Super Bowl Craft Beer Drinking Games

Make no mistake about it: unless you live in one of the two cities represented in this weekend’s Super Bowl, Sunday’s big game is not really about football. Rather, for most, it represents an excuse to get together with friends, ooh-and-ah over the host’s new 500-inch flat-screen, and drink beer. Lots and lots of beer.

And this would be a delightful scenario but for one fact: too many craft beer drinkers still risk being alienated by the proliferation of watery domestic brews at the parties they attend–or even host. To rectify this abomination, a craft beer fan should turn a Super Bowl party into an opportunity to force, er, encourage his or her friends to come over to the crafty side. How? Turn drinking into a game.

If you’re hosting a party, this will be easy, provided your friends cooperate (which they will, considering you have control of the beer). If you’re a guest, offer to handle beverage duties and put together this play list:

• Serve (or ask guests to bring) beers from the cities whose teams are competing. Harpoon, Sam Adams, Magic Hat and Allagash are all good choices for New England, and Brooklyn, Blue Point, Southampton and Ithaca are fair game for New York. Of course, you can always piss off any New Yorkers who snuck onto the guest list by pouring from a North Jersey brewery like Cricket Hill to represent the true location of Giants stadium.

• After each touchdown, demand that guests sample an unfamiliar beer. Up the ante by making them try a scary-looking beer each time there’s a score by the team they hate more than the other. Or let your guests choose which beer to make the opposing team’s fans drink.

• Lead a round of blind tastings after every field goal attempt. Or safety. Or extra point. Pour beers into a tinted or blinded glass, employ blindfolds,  or tell guests to sip with eyes closed so they don’t let their pre-conceptions about color influence their perception.