Beer and sports, so happy together
To the list of life's great philosophical head scratchers ? the chicken and the egg, the sound of one hand clapping, the green lighting of an "Emeril!" sitcom ? add the following: Is drinking beer an excuse to watch sports?
Or is watching sports an excuse to drink beer?
"That's a tough one," says Kevin Grace, a University of Cincinnati professor and an expert on the history of beer and baseball. "That sort of sounds like a Zen proposition. I don't know. I think each of us has to reach enlightenment on our own."
Beer and sports. Sports and beer. From the bleachers to the couch, from six-packs to the Philadelphia 76ers' in-arena brewery, the two go together like summer and sunscreen. Popcorn and cinema. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez ? who, in the manner of countless Hollywood couples before them, will undoubtedly grow old and fat together. Well, maybe not fat.
Still, in an athletic world in which stadiums are named for beer barons and even the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has an official brew, the question remains: Why suds? Why sports?
Why ... Bud Bowl I-IV?
(And no, "tastes great" won't do. Nor will "less filling." But thanks.)
"I don't need an excuse to drink beer," says Julie Bradford, editor of All About Beer magazine. "But with sports, it's a question of pacing. These are long spectator occasions. You don't want something strong that's going to render you, um, incapable of appreciating the whole of the game. Wine will get you in trouble, and spirits even more so. Although I hear the Kentucky Derby is pretty fun."
True enough. But a bit lacking, ontologically speaking. If enlightenment is our goal ? well, that and a generous buzz ? then let us begin at the temple of sports and suds: The ballpark. Or, for our purposes, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Take me out to the beer game
With its cozy, retro-inspired design, Baltimore's beloved stadium is one of baseball's finest. More to the point, it's also a red-brick monument to malted refreshment, a suds delivery system to rival the venerable beer bong.
Along the open-air concourse, snack stations serve brew on tap. So does Boog's famous barbecue grill ? even though a dedicated beer stand offering bottles and cans rests some 20 feet away. Behind the food counters, only four entities are honored with neon signs. One is the Orioles. The others are Bud, Miller and Coors. Champions all.
In the stands, a small army of vendors (60 to 70 people, about half serving suds on a warm day) ensures that if you can't come to the brew, the brew will come to you. According to vending supervisor Bruce Thompson, an industrious vendor can earn as much as $20,000 in a single season. Which, without even doing the tedious math, equals a whole lot of suds.
"Customers tip well on beer," says vendor Keith Randall, an Orioles beer man since 1988. "If you're buying a $3.50 soda, you're only going to tip 50 cents. You're mad that you're paying that much. But with beer, people are used to tipping a dollar at bars and clubs."
Randall pauses.
"Also, I think it's because people are happy to drink in public."
Behind the scenes, beer flows through the stadium like so much lifeblood. Really. According to concession director Kevin Ford, giant below-ground beer boxes (measuring about 800 square feet) supply the upper deck by pumping suds through chemically-cooled beer lines, some as long as 300 feet.
"I don't want to talk in specifics," says Ford, estimating beer makes up a quarter of the stadium's total concession business. "But obviously, we go through a lot of beer."
Just ask microbrew vendor Aaron Whitcomb. Back on the concourse, a middle-aged man in a Cooperstown windbreaker strolls up to Whitcomb's stand. In a single gulp, he drains his half-full beer cup. Satisfied, he orders another.
"That's his third," Whitcomb says. "I've had one guy that's been back four times already. With beer and baseball, people just want to have a good time. It's like a bar atmosphere ..."
A blonde woman interrupts, frazzled hair framing a quizzical look.
"Excuse me," she says, squinting through her thick-rimmed glasses. "Do you know where I can get a coffee?"
Stumped, Whitcomb peers across the walkway. In the foreground, a man cradles three beer bottles; in the background, a hot dog station sells Bud and Miller Lite. Whitcomb looks to his left. Ice cream. He looks to his right. Amstel Light.
"Nah," he replies. "I'm sorry."
The woman walks away. Whitcomb watches her go, his countenance expressing a single thought: Coffee?
Tangled up in brew
At first glance, beer and sports seem like strange bedfellows ? at best, a charmingly awkward couple; at worst, a match made on the Island of Dr. Moreau. After all, drunk and bloated is no way to go through a competitive game, let alone the robust life of a sportsman. Unless you're playing quarters. Or happen to be David Wells.
While brew isn't totally devoid of nutritional value ? English and American distance runners once guzzled the stuff, and the phytochemicals in darker beers stymie age-related diseases ? it acts as a diuretic, resulting in dehydration. Worse still, All About Beer reports brew also can interfere with the recovery process by hampering glycogen resynthesis in muscles and the liver.
Not that we know what hampered glycogen resynthesis entails. But it doesn't sound good.
"It's kind of hilarious to associate watching professional athletes, the epitome of physical prowess, with guzzling this high-caloric thing that goes right to your waist," says Robert Thompson, a professor of media and pop culture at Syracuse University and an expert on leisure habits. "The only thing funnier would be to sit outside of a Bally's and watch people exercise while drinking beer."
Fortunately for all parties involved, the nexus of beer and sports has less to do with the people on the field than those in the stands. And probably John Daly. Indeed, when Harvard University released a study last year concluding college sports fans are more likely to binge drink than nonfans, it came as scant surprise. At least to anyone who has ever been to a Yankees-Orioles game. Or college, for that matter.
Should Harvard conduct a second study on professional sports fans, the results likely would be similar. Fact is, our entire athletic universe is tangled up in brew. On any given day, you can take in tennis' Heineken Open. Catch the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, Busch Stadium or Coors Field. Or simply swill the official suds of the NFL (Coors), NBA (Budweiser) and NHL (Bud Light in the states, Labatt Blue in Canada).
By contrast, you can't exactly watch the Kentucky Mashers take on the Tennessee Distillers at Johnnie Walker Coliseum. Let alone sip NASCAR's co-branded merlot.
"Wine?" Thompson says. "Do you even need to ask? The thought of a chardonnay at a sporting event? Please."
Win, lose or draw ? futbol lovers drink brew, too ? beer is the sports world's common intoxicator, a drowner of sorrows and buoy of celebration. When Michael Waltrip won this year's Daytona 500, his crew sprayed him with suds. At contests the world over, disapproving fans dump beer on players, coaches, even game officials ? the latter a tragic instance of pouring good brew after bad. Within the boozy confines of Milwaukee's old County Stadium, mascot Bernie Brewer celebrated home runs by slip-sliding into an oversized mug, perhaps mimicking the suds-happy spectators who once quaffed 60,000 cups of brew at Cleveland's seminal 10-Cent Beer Night.
"It's easier to let your inhibitions loose when you're intoxicated," says Orioles vendor Robert Didanato, a 20-year vet who met his wife while selling suds. "When you're drinking, you start feeling the competition and the emotions more."
Even away from the couch and the klieg lights, we remain a feeling people. A nation in thrall to beer league softball. To pool, bowling, darts. To hashing, whose guzzle 'n' jog devotees proudly call themselves "drinkers with a running problem." We chug to sports and make sports of chugging (Beer Pong, Fuzzy Duck, numerous unprintables), to say nothing of Larry Eustachy.
To put it another way: What is golf if not an excuse to disregard open container laws?
Never mind beer goggles. Take a look around: We have brew blimps at every stadium, a championship trophy that resembles a giant beer stein (the Stanley Cup) and stock cars that look like four-wheel poptops (Rusty Wallace's Miller Lite car). Naturally, the team that captures the Cup is expected to drink from it. By contrast, NASCAR champs aren't expected to do tailpipe keg stands ? though Miller did promise a free six-pack to every Daytona attendee over 21 years of age, provided Wallace won the race.
"The fans will be behind me," Wallace proclaimed. "Who wouldn't want to receive free Miller Lite?"
Who indeed? Consider the sudsy numbers: The pub at Philly's First Union Center brews 36,160 gallons of beer annually. The Chicago Cubs sell 29,000 beers at each home game. During Super Bowl Week, national beer and wine sales rise 34 percent ? the better to match a 50 percent sales jump for large bags of chips and nuts.
"Super Bowl Sunday is the great American secular holiday," Thompson says. "Take away the football, and it wouldn't be nearly as fun. But you could still have a party. Take away the beer, however, and you've got very little left.
"You've got a beverage of leisure and a favorite pastime. They're destined to be together. Beer and sports were a match made in heaven."
Heaven, of course, being Pittsburgh.
To the list of life's great philosophical head scratchers ? the chicken and the egg, the sound of one hand clapping, the green lighting of an "Emeril!" sitcom ? add the following: Is drinking beer an excuse to watch sports?
Or is watching sports an excuse to drink beer?
"That's a tough one," says Kevin Grace, a University of Cincinnati professor and an expert on the history of beer and baseball. "That sort of sounds like a Zen proposition. I don't know. I think each of us has to reach enlightenment on our own."
Beer and sports. Sports and beer. From the bleachers to the couch, from six-packs to the Philadelphia 76ers' in-arena brewery, the two go together like summer and sunscreen. Popcorn and cinema. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez ? who, in the manner of countless Hollywood couples before them, will undoubtedly grow old and fat together. Well, maybe not fat.
Still, in an athletic world in which stadiums are named for beer barons and even the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has an official brew, the question remains: Why suds? Why sports?
Why ... Bud Bowl I-IV?
(And no, "tastes great" won't do. Nor will "less filling." But thanks.)
"I don't need an excuse to drink beer," says Julie Bradford, editor of All About Beer magazine. "But with sports, it's a question of pacing. These are long spectator occasions. You don't want something strong that's going to render you, um, incapable of appreciating the whole of the game. Wine will get you in trouble, and spirits even more so. Although I hear the Kentucky Derby is pretty fun."
True enough. But a bit lacking, ontologically speaking. If enlightenment is our goal ? well, that and a generous buzz ? then let us begin at the temple of sports and suds: The ballpark. Or, for our purposes, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Take me out to the beer game
With its cozy, retro-inspired design, Baltimore's beloved stadium is one of baseball's finest. More to the point, it's also a red-brick monument to malted refreshment, a suds delivery system to rival the venerable beer bong.
Along the open-air concourse, snack stations serve brew on tap. So does Boog's famous barbecue grill ? even though a dedicated beer stand offering bottles and cans rests some 20 feet away. Behind the food counters, only four entities are honored with neon signs. One is the Orioles. The others are Bud, Miller and Coors. Champions all.
In the stands, a small army of vendors (60 to 70 people, about half serving suds on a warm day) ensures that if you can't come to the brew, the brew will come to you. According to vending supervisor Bruce Thompson, an industrious vendor can earn as much as $20,000 in a single season. Which, without even doing the tedious math, equals a whole lot of suds.
"Customers tip well on beer," says vendor Keith Randall, an Orioles beer man since 1988. "If you're buying a $3.50 soda, you're only going to tip 50 cents. You're mad that you're paying that much. But with beer, people are used to tipping a dollar at bars and clubs."
Randall pauses.
"Also, I think it's because people are happy to drink in public."
Behind the scenes, beer flows through the stadium like so much lifeblood. Really. According to concession director Kevin Ford, giant below-ground beer boxes (measuring about 800 square feet) supply the upper deck by pumping suds through chemically-cooled beer lines, some as long as 300 feet.
"I don't want to talk in specifics," says Ford, estimating beer makes up a quarter of the stadium's total concession business. "But obviously, we go through a lot of beer."
Just ask microbrew vendor Aaron Whitcomb. Back on the concourse, a middle-aged man in a Cooperstown windbreaker strolls up to Whitcomb's stand. In a single gulp, he drains his half-full beer cup. Satisfied, he orders another.
"That's his third," Whitcomb says. "I've had one guy that's been back four times already. With beer and baseball, people just want to have a good time. It's like a bar atmosphere ..."
A blonde woman interrupts, frazzled hair framing a quizzical look.
"Excuse me," she says, squinting through her thick-rimmed glasses. "Do you know where I can get a coffee?"
Stumped, Whitcomb peers across the walkway. In the foreground, a man cradles three beer bottles; in the background, a hot dog station sells Bud and Miller Lite. Whitcomb looks to his left. Ice cream. He looks to his right. Amstel Light.
"Nah," he replies. "I'm sorry."
The woman walks away. Whitcomb watches her go, his countenance expressing a single thought: Coffee?
Tangled up in brew
At first glance, beer and sports seem like strange bedfellows ? at best, a charmingly awkward couple; at worst, a match made on the Island of Dr. Moreau. After all, drunk and bloated is no way to go through a competitive game, let alone the robust life of a sportsman. Unless you're playing quarters. Or happen to be David Wells.
While brew isn't totally devoid of nutritional value ? English and American distance runners once guzzled the stuff, and the phytochemicals in darker beers stymie age-related diseases ? it acts as a diuretic, resulting in dehydration. Worse still, All About Beer reports brew also can interfere with the recovery process by hampering glycogen resynthesis in muscles and the liver.
Not that we know what hampered glycogen resynthesis entails. But it doesn't sound good.
"It's kind of hilarious to associate watching professional athletes, the epitome of physical prowess, with guzzling this high-caloric thing that goes right to your waist," says Robert Thompson, a professor of media and pop culture at Syracuse University and an expert on leisure habits. "The only thing funnier would be to sit outside of a Bally's and watch people exercise while drinking beer."
Fortunately for all parties involved, the nexus of beer and sports has less to do with the people on the field than those in the stands. And probably John Daly. Indeed, when Harvard University released a study last year concluding college sports fans are more likely to binge drink than nonfans, it came as scant surprise. At least to anyone who has ever been to a Yankees-Orioles game. Or college, for that matter.
Should Harvard conduct a second study on professional sports fans, the results likely would be similar. Fact is, our entire athletic universe is tangled up in brew. On any given day, you can take in tennis' Heineken Open. Catch the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, Busch Stadium or Coors Field. Or simply swill the official suds of the NFL (Coors), NBA (Budweiser) and NHL (Bud Light in the states, Labatt Blue in Canada).
By contrast, you can't exactly watch the Kentucky Mashers take on the Tennessee Distillers at Johnnie Walker Coliseum. Let alone sip NASCAR's co-branded merlot.
"Wine?" Thompson says. "Do you even need to ask? The thought of a chardonnay at a sporting event? Please."
Win, lose or draw ? futbol lovers drink brew, too ? beer is the sports world's common intoxicator, a drowner of sorrows and buoy of celebration. When Michael Waltrip won this year's Daytona 500, his crew sprayed him with suds. At contests the world over, disapproving fans dump beer on players, coaches, even game officials ? the latter a tragic instance of pouring good brew after bad. Within the boozy confines of Milwaukee's old County Stadium, mascot Bernie Brewer celebrated home runs by slip-sliding into an oversized mug, perhaps mimicking the suds-happy spectators who once quaffed 60,000 cups of brew at Cleveland's seminal 10-Cent Beer Night.
"It's easier to let your inhibitions loose when you're intoxicated," says Orioles vendor Robert Didanato, a 20-year vet who met his wife while selling suds. "When you're drinking, you start feeling the competition and the emotions more."
Even away from the couch and the klieg lights, we remain a feeling people. A nation in thrall to beer league softball. To pool, bowling, darts. To hashing, whose guzzle 'n' jog devotees proudly call themselves "drinkers with a running problem." We chug to sports and make sports of chugging (Beer Pong, Fuzzy Duck, numerous unprintables), to say nothing of Larry Eustachy.
To put it another way: What is golf if not an excuse to disregard open container laws?
Never mind beer goggles. Take a look around: We have brew blimps at every stadium, a championship trophy that resembles a giant beer stein (the Stanley Cup) and stock cars that look like four-wheel poptops (Rusty Wallace's Miller Lite car). Naturally, the team that captures the Cup is expected to drink from it. By contrast, NASCAR champs aren't expected to do tailpipe keg stands ? though Miller did promise a free six-pack to every Daytona attendee over 21 years of age, provided Wallace won the race.
"The fans will be behind me," Wallace proclaimed. "Who wouldn't want to receive free Miller Lite?"
Who indeed? Consider the sudsy numbers: The pub at Philly's First Union Center brews 36,160 gallons of beer annually. The Chicago Cubs sell 29,000 beers at each home game. During Super Bowl Week, national beer and wine sales rise 34 percent ? the better to match a 50 percent sales jump for large bags of chips and nuts.
"Super Bowl Sunday is the great American secular holiday," Thompson says. "Take away the football, and it wouldn't be nearly as fun. But you could still have a party. Take away the beer, however, and you've got very little left.
"You've got a beverage of leisure and a favorite pastime. They're destined to be together. Beer and sports were a match made in heaven."
Heaven, of course, being Pittsburgh.
