You’ve trained all season for this. It started back in late summer with the first NFL pre-season games. The sun was out, you were wearing shorts and flip flops, and there was nothing better on a Sunday than grilling and watching football with a cold, crisp beer. Flash forward six months. The weather has turned frigid, the backyard BBQ has been replaced by a pot of chili, (some of you may still be wearing shorts) and there is still nothing better than football and beer—especially when it’s Super Bowl Sunday. 

Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest eating day of the year. (Thanksgiving is the first—note the food+football parallels). As you gather around the TV to watch the Rams play the Patriots, you’re going to need a lot of beverages to wash all that food down. 

Let’s start with chicken wings. Wings are the most popular Super Bowl food. In fact, it’s estimated that 1.3 billion wings will be eaten on Sunday, so it’s important to get this right. The sauce for the wings will, of course, be a factor in your beer selection, but for the spicy, pepper-based, burn-your-lips-off variety, an American IPA is a good choice to stand up against the onslaught of flavor and heat. This is great news, because a tasty IPA might just be the easiest thing in the world to grab at your local brewery. 

If you’ve got your wings/beer pairing covered, you have a solid start. But if you’re living in the land of nachos and 7-layer dips, Mexican-style amber lagers, ala Negra Modelo, are a great choice. And with a relatively low ABV, you can enjoy them over the long haul. 

Now, if you’re a legit Pats or Rams fan, you may find yourself in a close game where you resort to stress eating. This often manifests as shoving chips in your mouth while pacing back and forth running greasy, chip-fingers through your hair. We’ve all been there. Vinepair has you covered. They put together a handy infographic that matches your preferred chip flavor with its ideal beer companion. 

Beer may be the go-to when it comes to Super Bowl bevies, but there’s plenty of room for cocktails on this day. Town and Country Magazine has some great ideas for imbibing during the big game. We especially appreciate the ones that can be easily batched in advance and served in a uKeg, like the Prosecco-based What/When 20 and the mezcal Spruce Moose. 

The key takeaway, though, has less to do with what you drink, and more to do with how you drink it. In a normal scenario, getting up to refill your glass during commercials would be no big deal. But things are different on Super Bowl Sunday, where commercials are half the fun. Whatever you decide to indulge in, keep it at arm’s length by serving it in a uKeg. It’s a game plan that is sure to deliver a victory.