In a classic routine, comedian George Carlin analysed the differences between baseball and football: baseball is played in a park; football is played on the gridiron; in baseball you go home, in football you wind up in the end zone. If football is the more macho sport, not surprisingly the collectables for football have always had more of a macho feel than those used to advertise baseball: grills, grilling utensils, coolers and other tailgating tools have promoted beer for this great tradition of the football pre-game.

Schlitz was the first brewery to utilize the SuperBowl for a true advertising blitz. In the early 1980s, Schlitz’ master brewer, Frank Sellinger, hosted a live taste test. During breaks in the game, a cut away would go to the studio, where a group of consumers would taste three different beers and then pull a lever. This was known as the Great American Taste Test. Unfortunately, this novel campaign was not able to revive Schlitz’ sliding sales.

The only NFL team I recall being fully owned by a brewery was the Baltimore Colts. The National Brewing Co.’s ownership of the Colts is also tied to Colt 45, the malt liquor the company developed in 1963. It is suggested that the name is derived from the name of the team and the number 45 from a star player on the team. It might also have referred to the number of players on the Colts’ roster.

Over the last 20 years, television advertising of the big game has belonged to Anheuser-Busch. Many collectibles have been produced to advertise the annual Bud Bowl: helmets promoting Bud or Bud Light that fit on the neck of a bottle; coasters and playbooks; and inflatables in the shape of the Bud Bowl players, goal posts, and footballs.

Miller Brewing was the official beer of the NFL for numerous years and promoted the various SuperBowls with coasters, cans, and bottle labels. They also issued an inflatable chair emblazoned with the NFL team and Miller logos, and of course it had cup holders. The chair was designed for in-store promotions but was also available to consumers through a mail-in offer. Miller also produced an annual football handbook. This pamphlet listed all of the major college and pro conference schedules, as well as info on the various bowl games.

Coors now has the rights to be the official beer of the NFL. Each year their cans and bottle labels promote the big game. Besides once issuing a football shaped bottle, they also issue a 5-liter can of beer with bold graphics promoting each year’s SuperBowl. Following the close of the season, Coors also issues a can to salute the winning team.

The Pittsburgh Brewing Co. has probably issued the greatest number of football-themed cans over the years. Each year that the Steelers won a SuperBowl, an Iron City can was issued with a team photo across the label. Many of their star players, coaches, and even their announcer have all been commemorated on beer cans. This has continued with new technology this year, when Pittsburgh Brewing commemorated Jerome Bettis on one of their Iron City Light Aluminum bottles.

I am sure at the close of this year’s game and the beginning of the 2007 season we can expect more items promoting two of America’s great traditions.

“Beer” meant American-style lager. Some brands tasted so awful the standing joke claimed that the brewing process included a horse. But the local stuff was cheap, and there was an offbeat charm about finding beer that wasn’t available back home. Brands like Point Special, whose cans Wisconsinites called “blue bullets”; Schmidt, a Minnesota beer with wildlife-themed labels; and P.O.C., which, depending on who you talked to, stood for either “Pride of Cleveland” or something less printable. Like thousands of other American males, I started collecting the cans, then later decided they were taking up too much room and threw them out.

Guy Stuff

Back then, most bars were refuges for the guys. Some were so dark and decrepit that few women dared enter. Frankly, it’s a wonder that the health department hadn’t shut some of them down. The menu was simple—burgers, with condiments brought out in six-pack holders; bratwurst and sausages; chili, which was often quite good; and microwaved pizza, which wasn’t. The beer selection was, in a word, limited. In some crossroads taverns, proper etiquette demanded that you ask for “a beer.” If there was a choice, it was between a glass schooner of the local brand or a longneck bottle of a macrobrew—or vice versa.

Electronic entertainment had yet to invade most bars. Few places could afford the novelty of video games. Besides, the state of the art hadn’t progressed much. “Asteroids” had just been invented, and “Pac-Man” was still on a drawing board somewhere in Japan. You were more likely to find puck bowling and shuffleboard, and maybe a pinball machine or a pool table or two. Then, as now, people fed the jukebox until closing time. In many places, the old joke from “The Blues Brothers”—“we’ve got country and western”—had a ring of truth.

Living in Big Ten country, football season was an excuse to hit the road and party. I’ve managed to see a game in every stadium in the conference, along with some in other parts of the country. If you think today’s tailgaters are hard core, you wouldn’t have believed what went on in the parking lots during the seventies. People fired up the grill and tapped the kegs at the crack of dawn, and many partied on until well after darkness fell. Inside the stadium, security was rather lax. At an Ohio State-Michigan game, I saw four seniors lug a quarter barrel of beer into the stadium, unchallenged by police or security guards.

More than a beverage to consume on the sidelines, beer has a historical and symbolic link to the game. Football fans and beer lovers share in their sense of camaraderie. College football fans are fiercely loyal to their teams and their respective conferences. Regional bias adds yet more fuel to the sometimes blazing fealty, with inevitable debates about whom, or which, is superior. Beer aficionados are little different—they are often staunch in their love for styles, brands or regional inclinations. The debates are more subdued but no less inspired.

College football and brewing also share a chronology, as both were popularized in the latter half of the 19th century. Nowhere is this connection more apparent than The Big Ten. Famous for its physical, take-no-prisoners style of football, the member universities cut a latitudinal swath across the upper Midwest and Great Lakes, which geographically casts a cultural mentality common to all of the members.

The Big Ten universities range from Iowa to Penn State in the east. Every state in between has at least one conference member. The region is also the birthplace of professional football. The earliest teams rimmed the Great Lakes in small, working-class cities whose residents were enamored of both football and beer.

Primarily immigrants from central and eastern Europe, these new Americans brought their brewing skill and love for beer with them. As they were accustomed to imbibing lager beers in their homeland, they brewed the same in America. The affinity for bottom-fermentation endures, though all modern styles of beers are well-represented, making the region unique in the United States.

The Big Ten states of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio and Illinois were among the most prodigious brewing states of the 19th century. The cool climate and often hilly terrain provided the perfect environment. Today, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are hotbeds of the modern American brewing scene.

Historically, football was just as reflective of the populace. Blue-collar football teams composed of farmers, factory workers, lumberjacks, and coal miners made for some rugged games on hardscrabble fields, a style that is still synonymous with the Big Ten.