There Will Be One (1) Not-Terrible Super Bowl Ad—But You Won't See It.
Unless you live in Sussex County, Delaware.
You will see endless shitty celeb ads. Even the talented Adam Driver embarrasses himself with some sort of metaphysical malarkey for Squarespace.
But then there’s this Big Game spot for Dogfish Head IPA. The use of an electric football field in the ad is actually pretty clever. I had this game when I was kid, as did a lot of you “boys” out there. It was stupid, never worked well, but a lot fun. Dogfish Head brewer Sam Calagione had one too, to help brew his beer. Here’s the backstory via the OG ad blogger Åsk Wäppling and adland.tv:
There is a method to this madness, actually, as Tudor Games’ iconic Electric Football game inspired Sam to invent the brewing method of continual hopping, which is the method used for the 60 Minute IPA, 90 Minute Imperial IPA, and 120 Minute IPA. By rigging an Electric Football game over a brew kettle, Sam was able to cascade hops into the beer at a consistent rate, making the brews hoppy but not bitter.
Here’s Calagione’s video on the “continuous hopping” method. That phrase and this ad bring back so many memories for me, including, playing the game even when the electricity didn’t work by repeatedly pressing on the surface to get the men to move/hop.
