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Super Suckfest

The fact that it’s a vehicle for shit beer ads isn’t the only reason why the Super Bowl is super crappy.
by Eddie Glick

I like my beer like my women: pale, strong, full-bodied, and extremely bitter.
Contact Eddie»

I hate the Super Bowl. I know it sounds un-American, but don’t get me wrong: I love professional football. Whether it’s an intense, high-stakes showdown like the Saints-Patriots earlier this year or a crap sandwich between a couple of shit teams like, I dunno, the 49ers and Seattle, I’ll plop my ass down on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and enjoy it all while sipping a nice Midwest craft brew.

But the media and the NFL have dumbed the Super Bowl down to the absolute bottom—we’re talking along the lines of Ghost Hunters here, people—in order to pander to the biggest audience it can. Basically all of America. Including a huge proportion of people who don’t know the difference between an offensive tackle and an offensive guard. Or what a safety is. Or what a fucking football is shaped like. A big chunk of people watching the game don’t even know who’s actually playing and are just watching for the ads. And don’t get me started on the contrived shitball of pukingly painful “entertainment” that is the halftime show.

The Super Bowl is a microcosm (or, I guess in this case, a macrocosm) of mass-produced American beer.

[Tangent: The NFL has been dumbing down the entire sport relentlessly over the last 10-15 years. Make sure Tom Brady doesn’t get a boo-boo and the DBs don’t sneeze on the receivers so we can have scorefests that appeal to people who like shiny things. Fuck defensive strategy and the importance of the running game—casual fans don’t understand it. And the next step is shitcanning the manliest rule of all professional sports: sudden death overtime. If you wanna win, that means you have to play every aspect of the game: offense, defense, and yes, even (gasp!) special teams. And if you can’t hack it because the other team won the toss and ran the opening kickoff back 48 yards because your coverage is complete shit and you treated special teams as an afterthought all season, your only recourse is to go on ESPN and cry like a little fucking girl. But, noooo, we need to change it because it’s not fair! Dumb it down even more until we’re watching the Arena Football League Part II.]

And the Super Bowl is a microcosm (or, I guess in this case, a macrocosm) of mass-produced American beer. Big brewers took an intricate, highly enjoyable product and stripped it of any nuance, any subtlety, any variety, any soul. They stripped it down to nothing more than a vehicle for getting shitfaced. Take this painfully bland new product, advertise it until people’s spleens bleed, toss in some shady distribution tactics, and, voila, you’ve got the massively popular but utterly lifeless beer version of the Super Bowl.

Unlike football, you don’t have to have a deep understanding of beer’s inner workings to enjoy it.

Not everything has to be “accessible” to everyone. But beer is already “accessible.” Unlike football, you don’t have to have a deep understanding of beer’s inner workings to enjoy it. You don’t need to know the brewing process to appreciate the subtle nuances of Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, the chocolate richness of Dark Horse Too Cream Stout, the bitter complexity of Two Brothers Cane and Ebel, or the refreshing zip of New Glarus Dancing Man Wheat.

There’s nothing we can do about the dumbing down of football—the morons are running the asylum now, so it’s only a matter of time before we’ll be all sitting around watching mind-numbing games of 500. But with beer we can make a difference. On Supersuck Sunday, if you’re going to a party, bring some good craft brews. Get someone who’s a shit beer swiller to give the better stuff a try. If you’re hosting, make sure to have a plethora of locally brewed beer to choose from. Relegate anyone asking for shit beer to the uncomfortable corner chair without a view and the only food within reach being the almost-gone salsa with all the dingleberries from other people’s double-dipping. And if you’re not getting together with acquaintances to watch the game, do something awesome, like listening to it on the radio while home brewing some kick-ass beer.

Or you could be a real anarchist and plop yourself on the couch in your underwear with a mini-keg of Bell’s Two Hearted, a giant jar of dilled Brussels sprouts, and turn on the Puppy Bowl for six hours. I swear I won’t be doing that.