SPORTS HEAVEN ON EARTH: FREE BEER IN VERMONT

This article brought to you by the Brewers Ass. Of America

OMIGOD, VERMONT – After a lengthy and thoroughly conclusive study, NASA just released the following statement that may rock the very foundation of our society:

    “SPORTS FANS LIKE BEER.” – Head Honcho, NASA

That’s right: NASA.

Contemplate this for but a second and it all makes sense – and alarmingly so. Stadiums are chock full of the stuff. The ad banners alone are taller than all a team’s players stacked upon one and other. Take a moment to visualize that and ponder this:

    “Does a Randy Johnson go on top or the bottom???”

    “Where do you stick a Putz?”

Anyway, if you’ve ever been to a sporting event in this country – aside from Pony League or Pee Wee Football – you can see how the two, sports and beer, are seemingly inseparable. After all, there can only be one winner in a game/match, right? Thus: Watching your team lose is painful… Pain is taken away by beer… Beer makes losing okay! That’s why the darned thing is so readily available.

    “Would you even dare go to a game that
    DOESN’T SERVE BEER?” – www.MeetTheMatts.com

Former players, coaches and even broadcasters make commercial after commercial hawking the stuff. Wait a minute! We even hawk it for free in the hopes that we’ll get paid to hawk it! Further, as fans, we pay through the nose for it – and for those of us like Tall Matt, that can be really expensive!

So, other than pointing out the now-obvious, what is the point of today’s headline? Good question; let’s answer:
It seems as thought certain state lawmakers are offsetting the pain of raising taxes while slashing services by offering – get this – FREE BEER. North Carolina is one such state. Further, states from Washington to Texas to Vermont are taking beer in a wine direction: allowing people to sample a cole’ one before deciding what to buy.

    “One of the big benefits of a tasting is it allows a brewer to make a face-to-face connection with the person enjoying the beer.” – Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association.

That’s nice, Paula, but can we try the other one now?

Free beer started flowing in Vermont last year and the keg is yet to be kicked, says George Bergin, owner of the Beverage Warehouse in Winooski:

    “Beer tastings are probably our most popular events, more so than wine. We will have people standing in line for four hours to try beer.”

We are not making this up, people! And as though free beer wasn’t enough of a lure, Vermont has great syrup, excellent skiing and snowboarding, extreme sports, camping, hiking, and minor league baseball!

While we are obviously enamored with the Green Mountain State and consequently loading our U-Haul right now, there are other choices for you:

  • Washington State: Washington Brewers Guild President Heather McClung predicts that brewers will join in if the Legislature approves tastings statewide next year.
  • Texas legislators authorized wine and beer tastings at grocery stores in 2007.
  • Oregon, Florida and South Dakota also allow beer tastings in grocery stores! That should make our friend, Oregon Pete, very happy.
  • Oh, and did we mention the Moonlight in Vermont?

    Angry Ward tomorrow….

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    About The Matts 375 Articles
    www.MeetTheMatts.com started out as a NY Mets website and organically grew into an entity covering all professional sports. Our daily contributors, as diverse as they may be, share two important traits: -They toil for the "love of the game..." -They have a sense of humor. This is, after all, sports entertainment.