It pains me to write these words, but unfortunately my manly recipe for beer can chicken did not win the Grilling with Sun King contest. But hey, that’s cool. I still had a blast making some new friends and drinking free delicious beer all night.

No seriously, I got drunk on free beer.

Best. Night. Ever.

I wanted to win to feel vindication in the fact that you can win a cooking contest with a recipe that is not only written in a humorsome manner, but simple enough that any man, woman, or child would be able to prepare the dish.

Warning: Children should never be left unsupervised while grilling food. Always provide the appropriate amount of adult supervision while you make them grill your meat products for you.

I never expected to win, but dammit if didn’t put forth my best effort to impress the judges. [I’m entirely too competitive of a person to not try to win the contest.]

Did I just make the beer can chicken for the judges? HELLZ NO. I was raised in the south and when you are asked to make a meal for 6-8 people, dammit, you make a meal for an army. There’s no such thing as “too much food” in the south.

Fun Fact: This may explain the high prevalence of diabetes and obesity in southern states compared to other states in the nation. See also Paula Deen; proponent of butter, diabetic, racist, and soon-to-be unemployed cook.

So in addition to the easy beer can chicken recipe that I made (a total of three chickens were harmed during the cooking process), I prepared homemade pita chips (soaked in Wee Mac) and homemade Wee Mac beer cheese as an appetizer (recipe to come soon). I didn’t make these extra items to win, I made them because I care.

Everyone loved the beer cheese and beer-soaked pita chips. I thought I had this contest in the bag, but I guess my suspicions were wrong (as they sometimes can be). Sometimes I think an idea is good and I only realize it was a terrible idea well after the fact. Including any of the following…

#TonyDanza #AngryPirate #AlabamaHotPocket

But like I said, I had fun. And if you really want to get technical about it (and the competitive side of me really wants to), my name IS mentioned first after the winner and runner up were mentioned, so I guess I’m safe to assume I came in third place?

That’s probably what I’m going to tell myself… just so I can sleep at night.

Results from Grilling with the Sun King contest.

And in all seriousness, if you get a chance to venture out in downtown Indianapolis and you want to check out a really cool brewery with REALLY good beer, I would HIGHLY recommend checking out Sun King.