Beer Pairing: Fantasy Football Draft

In Beer News by Ryan

We know beer pairs well with dinner (a Cajun dish with a pilsener), desserts (a coffee stout with, or in, ice cream) and even the weather (A marzen on a brisk Fall afternoon).  But would you believe beer pairs well with an online fantasy football draft?  Now, before you swear me off for mastering the obvious – I’m not just talking about kicking back with a 12 pack of your average Lite or Light beer.  I’m talking about pairing specific beers with specific rounds of your draft.  While I don’t proclaim to be a fantasy football guru nor am I a Cicerone –  I do think I know just enough about both to put together a pretty decent strategy and give some intriguing beer options on draft day.  So, let’s get started.

Rounds 1-4

You’re looking for the best player available at any position.  These players are stars, they’re well known and they’re reliable.  You want points from these guys and lots of them; week in and week out.  You know, or at least you hope you do, exactly what you’re getting when you draft this guy.  Your beer should be the same; a good reliable go-to beer.  You also want something that is going to get the juices flowing a little.  You want just enough so you’re quick with the comebacks and the trashing talking in the chat room but not so loose that you take someone who is injured or suspended with your first pick.  We’d suggest an IPA, Pilsner, Porter or Stout.  Here are a few examples:

  • IPA – Stone IPA, Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Sierra Nevada Torpedo or Lagunitas IPA
  • Pilsner – Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pills, Victory Prima Pils, Sam Adams Noble Pils, Tumer Pils or Metropolitan Flywheel Bright Lager
  • Porter – Stone Smoked Porter, Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald, Rogue Mocha Porter, Sierra Nevada Porter or Deschutes Black Butte Porter
  • Stout – Rogue Chocolate Stout, Sierra Nevada Stout, Dogfish Head Chicory Stout, Central Waters Coffee Stout or Mendocino Black Hawk Stout
We opted to go for Victory’s Prima Pils to get the ball rolling.
Rounds 5-8

Here is where strategy starts to come in to play a bit.  The players you choose in these rounds may not be as obvious as the previous rounds.  Maybe you’re looking for the handcuff to that running back you drafted in the second round or you’re trying to find the guy who is on the verge of having a breakthrough season.  Either way you’re not going to take a big gamble and you sure as hell shouldn’t be looking at a kicker or a defense/special teams.  You’re not are you?  OK, good.  The beer that pairs well with these next four rounds may not be an obvious choice either.  Here, we’re looking at something that is still reliable but a slight drift from the norm.  We’re going to choose from a Brown Ale, Hefeweizen, Pale Wheat Ale or a Tripel.  Again, examples:

  • Brown Ale – Dogfish Head India Brown Ale, Big Sky Moose Drool, Surly Bender, Sierra Nevada Tumbler or Short’s Bellaire Brown
  • Hefeweizen – Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier, Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat, Erdinger Weissbier or Sprecher Hefe Weiss
  • Pale Wheat Ale – Bell’s Oberon, Lagunitas Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’, Three Floyds Gumballhead, Magic Hat Circus Boy or Boulder Sweaty Betty Blonde
  • Tripel – Chimay Tripel, Westmalle Tripel, St. Bernardus Tripel, Tripel Karmeliet or Victory Golden Monkey
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There were a lot of good beers to go with for this round but we wanted to keep things simple and remain focused, so we went with Bell’s Oberon.

Rounds 9-12You’re starting to feel a little loose now, aren’t ya?  If you chose your beers properly for the first two rounds you should feel a little more relaxed when you first started the draft.  That’s a good thing, because now it comes time to finally draft that guy that you’ve had a fantasy football crush on since you saw him in the combine or the rookie out of the D-II school that you just know is going to climb the depth chart by seasons end.  So, go ahead, take that sleeper pick or the guy no one knows about but you.  Or, if you really want to you can draft a kicker, defense/special teams or a tight end.  Your beer should match your general curiosity of the unknown in this round, which is why we’re going to choose either  a Rye Beer, Saison or Wheatwine.

  • Rye Beer – Founders Red’s Rye PA, Two Brothers Cane & Ebel, Goose Island Mild Winter, Boulevard Rye-on-Rye or Real Ale Full Moon Pale Rye Ale
  • Saison – Ommegang Hennepin, Saison Dupont, Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere, Boulevard Saison-Brett or The Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale
  • Wheatwine – Smuttynose Wheat Wine, New Holland Pilgrim’s Dole, Terrapin Gamma Ray, Boulevard Harvest Dance or Fort Collins Wheat Wine Ale
We turned to one of our favorite local breweries to fill up the next four rounds; Half Acre.  We opted for their Long Thai Rainbow Rye a Saison made with Long Thai peppercorns and rye.
This may have gotten me too loose.  In our auction draft I thought I would try and play a fast one on everybody by throwing the other Zach Miller up on the board.  Yeah, not the one from the Raiders but the one from the Jaguars.  I thought I could get someone to bite and overbid but no one did so I was stuck with him.  Whoops.

Rounds 13 -15 & the afterglow

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Your draft is coming to a close and not a moment too soon.  You’ve exhausted all your resources and you only have a few picks left.  Here, you can finally snag your K & D/ST or – if you drafted any in the previous rounds (better not have been before the 9th round!) you can go after your FF crush we mentioned above or a homer pick (Editor’s Note: Ryan’s was Brady Quinn two years ago.  How did that one work out for you?).  Either way you’re ready to coast through the waning picks and then you can sit back, look at your team and say, “$@!& who are these guys?” or bask in the glory of another successful draft.  Regardless of whether you are celebrating or bemoaning your draft – you should do it with something big, bold and smooth – something like an English Barleywine, Imperial Stout or Quad.

  • English Barleywine – Brooklyn Monster Ale, Anchor Old Foghorn, Arcadia Cereal Killer, Rock Art Ridge Runner or Shipyard Barley Wine Style Ale
  • Imperial Stout – Founders Breakfast Stout, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Deschutes The Abyss, Goose Island Nightstalker or Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti
  • Quad – St. Bernardus abt 12, Trappistes Rochefort 10, Avery The Reverend, Weyerbacher Quad or Smuttynose Gravitation
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I actually had quite a bit of leftover cash at this point and got some great late-round picks so I thought I deserved a Stone Imperial Russian Stout.  It was a great way to cap off a fairly successful draft.

And here are the results with the auction price included:

Ron Fucking  Swansons (Ryan’s team)
QB Brett Favre 23
RB Jonathan Stewart 20
RB Justin Forsett 15
RB/WR C.J. Spiller 11
WR Larry Fitzgerald 30
WR Steve Smith 19
TE Zach Miller 1
D/ST Jets D/ST 4
K Nate Kaeding 5
BE Hines Ward 14
BE Joe Flacco 22
BE Ahmad Bradshaw 7
BE Michael Bush 12
BE Jermichael Finley 10

Gruden’s Crotch (Andrew’s team)
QB Peyton Manning 45
RB Knowshon Moreno 26
RB LeSean McCoy 28
RB/WR Felix Jones 19
WR Reggie Wayne 35
WR Dwayne Bowe 15
TE Owen Daniels 3
D/ST 49ers D/ST 1
K Matt Prater 1
BE Ben Roethlisberger 7
BE Chester Taylor 4
BE Reggie Bush 5
BE Mike Wallace 8
BE Hakeem Nicks 6

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About the Author

Ryan

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Equal parts beer nerd and policy geek, Ryan is now the curator of the Guys Drinking Beer cellar. The skills he once used to dig through the annals of state government as a political reporter are now put to use offering unique takes on barrel-aged stouts, years-old barleywines and 10 + year verticals.

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