‘Accepted’ and North Park Party Cup IPL

It has a Lager base and is totally serve-able in a red plastic cup. Of course it’s paired with a college movie!

The Movie: A not atypical college movie / 2006 / Universal

The Beer: India Pale Lager / 5% ABV / North Park Beer Co. – San Diego, CA

For those who’ve been to college or have been in adulthood for at least several years, the absurdities of Accepted are clear. After all, it’s the story of master slacker Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long, in one of his most charismatic roles to date), who graduates from high school without any college acceptances. And whaddaya know, a few of his buddies are in the same boat! Bartleby hatches a quick-fix plan to get their parents off their backs — take over a nearby abandoned mental facility and transform it into a fake college. Yay!

Somehow this all works a little too well, and soon the gang finds themselves with a bunch of other students and no professors. They decide to teach themselves, and from there it delves into a pretty typical college movie: budding romance with a girl already dating some frat jerk, revenge on frat jerks, a big party scene and even a big Hail Mary moment with a rousing speech at the end. If you don’t think these are the hallmarks of an American college movie, I dare you to go watch Animal House, Old School, The House Bunny, Van Wilder, Revenge of the Nerds… it goes on.

At its core, Accepted is good ol’ 2000s-era fun. When the movie came out in 2006, I was 16 years old and without adulthood cynicism. At the time, Jonah Hill was still “that guy” showing up everywhere (he plays Bartleby’s best friend Sherman). What I really remember is enjoying the movie and looking forward to college, where I’d undoubtedly thrive academically and attend epic parties. Logically of course, I knew that I’d be going to a “real college” and not the fictional, student-run South Hampton Institute of Technology, but it’d still be tons of fun!

When I actually went to college, the academics were tough, and the parties were mostly in frat houses that were a step away from being flop houses. I still had a great time overall and learned a lot, but the entire experience was wholly a real world experience. Naturally, it all ended with a thick student loan bill. It was no Accepted, or any college movie for that matter.

While a recent viewing of Accepted had me rolling my eyes at the one-dimensional female characters and groaning at the Greek life stereotypes, I was still entertained for the most part. I also found myself growing nostalgic for both my teenage naïveté and the good times of my college years. At the end of the day, entertaining nostalgia isn’t a bad quality for a movie to have.

It’s also a pretty big part of my beer pairing of choice, Party Cup from San Diego’s North Park. On the surface, this beer looks just like something you’d sip at a kegger (the 5% ABV checks out there as well), but oh man, is it better. The brew is fermented with German Lager yeast and hopped with big doses of Mosaic for notes of citrus and pine. It’s nostalgic, but entertainingly modern. And it totally goes great in an actual party cup!

Speaking of which, those red plastic Solo cups or “party cups” that we Americans know and love are a strictly U.S. phenomenon. Apparently, other folks around the world are amused by our widespread use of them and even throw U.S.A.-themed parties with the cups. I wonder how many of them have seen Accepted.

*Bonus Brews*

• Bartleby – Plum / Sour Ale / 7.8% ABV / Odd13 Brewing – Lafayette, CO
• Nostalgia / Imperial NEIPA / 8% ABV / Vitamin Sea Brewing – East Weymouth, MA
• Party Wave / IPA / 7.4% ABV / Kane Brewing – Ocean, NJ