BCS Finals preview: FDTB
Our first competitor in the Finals of the Beer Championship Series in the Maryland-based brew Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale.
Here’s what the Flying Dog folks have to say about it:
“Tire Bite Golden Ale is a refreshing, light, warm weather slammer with a flavorful hop edge. Brewed using exclusive imported German hops, this beer draws craft beer drinkers back from the ‘dark’ side of the cooler.”
This beer is 5% ABV and is brewed with malted white wheat and Munich malt, and German perle and Hallertau hops.
It’s the Great F*!~$%^ Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
I love the classic Charlie Brown cartoons that come on this time of year. As a youngster, that was always a big deal — checking the TV listings to find out when they were going to be on. And if you missed it, that was it. You typically got one shot with the Great Pumpkin at Halloween, the popcorn and toast Thanksgiving dinner and the Christmas pageant gone awry. But this is the technological age people. Now I present to you the Charlie Brown holiday special three-pack DVD set. Which I bought for my 3-year-old son. For like $40. And that he watches on a loop day after day. But there’s something I didn’t realize all these years until now. You know, now that I’ve been subjected to mind-numbing exposure. For an impressionable 3-year-old who you don’t want running around calling people stupid, these specials are pretty crass. Any time Lucy opens her mouth, it’s to call someone stupid, or a blockhead, or to threaten to slug someone. I can’t count how many times this conversation has carried out at my house the past few weeks:
Son: But dad, they said stupid, and stupid’s a bad word.
Thirsty Beagle: Yes, that is a bad word. We shouldn’t say that word. I’m not sure why they keep saying that.
So now I’ve got a 3-year-old who’s probably going to end up calling everyone stupid and who will likely eventually be sent to the principal’s office for calling someone a blockhead and threatening to slug them.
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. You stupid blockhead.
The BCS Finals!
The Thirsty Beagle Beer Championship Series all comes down to this: Sixty-four beers have been whittled down to two. They’ve survived and advanced. They’ve won their regions, fighting off every challenger. They bested international semifinal competition. And now we have the match-up:
Choc 1919 (Krebs, OK) vs. Flying Dog Tire Bite (Maryland)
Here’s another look at the bracket. Voting in the championship round will commence Monday morning. In the meantime, The Thirsty Beagle will break down this match-up just as if I were ESPN covering a regular season Yankees-Red Sox game: Like it’s the biggest event in the history of the world.
Check back in over the weekend to get to know our final competitors a little better, and navigate over Monday for the start of voting.
Cheers!
BCS Final Four voting continues today
Wow! Talk about a serious response to the Beer Championship Series. We saw the most votes we’ve had in any day yesterday for the Final Four match-ups. Thanks to everyone for surfing over this way and joining in. If you haven’t already cast your vote, you’ve got until 9 tonight to do so. I’ll post the results Friday morning. As a reminder, the match-ups are:
Choc 1919 (Krebs) vs. Labatt Blue (Canada)
and
Flying Dog Tire Bite (Maryland) vs. Hoegaarden (Belgium)
As always, you can post your votes in the comments section or e-mail them to thethirstybeagle@yahoo.com.
Speaking of e-mail, and continuing in our theme of the BCS, it’s nice to see every once in a while you can get an e-mail that really makes you laugh. I mean, making jokes to co-workers about how I’m going to quit my job because I just won $25 million (U.S.) in the national lottery of Cameroon is getting old, isn’t it? So here’s a tongue-in-cheek forward I received yesterday:
BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II; US Ranked 4th
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS
computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS
declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with
the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into
conference play with defeats of Poland,France, Norway, Sweden,Denmark,
Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and
Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an
incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy
of the #1 ranking.”
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS
commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and
Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by
head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single,
equally-weighted event.”
German Chancellor Adolph Hitler said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we
defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Hitler has been
criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ‘style points’ to
enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland
was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were
incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional
forces.”
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented ”
France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1
ranking they only fell to #2.”
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the
Philippines.
Giving beer a bad name, Vol. 5
Thirty-year-old Nathan Dilworth thought he was simply stopping in at a Greenville, Maine, convenience store Monday to pick up a beer. What he didn’t realize was that the visit to the store would land him in jail in connection with a bank robbery in Texas. Turns out Dilworth — who was living in his mother’s apartment at the time of his arrest – is noted for his run-ins with the law in the area. The store clerk recognized him, and notified police he was in town. When police arrested Dilworth and ran his name through a crime database, they found he was wanted in connection with a November bank robbery in San Antonio. Dilworth: You picked the wrong store to fulfill your beer fix. And living with your mother at age 30? You should be locked up just for that.
-Beer Championship Series update: Voting will continue today and Thursday in the BCS Final Four. See the post below for the match-ups and voting instructions.
VOTE! The BCS Final Four
It’s been a long, arduous trip for many beers in the Beer Championship Series, but the regional nets have been cut down, the hats and T-shirts have been handed out, and we’ve arrived at our Final Four. Here are the results from the Elite Eight:
Oklahoma Region: Choc 1919 over Basement Batch; International Region: Labatt Blue over Moosehead; USA Region: Flying Dog Tire Bite over Leinenkugel Original; and Europe Region: Hoegaarden over Guinness.
Here’s how the bracket looks.
And here are the Final Four match-ups:
-Choc 1919 vs. Labatt Blue
-Flying Dog Tire Bite vs. Hoegaarden
Voting is now open. You can post your votes in the comments section or e-mail them to thethirstybeagle@yahoo.com. Voting will continue today and through Thursday night — that’s right, two days of voting. I’ll post the Final Four results Friday morning, and we’ll come back Monday morning with the championship match-up.
Cheers!
Belgians take over, Americans lose jobs
Looks like the takeover of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian brewer InBev is having some serious 
repercussions on this side of the Atlantic. The company announced that as part of its plan to integrate Anheuser-Busch into InBev, officials are set to lay off 1,400 people, or about 6 percent of the U.S. workforce. The company said about 75 percent of the cuts will come from corporate headquarters in St. Louis. Talk about the worst early Christmas gift ever.
On a separate note, if you’re interested in voting in the Elite Eight of The Thirsty Beagle Beer Championship Series, you can see the match-ups in the post below. You can post your votes in the comments section or by e-mailing thethirstybeagle@yahoo.com.
Beer Championship Series update
Good day all:
Oh the joys of having a sick 3-year-old with a bad case of cabin fever. Needless to say, I was thrown off my blog-
posting game over the weekend and into Monday. Many apologies to all involved. There was a little confusion as to whether it was OK to vote in the Elite Eight of the BCS — in previous days I’ve had an official post to open the voting. As it turned out, a good number of people just decided to send in their votes anyway. If you’ve already voted, consider your vote counted. I’m going to extend voting to today (Tuesday) as well to give more people a chance to weigh in. Here are the match-ups:
-Oklahoma Region: Choc 1919 vs. Basement Batch
-International Region: Labatt Blue vs. Moosehead
-USA Region: Leinenkugel Original vs. Flying Dog Tire Bite
-Europe Region: Hoegaarden vs. Guinness
Voting will be open until 9 p.m. central time. You can post your votes in the comments section or e-mail them to thethirstybeagle@yahoo.com. Cheers!
Bring on the BCS Elite Eight!
Many thanks to everyone who voted in the Beer Championship Series Sweet 16 — we had the most votes of any round so far. Special thanks to all our Flying Dog Tire Bite fans out there. Especially the nice lady who copy and pasted “TIRE BITE” at least 4,000 times. I’m not exaggerating. All I can say about the Tire Bite fans is this: They are bringing it. If you’re a backer of another beer left in the bracket, rally the troops, because you’ll need all the votes you can get. All that said, here are the winners from the Sweet 16:
Oklahoma Region: Choc 1919 over Red Brick Ale; and Basement Batch over Rock Island Rail Ale.
International Region: Labatt Blue over Dos Equis; and Moosehead over Sapporro.
USA Region: Leinenkugel Original over Shiner Bock; and Flying Dog Tire Bite over Blue Moon.
Europe Region: Hoegaardenover Amstel; and Guinness over St. Pauli Girl.
Here’s how the bracket looks. Check back Monday morning to vote in the Elite Eight.
Have a good weekend!
The BCS Sweet 16 is here! VOTE!
As I tabulated the votes last night in the Beer Championship Series, I thought to myself, “who doesn’t like a bracket?” I mean, really, would the NCAA basketball tournament be near as much fun if brackets weren’t involved? Not likely. That’s why I’m having so much fun seeing how your votes have shaped the 64-beer bracket down to the final 16 worthy adversaries: The Sweet 16. So let’s toss up the ball and get the voting started in our bracket to see who will advance to the Elite Eight.
First, a quick breakdown: In the Oklahoma Region, we’ve got a pair of match-ups involving the Bricktown Brewery in Oklahoma City and the Choc Brewery in Krebs. Will the big smoke beat out the Hickory High of the bracket? In the International Region, a pair of Canadian beers are still in the running for supremacy. A little further south, in the USA Region, a four-pack of states will duke it out, and over the pond, a four-pack of European countries will battle.
Oklahoma Region: Choc 1919 (Krebs) vs. Red Brick Ale (Bricktown); and Rock Island Rail Ale (Bricktown) vs. Basement Batch (Krebs).
International Region: Labatt Blue (Canada) vs. Dos Equis (Mexico); and Sapporo (Japan) vs. Moosehead (Canada).
USA Region: Leinenkugel Original (Wisconsin) vs. Shiner Bock (Texas); and Blue Moon (Colorado) vs. Flying Dog Tire Bite (Maryland).
Europe Region: Amstel (Holland) vs. Hoegaarden (Belgium); and Guinness (Ireland) vs. St. Pauli Girl (Germany).
A reminder if you don’t already know the drill: You can post your votes in the comments section or by e-mailing your picks to thethirstybeagle@yahoo.com. Official voting will end at 9 p.m. central time. I’ll post the Sweet 16 results tonight and voting for the Elite Eight will start first thing Monday morning.
Cheers!
