Chips and Beer

Chinese potato chips and Pizza Port Spring Thrills IPA.

I enjoy trying unusual flavors of Lays potato chips from around the world. I still pine for the wonderful bolognese flavored Lays I enjoyed during my semester abroad in Paris (the roasted chicken and thyme flavor was surprisingly on point but just too odd on a potato chip... don't ask me why I didn't think the same about bolognese). On our recent trip, the only ones I came across were an herb and butter flavor in Germany (not unusual enough to pique my interest). Today, much closer to home, we stumbled across some unusual ones from China: fried crab flavor and crispy roasted chicken wing flavor. (We also saw a "hot squid" flavor and a "spicy hot pot pepper" flavor, but given a motivation to not to buy everything in the store the former sounded a bit too adventurous while the latter sounded a bit too tame.) My report: the crab chips were revolting, and the chicken wing chips were quite enjoyable. The beer was also a success, but put Simcoe hops in a beer and I'm almost certain to like it a lot (and add an experimental hop -- in this case HBC 586 -- and I will almost certainly try it).