Beer Goggles: Purdue

Opponent: Purdue Boilermakers

Brewery: Brokerage Brewery

Beer: New Kid on the Hop

ABV and IPU: 7.5%, 65

The Boilermakers will be best defined by Brokerage Brewery’s New Kid on the Hop. It’s a West Coast IPA but has enough malt backbone to stand up to the firm bitterness of the hops.

This is best comparison to Purdue’s football resurgence. Under Jeff Brohm, they hope to be the New Kid on the Big Ten Block of elite teams. With a pass happy offense, it could be confused with a West Coast style offense, but it uses more vertical routes than a typical West Coast offense.

The malty backbone represents Purdue’s need to be a tough team in the harsh Fall and Winter conditions for outdoor Big Ten games. Throwing the ball around the lot is a ton of fun, but in cold weather games, you’ve got to be able to grind out scores when you can’t feel your hands (or face or feet or everything). Look at their November schedule. Home, at Northwestern, at Wisconsin, and back Home. If they don’t get three snow games out of that, then I think we’ll be cheated from the best visual dynamics in sports.

Snow games >>>>>>

It’s worth noting that Purdue blew a second half lead to Nevada last weekend, and maybe if they had a little more resolve they wouldn’t have turned it over five times. Now, there is some hoppy bitterness for you.

And that’s why the Dores will win. Vandy competed against an elite Georgia team. The Boilermakers laid an egg against a Group of 5 team that went 8-5 out of the Mountain West. New QB, three new OL, and one elite skill position player is not enough to win against a hungry Vanderbilt team laden with experience and young talent.

The good news is, if things go sideways in this game (be it for the Dores or the Makers), then it can all be solved with Purdue’s namesake- dropping some whiskey into the NKotH and downing it quickly.

Ps. When researching beers, I came upon People’s Brewery Co, the highest reviewed Brewery in Lafayette, IN. Turns out their website is compromised and my browser wouldn’t let me go there, and immediately I got an email from Instagram saying someone was trying to log into my account. So hey, it’s a wild world out there. Be careful.