The Armchair Quarterback’s Guide To Super Bowl Dead Week

The Armchair Quarterback’s Odds And Ends Of The Week

Beer Review Of The Week:

New Belgium’s 2 Degree Below Ale

I’ve stated before that New Belgium Brewing out of Fort Collins, Colorado is one of my very favorite breweries. They have a ton of great beers, some that I have already reviewed and some that I will in the future. Before the winter months slip away I thought I’d give this winter seasonal a try. Here’s the description from the bottle:

"We like to think we beat winter at its own game with 2 Degree Below Winter Ale – a bright, warming blast of Sterling and Liberty hops along with tawny-roasted malts. By pushing our 2 Degree Below into a final, nearly freezing state, its ample structure develops a brilliant clarity. Dry-hopping during fermentation creates a bright, hoppy palate and a cheery warm afterglow."

While not in my top five New Belgium beers, this is a very well done and especially well balanced beer. The clear appearance had me thinking it might be mild on flavor, but I was wrong. There’s an initial hop kick reminiscent of a mild pale ale, but it is quickly followed by a nice, almost bready malt taste to balance the beer out. Then it finishes with just the right amount of hop bitterness. All around a very nice offering. If you like your beers with a pleasant mix of hops and malts this is definitely worth a try. I got it as a part of New Belgium’s “Foli” 12 pack that also includes their Fat Tire, Abbey, Rampart, and Ranger beers (all of which are worth trying). I recommend picking one of these 12 packs up if you can find them, especially if you can’t find the 2 Degree Below Ale by itself.

My Rating (1-10): 7.5

A Good Way To Pass The Time This Week:

Read through the scouting reports from the Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, AL.

The Senior Bowl is the official kick off of draft season. For every team other than Seattle and Denver, it’s now time to focus on what they need for next season. In general, the Senior Bowl can be seriously over analyzed. However, if you take in information from multiple sources that you find credible you can at least get a good impression on whose stock is going up or down. I have three sources that I check regularly for Senior Bowl coverage. You could kill some serious time by looking over all their observations from this week.

CBS Sports’ Rob Rang and Dane Brugler do an excellent job. You can check out their coverage: HERE.

Draftcountdown.com‘s Scott Wright always has really good Senior Bowl coverage. I think his scouting reports might be my favorite that I’ve found. If you only look at one of these, this would be the one.

While I don’t always agree with Walterfootball.com‘s Walter Cherepinsky, he does do a good job of covering all things draft related. While I don’t base my opinion of a prospect solely on Walt’s opinion, I often use his site as a point of comparison. If one of the sites above says a prospect is looking great, I’ll check Walt’s site to see if he thought the same thing.

Rant Of The Week:

So this week I had the “pleasure” of picking up a toy at the local Walmart that would be a gift for a birthday party one of my kids was going to. Walmart in general is rant worthy and I understand that I shouldn’t be surprised that this happened and brought it on myself by going there, but it’s cheap and convenient, so sue me. Anyway, at the checkout I ask the cashier for a gift receipt for the toy that I’m getting. The guy (and I would point out that this wasn’t a HS kid, but a full grown man) looks at me sideways and says:

“You need a what?”

Me: “A gift receipt”

Him: “Ummm…….you’ll get a receipt with your purchase.”

Me: “No, like a separate receipt for the toy so the person can return it if they already have it.”

Him: “So you want to pay for it separate?”

Me: “No, I pay for it all together, but you print off a separate gift receipt for the toy so they can return it if they want.”

Him: “Yeah, you can do that with a regular receipt.”

Me: “Right, I understand that, but a gift receipt is especially for GIFTS and it doesn’t show the price on it and that way I don’t have to give them a receipt that also has my bananas and V8 juice on it (don’t judge me, I’m trying to get healthy).”

Him: “Yeah, we don’t have those.”

Me: “Ummmm….I’ve got them at Walmart on numerous occasions before.”

Him: “Well I’ve worked here for two years and I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

Me: (Standing in stunned silence as I wrestle with the fact that he’s not a new employee)

Him: “(Frustrated Sigh, rolls eyes and turns to cashier behind him) Have you ever heard of something called a “GIFT RECEIPT” (in a voice you or I would ask if someone had ever heard of a unicorn saddle)?”

Other Cashier: “Yeah, you just hit the button on the register that says Gift Receipt.”

Him: “What?”

Other Cashier: “For a gift receipt, you have to hit the button that says GIFT RECEIPT.”

At this point my cashier stopped speaking, fumbled with the register for a couple of minutes, finally printed my “magical” gift receipt, shoved it in my bag, rotated the little bag thing around so the bags were on my side and walked away from his register.

I’m not sure this rant needs me to add anything more to it. I think the story pretty well stands on its own. My question for any readers out there is simply: do people not know about gift receipts? Am I unknowingly part of some underground society that knows the secret tricks of the retail industry or was that whole exchange as utterly ridiculous as I thought?

I think that will do it for this week’s Armchair Quarterback. Normally this is the point where I tell you to sit back and enjoy some football this weekend, but with just the Pro Bowl on I’m not sure that really qualifies. Regardless, have a good week and I’ll see you back next week for my Super Bowl break down.

Thanks for reading.

Follow me on Twitter: @LyleGraversen