It is almost September and you know what that means: Tailgate season is upon us. And since it is the season of that classic American outdoor sports party extravaganza, it would seem Kettle Brand saw fit to bless us with a cheesy, peppery shortcut.
Gone are the days of having to pick up both kettle chips and some pimento cheese dip, because we can all now one-stop shop and “touchdown” at the party with new Kettle Brand Tailgate Edition Spicy Pimento Cheese potato chips. Let me tell you: These sound like a home run to me (definitely the right sport), and I don’t think I am off base (still the right sport) when I think about how much time and hassle these chips might save when brought to the cookout instead of a chip-dip combo.
How cheesy will these new Kettle chips be? How spicy is spicy when it comes to Kettle Brand chips? If they are “Tailgate Edition,” am I allowed to buy them for non-football purposes?
I have to imagine they won’t have someone monitoring the chip aisles to make sure that people who aren’t football freaks stay away from the tailgate chips. That said, you never know…big CPG is always watching. But as for what makes these “Tailgate Edition,” I did a little digging and it turns out that Kettle Brand has released a different “Tailgate” chip flavor every year for the past three years. In 2022 it was a Buffalo Bleu flavored chip; in 2023 it was a seven layer dip flavored chip; and this year, the big release is Spicy Pimento Cheese flavored Kettle chips. What will next year be? Burger flavor? Brat flavor (this would’ve actually been extremely relevant this summer, Kettle Brand 👀)? Hot dog? Coca-Cola? Baked beans? Beer? I could come up with tailgate-y ideas all day and still have absolutely no idea where they are going to go next with this concept.
As for the heat level, if we judge by past Kettle Brand Chip flavors, my guess is that the “spicy” aspect will be mild and nothing too crazy; the Kettle Brand Gochujang flavor was pretty tame in terms of spice, and gochujang is generally spicier than pimento cheese. The pimento flavor itself will hopefully be good considering that Jalapeño Kettle chips have a nice, fresh pepper flavor. As for the cheesiness, one of their only other cheesy flavors, Parmesan Garlic, was in our top two when we ranked all the Kettle Brand flavors, so I have high hopes for the execution of this particular cheese flavor.
So far, commenters online have said everything from “these are soooo good” to “wanted more cheese and less spicy.” It’s a really mixed bag. So get out there and try them and let us know what you think! Will you be adding these to your football-watching snack bracket? Or will you be sticking with the classic chip-and-dip combo?
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!