DRINKS - The Evolution of Beer "Take These Out to a Ballgame"

The NY Times today had a great article by a New Beer Drinker calling for Yankee Stadium to carry craft beers.

THE new Yankee Stadium has a problem. No, it’s not all those home runs, it’s the beer.

The stadium pushes the usual mass-market brews, which is to be expected of any big venue. It also has a beers-of-the-world stand that sells brews like Heineken, from the Netherlands; Beck’s, from Germany; and Stella Artois, from Belgium — all from nowheresville, if you ask me.

It has a retro-beer stand that sells — give me strength — Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schaefer. If you look really hard, you can find Guinness, which is an acceptable fallback. But with all the great craft beers available nowadays, why aren’t any of them at Yankee Stadium?

Writer Eric Asimov suggests an American pilsner - and not a mass-marketed brew.

For great American pilsners, though, you have to go to the major leagues of brewing, which to my mind are the small craft breweries that have so thoroughly revitalized beer drinking in America. To inaugurate the new baseball season, the tasting panel recently sampled 18 pilsners from American craft breweries.

Check out his article to get the rundown on the 18 brews tasted (Victory pilsner, one of my personal faves, came out on top -- and Brooklyn holds strong at #4).

Take These Out to a Ballgame

-iz, ca