Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Super Mario Galaxy 2 with Left Hand Milk Stout

If you've been following my blog for the last few months, you know that I have grappled in the past with pairings for Super Mario Galaxy. I was excited about the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2, but my fear of having to blog about it delayed my acquisition of the game. But that fear is now gone, as I have had a minor revelation.

I won't go into too much detail about the nature of SMG2. It is a lot like SMG, which was a lot like Super Mario 64. I had today off from work, and the only thing on my schedule was cooking some jambalaya and cornbread. Having slacked off on the blog lately, I was determined to find something to drink with the game that would be worthy of writing about. I thought about what was in my fridge. Nothing seemed right, but then I remembered my one last bottle of Left Hand Milk Stout.

The weather has been relatively cool in Chicago as of late, and I've happily started drinking more dark, malty beers. Left Hand Milk Stout is a nice, roasty stout with pleasant caramel malt and lactose providing a tasteful amount of sweetness. It is a lighthearted beer, and it was wonderful with such a lighthearted game. What really struck me about this pairing, particularly in relation to my past trouble finding a pairing for the first SMG, is that I never would have tried this in the summer. But here I was in my nice, cool apartment, drinking a milk stout and playing a Mario game. It made me feel cozy and content. Seasonal food and drink correspond with traditions created out of necessity. While the virtual worlds of video games are not affected by the weather in the real world, is it crazy to think that our relationships with these games could be?

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