7-11’s Game Day is a Game Changer

By Zack Stefanski

SPOKANE- Last week, 7-11 launched a new brand of low-cost beer named Game Day to compete with Budweiser and Miller on the budget beer market. As a life-long lover of beer and 7-11, I knew that I had to try Game Day as soon as possible. Luckily for me, 7-11 decided to start selling the beer in a limited release in Washington and Oregon- it’s like they were begging me to try it! If 7-11 could do for beer what they had already done for taquitos and slurpees, I knew that Game Day was going to be one of the greatest products to come onto the market since the camouflage hat.

Game Day beer takes after Natural beer’s well established model for success in that it is available in two types- Game Day Light and Game Day Ice. Game Day Light has 40 fewer calories, but also has less alcohol (5.5% to 3.9%), so it’s really a question of whether you want to feel drunk and full quickly, or drunk and less full slightly less quickly. Either way, I figured I couldn’t lose.

For my official taste test of Game Day beer, I decided to pick up a case on the way home from work on Friday. Imagine my excitement when I noticed that Game Day Light wasn’t just competitive with Bud, Miller, and Coors, but was actually even cheaper at $6.99 for a twelve pack- I think I paid more for Pepsi products until I switched over to Shasta last year. I opted for Game Day Light due to its beautiful can design. It has everything you would want in a beer can: it holds beer and has an American flag design on it, right down to a red, white, and blue logo with stars above and below the name. I know it must be hard to try to establish a new brand of beer, but if 7-11 wasn’t going to get you with the great price, then they’ll get you with their artistic mastery on the can. I reached into the cooler to grab a case, awkwardly lifted the grate because the case did not quite fit in the cooler, knocked a 24 ounce can of Heineken off of the rack above, and left it on the floor spitting out beer and foam all over the floor because it’s not my fault that these idiots can design a god damn cooler.

[RIGHT- After helping me check out, the friendly cashier, Jonah Finestien, returned to his game of Bubble-Bobble on the TV behind him.]

From there, I excitedly walked to the front of the store, only to confront the age-old 7-11 dilemma of standing 4th in line behind a pissed off guy waiting for cigarettes, a guy with a mullet who apparently does all of his grocery shopping in the snack aisle with his 19 items, and a morbidly obese woman in a tube top who is arguing with the non-English speaking cashier about which day old hot dog she wants while trying to get the right lotto numbers from her friend who is on an inexplicably loud speaker phone. My spirits sank. I wasn’t going to be able to try Game Day Light for at least 30 minutes! How would I wait out this line? Was it time to make a mad dash for the door? While I was trying to decide whether the fat woman would look less revolting if the tube top was covering her saggy boobs or her gelatinous muffintop and stretch marks, fate intervened. Just in the nick of time, two West Indian bros in the parking lot started yelling at each other and threatening to throw down. Apparently, one of them dripped some testosterone on the other one’s new sneakers. Whatever the cause, everyone ran out of line except me and the guy waiting for cigarettes, and I was out of there in two minutes flat.

As soon as I got home, I fired up my propane grill to char up some delicious Johnsonville brats. I plugged my iPod into my speakers to blare some Bruce Springsteen, and I took my work pants off without bothering to replace them. Finally, it was Game Day Time. I cracked open the first can, and took a long, gulping chug. Sips are for pussies.

Before I tell you about the taste, I feel like I should give some context about the types of beer I love to drink. I know that there are beer snobs out there who like to tell you how their beer tastes like a hay bale or a pile of dirt, but I’m not one of them. I’m the kind of guy who will settle for nothing less than the purity of a Bud Light or a Miller Lite when I go to the bar, because I care about how my beer tastes. As far as I’m concerned, hops belong on a basketball court, and a malt comes in two flavors: chocolate and vanilla. When I’m at home, I’m a little less picky, as I love the taste of Miller High Life in a clear glass bottle. I don’t know what it is about a clear bottle that makes the beer taste better, but you really can’t beat living the high life. And even though I know that some people don’t like the always delicious Keystone Light, 10,000 empty cans on the front yard of the frat house I walked by last week can’t be wrong.

I tell you all of this because I don’t want you to think that I am some Johnny-come-lately to the beer drinking game. I have been buying 40s of Mickey’s, St. Ives, and Olde English since I was 14 and had to bribe homeless guys to go into the store to get them for me. With that thought in mind, let me tell you that Game Day Light is one of the smoothest beers I have ever tasted. It has the drinkability of Bud Light, the less fillingability of Miller Lite, and the refreshing aftertaste of Busch Light. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but I shit you not. I don’t know where 7-11 found so many East African immigrant employees who knew about brewing, but they certainly got it right on the first try. The best thing that I can say about Game Day Light is that it goes down like water, but it gets you drunk.

As I mentioned earlier, I chose to pair my Game Day Light with some Johnsonville brats. It was a good pairing, but due to its overwhelming smoothness, it may have paired even better with something a little more substantial, like a cheddarwurst. So far, my favorite snack to eat with Game Day Light has been a tossup between Jack Link’s Teriyaki Beef Steak Nuggets and Doritos Blazin’ Buffalo and Ranch chips. I have heard rumors that drinking a Game Day Light while eating a KFC Double Down can compel a state of euphoric nirvana that lasts throughout the meal, but I am afraid that if I start down that road, I may abandon my friends and family like that one time I got addicted to meth.

So what else can we expect from 7-11? I don’t have any inside information, but if you ask me, they should get in on the ground floor of some other popular products. For example, weed isn’t legal yet, but it seems like a lot of states are going to start allowing medicinal marijuana, or might just legalize it altogether. 7-11 already sells nachos, 64 ounce sodas, rolling papers, lighters, and routinely turns a blind eye to blatantly antisocial behavior, so I say they should start selling weed. And while we’re at it, about half of the 7-11’s I’ve ever been to have had hookers outside, so why not make something of it? Like my mom always says, when life gives you hookers, make hooker-aide. Bring them in from the cold, protect them from the dangers of the streets, and let 7-11 keep a cut of the profits. It all seems very natural to me. I even read that 7-11s in the Netherlands already sell weed and hookers, and they’re making a killing.

Even if 7-11 chooses not to branch out into hookers and weed, they are clearly on the right path so far. I loved 7-11 before, but after trying Game Day Light, my appreciation for their convenience became overpowering adoration for everything that they represent. Six stars out of five.