The battle lines for the Super Bowl between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots now include beer.
A gas station convenience store in Hall County has halted its sales of Boston's Samuel Adams beer, according to multiple media reports. The ban will extend through the Feb. 5 game, which will be played in Houston.
"We've pretty much pulled all of our Sam Adams products, and we replaced them with nothing on the shelf," Viral Chhadua, manager of the Exxon station on Browns Bridge Road, told WSB Radio.
The move was made after a Boston Globe column that made light of Atlanta sports fans and tradition.
“What inspired this was Dan Shaughnessy’s article that was belittling Atlanta as a sports town and its fan base,” Chhadua said.
The gas station's Facebook post about the beer ban had been shared more than 3,000 times as of Friday morning.
The beer company has responded.
“Won’t be their only loss,” Samuel Adams Beer said in a Twitter post.
Chhadua is enjoying the, uh, brouhaha.
"It's fun and playful and (Boston Beer founder and CEO Jim Koch) seems like a down-to-earth dude, so no harm," he told ESPN.
The Super Bowl game, the first for the Falcons since the 1998 season, will kick off at 6:30 p.m.
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