Does anyone remember when Junk Banter first started? Don’t answer that.
While you were busy not reading Junk Banter, you were especially busy not reading our craft beer reviews. When Drunk Female and I launched this blog (where the heck is she anyway?), our intentions were simple. We love weird food and weird beer and we want to talk about them. The average beer drinker doesn’t realize that good craft beer comes in all sorts of crazy Junk Banter flavors like carrot cake, Pop Tarts, and Christmas.
Given this blog’s aspirations, you may have guessed that we really like beer. You may have also guessed that we really like snacks. Because of these two facts, you might guess that we’ll really like these new Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats potato chips.
Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats Potato Chips
Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats potato chips are currently difficult to locate, and I haven’t been able to determine exactly where they’re being sold. An awesome person who runs this really great Instagram account sent me these chips that she found in Wisconsin, which makes sense for beer brats. The only reason I know beer brats is a Wisconsin thing is due to my extensive knowledge of baseball mascots. Allow me to digress for a quick tale before I review the Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats chips. I swear the story swings back to the chips.
In 2003, the Milwaukee Brewers (beer!) hosted a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In between innings, the Brewers put on a Sausage Race between four human beings running in oversized sausage costumes to promote a local sausage company. As the sausages rounded the Pirates’ dugout, then-first baseman Randall Simon took a light swing with his baseball bat and knocked down the Italian Sausage. This caused Sausage #2 to fall down. Concern fell upon Sausage #3, who stops to make sure Italian Sausage was ok. Sausage #4 witnesses the incident, but takes off for the finish line like a savage and is declared the winner. Its identity? Bratwurst! Beer ‘n Brats!
That tie-in was loose at best.
Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats potato chips are tasty chips that don’t taste like beer or brats. To me, these taste like something in the family of barbecue chips. My starting reference point is those Lay’s Korean Barbecue chips that lost in the Lay’s Flavor Swap contest. Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats has the same liquid smoke element and a tiny bit of a meat flavor, but without the sweetness present in the Korean BBQ chips. I taste some of the onion powder that one might argue is like grilled onions you might eat with bratwurst, but every chip ever has this same onion powder.
The beer angle is mostly a flop with Lay’s Beer ‘n Brats potato chips. God bless them, they tried though. The ingredient list includes some disgusting words you wouldn’t normally find in chips, such as beer solids, hops, and chicken fat. There are a lot more things in the ingredient list like dijon mustard, romano cheese, and chicken broth. The problem is that I don’t taste any of them. There’s a small amount of bitterness to play on the beer angle, but I just don’t get the malted barley or the hops (signature ingredients for beer) that they used at all. I could keep eating these chips, but Lay’s Beer ‘N Brats didn’t achieve the advertised flavor.
Since I was drinking beer during this review, I dunked them into the beer to see how that worked out.
It works out poorly.
In summary, it’s really funny when mascots fall down. These chips aren’t anything special.
How Much Randall Simon is an Asshole Rating: 8 out of 10
How Many People Read Our Beer Reviews Rating: 0 out of 10
Overall Rating: 6 out of 10
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