Superbowl in Australia happens on Monday morning - with kick-off at 10.30am so it's not the best time for beer drinking, but I'm very dedicated to cause so I got myself some beer some hot dogs and I've got about 4 hours to spare so let's get this started.
I should mention I'm 'rooting' for Kansas City, which certainly means something else in Australia. Patrick Mahomes won me over last year plus Australians have a thing called Tall Poppy syndrome, so I have have some issues with Tom Brady.
Anyway Kansas all the way
The beer I've chosen for then big game is American, obviously. I've gone with the arrogant in your face Stone Brewing, becuase well there ain't much more USA than that. The beer itself is called 'Scorpion Bowl IPA' which is you squint and turn your head to the left almost looks like Super Bowl IPA - look it was enough for me.
In truth this is meant to be a big fruity IPA - and it delivers it's alovely golden colour with a big white frothy head. In my IPA glasses it's really highlights the hops, which are fruity, but in a clean way - I'm so used to seeing these hops with lactose and sweetness in NEIPAs but this is cleaner and more refreshing as the malt profile is more old school.
For some reason the artwork on this can is upside down, as is this game - it isn't looking great for Kansas City so maybe I'm shifting my alliance, take Tom Brady out of this and I could like Tampa Bay - underdogs could almost work for me.
We have hit half time so it's time for hot dogs and the halftime show, which admittedly I had to take a work related call - which happened at half time because the other person was also watching the game. Clearly not much 'work from home' work getting done today.
The Superbowl goes for a long time so let’s face it one beer wasn’t going to be enough, so I needed to find something else, but my Wife’s away and if I drink any of the special beer in the fridge without her I’ll be in trouble but then I had a idea.
There is beer in storage in fact there is old Homebrew down there. An American brown ale, which seems appropriate, perhaps more so if Cleveland had made it but you have to do what you can.
So this beer is close to 8 years old - the label tells me it was bottled in April 2013 which really is quite some time ago, and since then it would have spent some time under the stairs in our old house, in storage for about a year off site and then in our underground storage room, so well cared for, but it’s still 7 years which is a long time for a beer, particularly a hop driven brown ale.
It’s called GRRRR! Because I designed it to taste a bit like my favourite beer at the time which was called Growler from 2 Brothers. I remember at the time that it tasted a lot like it, so why this beer didn’t get drunk is anyone’s guess.
But how does it go now – Well it pours a fair amount darker than I remember, not surprisingly it’s lose most of it’s carbonation, and the hop characteristics has gone the same way as the Chiefs but the malt backbone is still there. It’s very drinkable, not quite what it used to be, but hey it’s old enough to be at school. It feel a little bit more like a brown lager (if that was a thing) it’s smooth, has just the barest hint of bitterness but all in all I’m quite happy with this beer.
Well we have hit the start of the four quarter and let's face it Tampa Bay have this all sewn up. Oh well, at least I had some good beer.
Oh and as always this is part of #beersaturday from @detlev. If you want to know what people around the globe are drinking this week check them all out in this post's comments