Football fans will eat an all-time high of 1.38 billion chicken wings as they gather at Super Bowl LIII parties to watch the New England Patriots face off against the Los Angeles Rams next weekend, according to the National Chicken Council.
And a well-chosen craft beer is one of the best ways to wash them down, according to Mike Lee, training manager with BevMo!, a chain with 170 wine and beer markets.
His pick: pale ales.
“If you’re having certain foods that are comfort or sports-related, then a lighter beer makes more sense.”
Chicken wings require a lot of napkins.They are often deep-fried, slathered in spicy sauces, and served with ranch or bleu cheese dips.
Craft beers are often stronger than Budweiser, the brand with the Clydesdale horses so frequently seen in ads during the Super Bowl. They have more alcohol by volume, or ABV, and higher international bitterness ratings, or IBUs, especially trendy India Pale Ales. Some are so strong they are deemed double or triple IPAs.
You don’t want to go in that direction if you expect to last the nearly four hours that the game takes.
“With the food you get for the Super Bowl, your lagers and ales and lower ABV beers are great to wash that down,” Lee said.
“Even if you do a pale ale or an IPA, it’s a sessionable IPA. Some people go big right away, but it kind of ruins your late drinking, because you’re going to be a little too — what’s the word? — buzzed. I don’t recommend doing a Triple IPA to start your morning.”
The flavor of wing sauce is one factor to consider when choosing a beer.
Spicy wings require a beer with a little bit of sweetness, Lee said.
“Depending on the spice level, you want to make sure that you have the right sugar level. You want some sweetness to it, some maltiness. I normally recommend IPAs for the more traditional Buffalo-style wings. Something like the Firestone Session ales or the Founders’ Centennial IPA. That’s a great beer for it, because the little bit of hops washes out that heat.”
Beer pairings are based on three “Cs,” according to Guy Bartmess, brewmaster at Garage Brewing Co. in Murrieta and Temecula.
“Either we want our beer to complement the food you’re going with, or we want them to contrast significantly, something like a spicy taco might be dramatic contrasting with a crisp, refreshing, light Mexican lager.”
The third “C” is to cut, or reduce, the intensity of a taste.
“If you have a nice, sharp bleu cheese and you drink an IPA, the bitterness from the beer can cut through the sharp, pungent characteristics of the bleu cheese.”
Both Lee and Bartmess recommended beers that complement sauces.
“The sauces can be something rich and smoky, maybe a barbecue sauce,” Bartmess said. “You might go with a richer, maltier, darker beer. Maybe not like a stout or a porter, but something like a Scottish ale, which has got a lot of residual sweetness and caramel characteristics. Those are complementing each other very much.”
Dry rubs can intensify the heat on the tongue.
“If you want to tone down the hotness of that pepper rub, then you might want to go with something sweet, because the sugars on the palate from the beer, like from a Scotch ale, will help mellow that,” Bartmess said. “But if you were to drink a light lager-style beer that’s really effervescent, the carbonation can really accentuate hot, spicy oils on your palate.”
Pig wings — trimmed ham shank — and pork ribs are also becoming popular finger foods at Super Bowl parties.
“Maybe it’s a little bit more fatty, so you could do an IPA with a higher ABV, but again you don’t want to go Double IPA,” Lee said. “You want to do something like Stone. It has a great mixed variety back. Belching Beaver has a Phantom Bride IPA, which is a Deftones beer that is awesome.”
If you want a safe bet for practically everything on the table, including pepperoni pizza, both Bartmess and Lee liked Mexican lagers.
“The little bit of maltiness, but still the lightness and low ABV, I think it definitely works,” Lee said.
Given the number of people planning to serve beer and wings on Super Bowl weekend, it’s wise to place orders in advance.
In fact it may be too late at some places like the Hot Wings Cafe, which has locations on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles as well as Glendale, Pasadena and Sherman Oaks.
Owner Mihran Gaghinjian stops taking orders two weeks in advance of game day, he said in a phone interview. Hot Wings Cafe normally takes orders as large at 1,000 wings, according to its website, but for the game doesn’t take orders of less than 50 or more than 500, the latter of which costs $388.70.
Sauces range from mild to extra hot. Gaghinjian said most customers order medium hot.
“But these days people like to mix it up.”
BevMo! sells craft beer in kegs to people who order a few days in advance, but craft beer kegs aren’t as large as what people remember from college keggers.
Five-gallon kegs start at $69.99 for Michelob Ultra and go up to $134.99 for Green Flash West Coast Double IPA, according to the chain’s order sheet. Firestone, which Lee recommended, costs $109.99. A 5-gallon keg contains 40 16-ounce servings. The largest keg is 15.5 gallons and contains 124 16-ounce servings.
“We do see some of those 5-gallon kegs going out, because people don’t consume 15.5 gallons of 7.0 percent IPAs that often. Those small ones carry easily, and people love that,” Lee said.
Super Bowl LIII
Teams: Los Angeles Rams, New England Patriots
Stadium: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta
When to watch: Kickoff time is 3:30 p.m. PT, 6:30 p.m. ET in Atlanta
Channel: CBS
Sample pairings of wings and beer
Plain: American Adjunct Lager, recommended by Whole Foods.
Buffalo: American IPA, recommended by Guy Bartmess from Garage Brewing
Barbecue: Dark lager, recommended by Whole Foods
Asian style wings: Witbier, recommended by BevMo!
