning shelves city-wide are spruced-up version of classic American styles that once defined the country's beer culture -- sessionable swills like PBR and Bud Light, for example -- and empowering them with quality ingredients like hops and all-malt profiles.  This leads to approachable, palatable, and flavorful beers that allow for daylong imbibing without too much concern for falling out of your chair by game time.

These are the Arial fonts of beer: simple layout, nice packaging, not too fussy, but imparting plenty of impact on your social game. These are best enjoyed during the hot-Fall, which, in geographic anomalies like Austin, extends well into the football season's first rivalry week.

Austin Beerworks Peacemaker

Style: Extra Pale Ale

ABV:  5.0%

Available: In cans, on draught.

Peacemaker Extra Pale Ale is as bright and merciful as an Adele/Taylor Swift duet.  It has long washes of citrus and crystal clear notes of flavoring hops.

Hops & Grain The One They Call Zoe

Style: Pale American Lager

ABV: 5.2%

Available: In cans, infrequently on draught.

Austin's defacto gateway beer, Zoe is considered a pale lager -- the same style as a Bud or a Coors -- but as similar technically as Toby Keith is to Keith Jackson.  Try this robust homage to badassery.

Real Ale Hans Pils

Style: Pilsner

ABV: 5.3%

Available: In cans, on draught.

Hans Pils is the 2012 Great American Beer Festival Silver Medalist in a very difficult category.  If Texas is to become as synonymous with Czech and German Pilsners as fried chicken is to Kentucky, then Hans Pils is the hearth that bears that flame.

Live Oak HefeWeizen

Style: Wheat beer

ABV: 5.2%

Available: Draught only.

Considered Austin's first (and as of yet, only) "World Class" beer, Live Oak HefeWeizen is the cornerstone of north campus pre-gaming at places like Crown & Anchor and Posse East.

The Second Half (October - November)

Late Autumn in Austin is not the unremitting gray drizzle of football hotbeds like the Northwest or the blustery mix of the Midwest, however, this time of year delivers to our city the sweet relief of cooler temperatures. 

We can feel thankful that our mild Falls allow for us to be outside much more than our northern counterparts because of the lack of moisture, however, we still need to find something weighty to dig our heels into as the subjective temperature dips all the way into the frosty 70s.  Beer selection at this juncture is typically less bittered and more malt-driven with a slightly higher ABV to cushion against local hypothermia.

 

Independence Oklahoma Suks

Style: Amber

ABV: 4.8%

Available: Very limited in bottles seasonally. (Austin Amber available year-round in bottles, draught)

Oklahoma Suks is just Independence's Austin Amber dressed in Texas gear ahead of the Red River Rivalry in early October, but with a mild, roasted finish and low ABV, its a beer that will pal around with you through the emotional ebb-and-flow of a typical Texas-ou match up like a familiar friend.

Hops & Grain Alt-eration

Style: Altbier

ABV:  5.1%

Available: In Cans, draught

Alt-eration was the 2012 World Beer Cup gold medalist for its category, which at that time, made it the best Altbier one could buy, anywhere, after only a few months in production.  With that kind of hardware and credibility, its an safe bet to draft this one for your weekend plans.

Austin Beerworks Black Thunder

Style: German Schwarzbier

ABV: 5.3%

Available: In Cans, draught

Grainy and malty, chocolatey and nutty -- none of that matters because Black Thunder sound football-y as fuck.  Just buy it.  Its a perfect fall beer.  Actually, its perfect any time.

Overtime (December - January)

Ah, yes, finally you have to wear a hoodie to get your mail, and you begin driving to work while its still dark outside.  Your team has either struggled mightily and its time to cash-in on caring -- OR -- you're team is thriving and its whats keeping your pumping heart from rude health, despite overindulgence on holiday office party lamb and the trendy macarons your kid left for Santa in hopes of a Robo Fish.  All this while your size 34 belt mimicks a tourniquet to your lower extremities.  All of them.

These are demonstrative times, and demonstrative times call for bolder beers.  Its time to go big.

(512) Pecan Porter

Style: Porter

ABV:  6.5%

Available: Draught only.

Besides Live Oak HefeWeizen, (512)'s Pecan Porter might be Austin's most iconic beer.  If you got on your knees and licked Zilker Park's earth, I don't know if you could get a better sense of how Austin might literally taste.  This should be it.

Independence Convict Hill

Style: Oatmeal Stout

ABV: 8.0%

Available: In bottles, on draught.

Lovely, and chocolatey and smooth and boozy before swirling back to lovely. The kind of beer that makes it nearly impossible for your bottom-dweller team to harsh the mellow.

Jester King Black Metal

Style: English Imperial Stout

ABV:  9.3%

Available: In bottles, draught rarely.

Well, now we're talking about a ball-bustin' beer beast.  Drinking a Black Metal during the BCS Championship or Super Bowl would be like driving a Testarossa to Senior Prom.  If you want to be a badass, you've gotta drink the badass.