Finally!

A cold front moved into my area overnight, and temperatures will be in the low 60s here at kickoff. So, 11am kick or not, it’s finally time to move to the darker beers. Good-bye, shandies! See you next May. A brilliant local option to transition to the dark side is Avondale Brewing’s Vanillaphant Porter, which I will be enjoying. For something with a more national distribution, Founder’s Breakfast Stout is solid choice (Editor’s note: I concur).

My food pairing will be a grilled pork chop with a side of steamed fresh green beans. How am I doing this while watching the game? Easy. I grilled steaks for dinner last night. When I pulled the steaks off, I threw on some thick-cut pork chops on the grill to cook while we were eating. A quick reheat today gets me a delicious grilled lunch entree during halftime with minimal effort. Plan ahead, y’all. It pays dividends.

kristina embraces an 11 am kick?

Hmm, I mean if “fun” isn’t playing the team that just beat Alabama, then I don’t know what is. And at 11am to boot! Honestly, the early start time for this week is fine with me. While I’m not expecting things to go that well, I at least can watch the first half or so since our market is doing an afternoon fall festival. (Dumb, not sure that’s going to draw the typical crowd, but whatever. I’m just annoyed it’s for six hours) So, given I have to be slighly productive all afternoon, I may either dabble in a bloody mary or mimosa for the game, nothing crazy. If I could hold off the coffee until kick-off, Bailey’s sounds good, but unfortunately I need the caffeine much, much earlier in that.

Early Morning Tailgate Means Cocktail Time for Karen

Since we have an early start time AGAIN — seriously, enough already — and I just can’t do early morning beer, I will be alternating between my last bottle of Rob McNeill California Brut NV from my Naked Wines stash with a splash of Simply Mango and bloody marys. Since I’ll be tailgating — come say hi if you’re near Lot W, the bloodys won’t be anything super fancy. Just some sweet, sweet Zing Zang (when I worked at a yacht club in NC, I used to drink it straight up with no liquor in it at work… so delicious) mixed with whatever vodka my Football Ticket Fairy Godfather Robert has leftover from last weekend when I slept through the parade, and garnished with a lime. I’ll perhaps add some hot sauce or pepper, but only if I remember to bring it with me. Food-wise, I’m not sure what all we’ll be having, but I did make some sausage biscuits for the tailgate, so hopefully they taste decent…. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Since the weather will be delightful and very fall-like, I might actually drink during the game (unlike last week when I sweated to death and my bev of choice was water), in which case I’ll have to go with a Logboat Snapper, my concessions beer of choice. If you’re going to pay $9 for a beer no matter what kind you get, you definitely go with the highest ABV beer that also tastes the best.

GO TIGERS. Pleaseeeeeee try and keep it close so I can at least semi-enjoy the amazing seats my friend gets.

---

Join us in the comments and tell us what you’ll be drinking and eating today!