Everyone’s got one, the perfect post ride beer. That mouth watering frothy malt beverage that consumes your thoughts towards the end of a great bike ride. It temps your mind invoking a horse to the barn feeling even after the longest and hardest of rides. The perfect post ride beer or PPRB, is something that is not only sought after but heavily debated amongst many cycling circles.
For some it might be what ever is the coldest thing in the fridge or cooler. My personal experience form the circles that I have run in, is that it generally comes down to two beers that are the most prevalent at the end of a ride, PBR a.k.a Pabst Blue Ribbon and Tecate. Now I don’t know at what point PBR became the new beer of the cool kids. Many baby boomers consider PBR to be the bottom of the barrel much like Old Milwaukee is today. But every where you go in Flagstaff it is the cheep beer of choice. Now Tecate is an obvious one, especially with a lime, its the most refreshing Mexican beer, that Mexicans actually drink. What more could you ask for.
If had my personal choice of post ride, cheep beers, it would be my old school go-to, Coors Banquet beer. Umm yummy, I love me a cold yellow belly, reminds me of high school. Not that I condone underage drinking.
There are two other camps that need to be considered besides just the go-to cheap beer. We have the European lager/pilsner crowd and the U.S. small brewery crowd. Now the European lager/pilsner crowd is a simple one, they get done with a ride, sometimes a road ride, and crack open a cold Heineken, Amstel light, Spatan or the like. A little skunky but always refreshing.
Then we have the much deeper, wider ranged, small brewery crowd. I have lumped this into one category but honestly this could be sliced up many different ways. I know guys that will only drink New Belgium Fat Tire after a ride, its either that or nothing, a committed fan boy for sure. There’s Anchor Steam, Dog Fish, Deschutes, Full Sail, the list goes on and on, as does the varieties and styles. Many of these riders are tied to their brand and probably brought a couple of bottles already chilled in the cooler before the ride even starts.
If your really lucky and part of an elite circle of friends or employees of Gore you’ll have the honor of being treated to a post ride beer brewed up by Flagstaff’s own Handlebar Sandwich. Here’s a guy that can not only ride a bike but can brew great beer as well, I wonder if he can brew beer while riding a bike, hmm. Check out this story, its a bring a whole lot of beer with ya kinda thing. Or for smaller groups have a look at this suspended bike trailer pony keg hauling wonder.
So I’ve open the flood doors, chime in, tell us whats your favorite post ride beer is and why.