Kotas Reviews Lay's Beer and Brats Potato Chips

Oh man it's my favorite time of year again! The sun is starting to peak out more, the cold weather is (slowly) being replaced by warmer days, the monsoons are showing up with more frequency, and yes, the Lay's Do Us A Flavor promotion is back again! These periodic flavor experiments fill me with delight because while they aren't always good, they at least show that Frito Lay is willing to think outside the box and really let their creativity shine by taking suggestions from the public and turning them into marketable goods for which the originator will get no compensation, no matter how popular they become! Hooray capitalism! Anyway, this year's chip adventure begins with Lay's Beer and Brats chips. Let's take a gander.

Sausage fest joke? Sausage fest joke!

I guess I was a little too bitter before, since this time there is a prize for coming up with "the best" flavor, which amounts to one MEEEEELLION dollars, or roughly equivalent to the spare change that the CEO pulled out of his car seats last Thursday. The packaging is surprisingly, uh brown, though DAT SAUSAGE, amirite? The beer looks remarkably like the beer from the old video game Tapper. Honestly, this theme surprised me, but upon reflection it makes absolute sense. One of the best times I've had at a cookout was scarfing down wieners and chips in massive quantities and washing it all down with cheap beer, and if they could encapsulate that experience in a potato chip, it would certainly save me the embarrassment of buying shitty beer. Let's crack 'em open!

Considerably less sausage than I was expecting. Less beer too!

Well, these are certainly chips. They have an amount of flavor dust on them, but they are not completely covered in it. The scent is vaguely backyard grill out, but not what I would call "bratwurst". Definitely sausage-esque though, so you know, decent effort. Of the beer there is but the faintest note of something that might be "shitty domestic", but really, it's hard to tell. Let's dig in, shall we?

The flavor is definitely savory and meaty, though identifying a particular type of "meat" would be difficult. I suppose you could call it roasted sausage, but I suspect that if I didn't know what it was supposed to be, I'd probably consider it just "meat-ish". There is more of the beer-ish flavor here, but not much. Still, it is definitely "shitty domestic" beer flavoring, so it's got that authentic American Backyard Cookout feel to it. You'll probably be surprised to hear that, despite it's inability to be a spot on flavor, it is very tasty on it's own merits. The savoriness compliments the potato and salt excellently, and the little bit of beer like overtones help clear the palette after eating (though not entirely). 

On the FACE Rating System, this gets One Smiley Face. These are very munchable, though if you were expecting a distinct "Beer and Brat" type flavor you will be somewhat disappointed. Definitely go try a bag if you are into savory chip flavors, and honestly, these would go great with Beer and Brats. Perhaps not Lay's finest effort, but it certainly isn't the Wurst!