A few months ago in one of my Weekly World (W)news segments I wrote about the Texas State Fair. The highlight of the article I found was that one of the finalists in the fair’s contest for the best fried food was “Deep-Fried Beer.” I wondered how it would taste, thought about different possibilities for beers that could be successfully deep-fried and tasty, and most importantly I asked if any of my readers in Texas wanted to do some research for me. I couldn’t go to the fair because of work commitments, but one wonderful Swan Fungus reader, Agata, wrote to tell me she planned on going and would try the Deep-Fried Beer for me.
My excitement was indescribable. I couldn’t sleep. Would the dish be revolutionary? Would it taste like the best thing since pussy? Would Agata even know what pussy tastes like in order to make a fair comparison? Seriously…could Deep-Fried beer taste that good? It seems like a horrible concept. Maybe if it was wrapped in bacon…but, I digress…I needed to know about the stunning culinary creation.
Agata attended the fair and sent me back some pictures and a short description of her experience. Now you can all learn the truth about Deep-Fried beer. And, hey, maybe you’ll get to see some funny pictures of fat people, too!
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State Fair
By Agata S.
It’s really no surprise to anyone that Texas is home to five of the ten fattest cities in America. Every year, we open up the Fairgrounds in Dallas to the Texas State Fair, which is pretty well known for being completely saturated with disgusting fried food and overweight people. Last year’s big draw was “Fried Butter,” which attracted Oprah Winfrey to tape an episode of her show at the fairgrounds. This year, finalists included Fried Frito Pie, Fried Lemonade, Fried Chocolate, Texas Fried Caviar, Fried S’mores Pop Tart, Fried Margarita, Fried Club Sandwich, and Fried Beer. Evan was particularly interested in the Fried Beer, so he sent me out to try it. The results: Horrible. Probably the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten in any capacity under any circumstances. Seriously — thinking about it makes me nauseated.
So, Fried Beer is basically little ravioli-shaped pretzel pockets filled with Shiner beer. Oh, and nacho cheese for dipping. I’m pretty sure the Fried Beer booth — being completely empty — was a good sign of how disgusting this was. To top it all off, the Fried Beer we got was cold from sitting there uneaten for probably a few hours.
The guy at the booth told us the proper way to eat Fried Beer is to bite a corner off, suck out the (now lukewarm) beer into your mouth, hold it in while you dip the pretzel in the cheese, and eat everything all at once. This was the worst advice and really made the whole thing even grosser than just the concept.
The rest of the fair was far more enjoyable.
The chili booth where you can get either a normal sized bowl of chili, or a chili “shooter,” both pictured.
An amazing amount of variety in one booth.
This is pretty much what every day is like in Texas.
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Wow. Thanks, Agata. That was quite a humbling read. Although, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think the Deep-Fried beer would really be that good. Warm beer sucks. Beer and pretzels go together, but…warm beer? Good? Why, because it’s deep fried? I sense a concept failure here. The best thing about fried foods are that they usually of gross combination or already unhealthy foods taken to a new level of gross, unhealthiness. Like the S’mores Pop Tart. That used to be the only Pop Tart I enjoyed eating as a child, so I would probably have thought it to be out-of-this-world amazing. Although I don’t like caviar (and I say that having never tried it), I think that has the potential to make a successful fried dish. Does caviar taste like roe? I know deep-fried sushi is amazing, so what if you take a sushi roll filled with roe and then wrap a strip of bacon around the rice and deep fry that? That could be totally great. Somebody in Texas better steal my idea and use it next year. And Agata, if it happens, I’ll pay for you to go to the fair again and try it. Or better yet, why don’t you experiment with it and make it yourself. We can split first prize 50/50 if you want.
