College football has been back for a few weeks, but not everyone has been participating. It’ll be awhile before Saturday’s are a full slate across the country. This Saturday, the Southeastern Conference begins action, which means we get to watch the Georgia Bulldogs at 4 p.m. take on Arkansas. As you prepare to enjoy your football Saturday around Atlanta, did you know you could pick up a number of UGA-inspired craft beers?
Southern Brewing Company in Athens has two options for Dawgs fans:
Red and Black is a 4.5% Berliner-style sour ale with raspberries and blackberries that borrows its name not only from the fruits that are included, but the colors of the football team in Athens, which Southern Brewing calls home. Red & Black is readily available where Southern Brewing beers are sold, both on tap and in cans.
Also from Southern, the brewery named a beer after one of Larry Munson’s most famous calls. The legendary play-by-play announcer at UGA got so excited during a 26-24 win over the Tennessee Volunteers in 2001 that he let fly a call for the ages.
"My God Almighty, did you see what he did? David Greene just straightened up and we snuck the fullback over!" Munson blurted after Verron Haynes caught a touchdown pass to seal the game for Georgia over the highly-ranked Vols. "We just dumped it over! 26-24! We just stepped on their face with a hobnail boot and broke their nose! We just crushed their face!"
Hobnail IPA is another year-round offering from Southern Brewing, and boy does it have special meaning for UGA faithful.
If you’ve ever been outside Sanford Stadium two hours and 15 minutes prior to kickoff, you’ve probably seen the Dawg Walk. If you have, you’ve heard The Redcoat Marching Band entering the stadium.
“Hey, what’s that coming down the track? A mean machine that’s red and black. Ain't nothing finer in the land… then the Georgia Redcoat marching band, GO DAWGS!”
Oconee Brewing Company crafted a red ale and named it Mean Machine, to help capture all the feels you get when you hear that chant as the UGA marching band walks by during the Dawg Walk. Mean Machine is available on tap and in cans.
The Dawgs are 28-point favorites Saturday as they begin their season on the road.
In addition to finding these college football-inspired brews, here’s another sports adjacent offering to look for Saturday.
Second Self Beer Company is using the canvas of a fictional title fight to have a lot of fun with hazy IPAs in a rotating series called New Contender. Round 3 was released on Thursday, and there’s going to be a lot of New Contender, Round 3 available at Second Self’s West Midtown taproom on Saturday as they blow things out with a food truck and plenty of fun.
New Contender was conceptualized by head brewer Austin Brumley, who was looking for a way to experiment with new hops, Jason Santamaria, President of Second Self told me. Every hazy IPA in this series has the same bettering hop and malts as a constant, but the brewers change two additional hops to play around with the flavor and feel of the beer.
“Each round we will have a ‘New Contender’ hop, think of it as the underdog,” said Santamaria. “The champ hop is about 70% of the hops used and the New Contender is the the remaining 30%. In this case it is 70% Idaho 7 (think: tropical fruit and pine characters) and 30% Lemondrop (citrus, fruity, herbal aromas). From there, the underdog does become the champ because there is always a New Contender out there.”
Next round the Lemondrop hop will become the “champion” and Second Self will being In a New Contender hop. Second Self sees this series as something they can have fun with for some time.
“We plan to keep it going indefinitely,” Santamaria said. “We’ll make the new round once we are close to selling out the last one.” Round 2 is still available, if you’d like to try some side-by-side tasting.