Consuming alcoholic beverages while watching sports is an activity that is carried out all over the world. Heck, one of the biggest Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) sponsors is Modelo, which recently took over for Budweiser.
I am absolutely one among the drink (homage to Coheed and Cambria) on fight nights and would be absolutely delighted if you joined me in having a pint of craft beer during UFC on FOX 27, which takes place this Saturday night (Jan. 27, 2018) at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Read on if you want to silently learn what beer I’ve paired with event and why … or just click the video above and let me take about two minutes to tell you.
For this particular fight card I’ve chosen a beer that honestly doesn’t fit my reason for pairing it. I wanted to pair this event with the most popular beer style in the world, which is pilsner. In America most pilsners are sorry examples of high-quality beer. Brands like Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller, etc. are brewed with a lot of adjunct to make them cheaper to produce and some of the processes carried out to make them are geared toward removing most of the flavor. The reason they are supposed to be served at near freezing temperatures is to minimize that flavor.
Lager of the Lakes by Bell’s Brewery, meanwhile, is high quality example of what pilsner beers are actually supposed to be … or at very least it is a solid craft beer example of a pilsner.
The reason for pilsner being the beer of choice for UFC on FOX 27 is because like most big box beers the event this weekend is rather run-of-the-mill. I’m not saying that some of the fights might not surprise us and end up being edge of your seat-style of contests filled with ebbs and flows, but the name value simply isn’t there. In the past, UFC would save some of its most stacked events for big FOX, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. For example: Jacare Souza was the third fight from the top in his last appearance at UFC on FOX 24, where he lost via technical knockout stoppage to eventual UFC Middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker. And now “Jacare: is in a main event spot with Andre Fili vs Dennis Bermudez as the co-main event.
In other words, UFC on FOX 27 is as good of a representation of a FOX card as Budweiser is a representation of pilsner. (Dis)agree? I’m more than happy to hear your take on the subject!