A Rant the Easy Way, a big F*** You to the Proud Macro People.

So the Super Bowl has been over for a couple of days now and we are all still talking about bad calls on the one yard line, and the overall greatness of that game. In my opinion the best Super Bowl I have seen since the Giants played the Bills, if not better. That is not why I am here today writing though. The reason for this entry is as some of you saw, and others who know me well know what’s coming. In the middle of this epic game there was a commercial for Budweiser. It was called brewed the hard way, or something to that effect. It’s caused a stir with folks that enjoy good beer and these are my thoughts.  

The first thing I would like to do is congratulate them on being proud to be a Macro Beer. Good for you Budweiser, good for you. I am glad that you are proud that you brew beer in factories, and that you can produce carts with horses and puppies in commercials for 4.5 million a pop that cater to that working man or woman and not us people who don’t work hard. Or have a brain, an opinion, or are remotely close to having an independent thought. Bravo.

Now on to my rant. Fuck you and shut the FUCK up. The people depicted in your 30 second masterpiece that fussed over beer and dissected it were an obvious stereotype of a beer geek. The guy with the handlebar mustache with his nose in the snifter of some sort of stout, and the table of other guys who were dressed similarly. Nice profiling. Guess what, I and MILLIONS of other people do not remotely resemble your high schoolish finger pointing, locker room style bull shit. I listen to Slayer, I drive a 2010 Dodge Challenger, watch football and NASCAR, I work my ASS off every day, and guess what there is no way in HELL I’m drinking a Bud. EVER. I don’t quote Nietzsche, drive a smart car, or listen to Mumford and Sons, which is what your marketing team was going for right? Those are the only people who drink craft beer.WRONG again, we are all different types of people you bunch of dopes. We just like good beer, something you fail to recognize or produce for that matter. So by this system that you have put into play who drinks your shit in a bottle? I am assuming that they are the Bro crowd of spray tanned fauxhawk, tribal tattooed guys and or that crowd that doesn’t drink beer except to get hammered, and hang out with their “Guys” ( see Meat Head Rob Lowe, or Creepy Rob Lowe from his direct TV commercials).

You are also catering to the crowd that also believes that Olive Garden is great Italian Food and P.F. Changs is great Chinese. The zombie like masses who do what marketing tells them. (See the last sentence of my first paragraph).In other words American Idiots.

Let’s go over the hypocrisy of the ad as well. So if you are all about your beech wood aged beer for “drinking” get out the horses show me a puppy happy good time beer, then why may I ask, do they have stakes in craft breweries like Widmer and Goose Island if they are so dead set against craft beer? Why then are there 50 different types of Shock Top? They are losing to us freaks, that’s why. They want their shelf space back so they can put 500 different bottles of bullshit in a case near you. So they turn to the masses, wave the flag, bring their horses and puppies out and essentially call us dweebs. Nice.

In Closing I would like to say that I am a craft beer dork, I do fuss over my beer, I do dissect craft beers, because they have flavor and are WORTH MY TIME, unlike your “drinkable”, “smooth finishing” yellow flavored water in a bottle. I would like to add with 2 middle fingers raised to the sky, Drinking an Arrogant Bastard, and listening to VoiVod, take your horses, beech wood barrels, puppies, frogs, football playing bottles, and whatever your team of Marketing losers come up with next, and cram them straight up your Macro ass.

Super Bowl party time!

 As many of you know I am probably one of the biggest pro football fans on the planet. So this week is the week of the 48^th annual Championship Game of the National Football League (I will not call it the “big game”) or The Super Bowl.

There I said the taboo name for the game, we can now move on. Being a hardcore fan, to me, this is the Christmas, New Year’s Eve, (name your favorite holiday) of my year. 90% of it is the game, but I love the party portion of it as well. Seeing that my Denver Broncos are in it this year it’s even more special to me (I like the Broncos to win 27-20 so if you read this after the game you can laugh or be impressed).  Food and beer take the center stage at almost every party, so why would you even contemplate drinking the official shit beer of the Super Bowl and serve the officially sponsored premade crap food for it? It’s a holiday, and it’s a party would you give people crappy pizza and reheated wings from a chain for a dinner party? Hell No. So why do it for the Super Bowl? So where do we go with the food you may ask?? Make it yourself. Homemade is the way to go, and if you are inept in the kitchen go to LOCAL restaurants, delis, or BBQ joints, to get your eats. I am going to help you out with a couple of Ideas here for the party as a whole.

First thing I do is figure out the beer, big shocker I know. All of the party type food for this event goes great with beer, and all types of it. Since I am a big cheese ball, I like to get beers from the cities or states of the teams in the game. So this current version is Denver and Seattle. Great year to give this a try. There are a ton of breweries from these 2 cities.  Here are a few that are readily available in most areas. Denver/Colorado (Coors and Blue Moon are not craft beers so don’t go there) has Oskar Blues, New Belgium, Great Divide to name a couple, Seattle/Washington you have Pyramid, Elysian, Red Hook there are a ton more in these cities and states. When your guests choose a beer they also are making a choice for the game as well. Like I said cheesy but fun. If that’s too cheesy get some local brews for the game or a couple growlers just none of that crap they are advertising during the game. Now for the food.

 Menu wise minus the chips and dips and whatever snack foods that you pick there are a lot of choices. In the cold weather nothing beats some good chili in my book. I am not going to throw a recipe out there mostly  because everyone has one, whether it’s a traditional beef, or a turkey, or a vegetarian, they always work just have some stuff to throw on it like cheese or sour cream and other fun stuff. Let’s focus on another big part of this game’s food the sandwich. Time to go big or go home! I like to do it different as well. There are about a thousand different ways to go here. Like Peyton Manning I am calling an audible at the line. Instead of a standard big cold cut sandwich try something like a Banh Mi or a giant Cuban sandwich. If you don’t cook or don’t want to, get some pulled pork or BBQ beef from a local BBQ joint, a loaf of good French bread some cheddar and make a giant BBQ sandwich. As for the other two I mentioned let’s go over construction.

The Banh Mi is a tasty and not so well known sandwich from Vietnam. For this you will need to do a little prep. I like doing a grilled chicken one but you can do it with pork or even with tofu or tempeh if you don’t eat meat. Since I am carnivorous let’s do the chicken one. Once again we are making this a big sandwich, so get a loaf of good French bread to start. You are going to need a pound of boneless chicken thighs that need to be marinated for a couple of hours or overnight. Recipe will be below. Now traditionally there are pickled carrots and Daikon radish, but I construct a simple slaw of sorts with carrots, red bell peppers, and some Napa cabbage. So the chicken is ready to go, guess what we are firing up the grill. Outside. In February. Why fear the cold and snow? Just because it’s not sunny and 75 doesn’t mean you need to stop grilling. So to the construction of this masterpiece. This is all about the layers. Cut the French bread so it’s opened up. This calls for a mayo but put it on the side, some people hate it, some bathe in it, so leave it up to them. First cut up the thighs and lay them down. Next a layer of sliced cucumbers, then your slaw, then some fresh cilantro and some sliced Jalapeños for some heat. Fold the bread up and cut it into chunks, however big or small you want to.

Banh Mi Marinade                                                                          Carrot slaw

¼ cup soy sauce                                                                                1 carrot julienned

½ of a lime juiced                                                             1 red pepper julienned

¼ cup cider vinegar                                                         1 green onion

2 cloves of garlic                                                               1 Cup of shredded cabbage

1 tablespoon of 5 spice blend                                     1 tablespoon of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste                                                               ¼ cup rice wine vinegar

                                                                                                Salt and pepper to taste

 Next we do the classic Cuban with a craft beer twist. We need the oven for this one. Set it to 375. French bread is your base again. Cut the bread in half like we did before so you can open it up. You will need roughly about a pound to a pound and a half of a good ham sliced thin. Lay it out on the bread on BOTH sides then we are going to put a layer of sliced pickles. Kosher deli style ones work best. Then a good layer of Swiss cheese. Put the whole thing in the oven and bake it until the cheese is melty. Normally this sandwich is pressed but since it’s a big sandwich we’ll skip that part. Take it out and fold it together. Wait, you are saying you forgot the mustard? Nope. Here’s the twist we are doing a whole grain IPA mustard for it. You can put this in the sandwich after the toasting or put it on the side if there are mustard haters around.  Recipe is as follows:

 IPA MUSTARD

1 jar of Whole grain mustard

3 garlic cloves roasted and chopped

¼ cup of Stone Ruination or other Imperial/double IPA

So there are a few ideas for your Super Bowl party, have a good time enjoy the game, the food, the commercials, and most importantly GO BRONCOS!!!!!!