This Is My Blood: 2XIPA

fuzzy picture brought to you by a man embarrassed by
having to take a picture of a beer in public and taking
it as quickly as possible

 

Another day, another spicy chicken sandwich, another dank-ass imperial IPA to wash it down. Gotta love life at the Foodery. There were plenty of things about this afternoon that were abnormal—spending the day writing reports about infant kids getting abused (rough), spending the moments in between reports transcribing 90 minutes of Drew screaming into an audio device (rougher—come back Tuesday for La Salle Friends' Titanic interview!), eating outside in the cold because I don't feel comfortable eating inside and might never again—but I'm taking comfort in holding onto those things I do know.

I know that I like Southern Tier, because I feel like I've spent the whole past week espousing praise for their Old Man Winter, and so I figured their double IPA would probably be of the same quality. I know that I like the spicy chicken sandwich, and always will, even if it comes prepared today with like half the amount of spicy hot sauce and double the sogginess of the roll and a pickle that was so yellow I mistook it for a rogue thick-cut french fry—the sandwich was still fucking great, and you can print that on my fucking tombstone. I know that the bold flavor of the spicy chicken sandwich is going to match up nicely with whatever strong-ass (but cheap-ish) beer I can find on the Foodery's shelves.

It's that last point that I'd like to examine a little more closely today. It's been months and months since we started to really concentrate on and appreciate the ins and outs of beer/food pairings, but I'd like to now make a short little crib sheet of all the go-to foods in my life and all the beers that I think, with 292 days of beer tasting under my belt, would go well with those foods.

Pizza—that gose was pretty fucking good with pizza, but honestly, if you're going with something simple like pizza, then you gotta go with something simple like an American adjunct lager

Soft pretzel—sure, you could go with that Pretzel Bender, and you wouldn't be wrong, but one of my favorite combos is chocolate milk and soft pretzels, so maybe go along those lines and drink a milk stout with your pretzel

Tacos—big fan of culture blending, so queue up an Oktoberfest

Cheeseburger—now, I'm talking primarily about fast food burgers, which are an American institution, so any pale ale is gonna go well with that, since they too are an American institution (at this point, anyway)

Wawa sizzli—shut up and drink your damn hazy IPA, it mostly tastes like a mimosa anyway

Any other classic breakfast food (eggs, bacon, sausage)—Ireland taught me that Irish stouts are key here

 

Grilled chicken and dirty rice—a brown ale because of the maltiness, and not because this will make your meal truly monochrome (though still true)

Hot dog—drink a strawberry lambic for me (this one is for the true This Is My Blood Heads, who will remember the Heineken bit I did on April 29th, and who are clamoring for a sequel in which I pair foods like White Mike does in Season 2)

Wings—definitely a pre-prohibition lager (but ignore the one that rhymes with "wing-a-ling" because they donate mad amounts of money to an orange fascist)

Salad—I dunno, a fucking bohemian pilsner maybe?

Crabs—the shittiest beer you can find, because it's not about drinking beer or eating crabs, it's about hanging out with your friends while you drink beers and eat crabs, and you don't want to get caught up in that craft beer bullshit

Mac and cheese—ooh, a Berliner weisse would probably cut the smooth cheesiness of mac and cheese real nicely

Cheese and crackers—honestly, go with wine, I talk a big game as a beer drinker but you can't beat the wine/cheese combo

Spicy chicken sandwich—drinking a couple double IPAs, especially combined with a buffalo sauce, is going to give you a nice little thrill in the middle of an otherwise monotonous work day

NOTES

BEER: 2XIPA

STYLE: Imperial IPA

ABV: 8.2%

BREWED BY: Southern Tier Brewing Company

LOCATION: Lakewood, NY

PURCHASED AT: Foodery Rittenhouse

PAIRED WITH: spicy chicken sandwich FUCK YES

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

 

BEER COUNT: 434.5