(Dallas, TX) – It’s Super Bowl Week and you know what that means…

…television and radio stations covering sports will be inundating viewers and listeners with non-stop coverage this week. No worries here as our coverage will stay focused primarily on beer though beer and the Super Bowl sort of go hand-in-hand so this will become an annual feature. In the weekly poll, it’s a tight race with a 55/45 split favoring the Green Bay Packers who are also slight favorites in Vegas to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. There are literally dozens of bets going including first touchdown endzone dance and highest rated commercial.

Not surprisingly, Anheuser-Busch is the favorite for most highly-rated commercial. The company is cutting down its advertising for the game by about 40% and will be pushing an import brand, Stella Artois, for the first time, according to AdAge. AB has extended its advertising exclusivity deal for the big game through 2014; it’s retained exclusive advertising rights for several years now. Lost Remote reports that the company, along with several others, is pushing social media in its advertising for the event this year.

As for the beer labels here, this will be the last year for a while that you see an NFL-sponsoring Coors or Miller label. For nearly a decade, Coors (then MillerCoors) has been the exclusive sponsor of the NFL (rights separate from Super Bowl ads) but that will change beginning next season. AdAge and others reported that AB-InBev signed a deal for six years and $1.2 billion last spring. If the NFL doesn’t fix its collective bargaining issue, resulting in a lockout, AB-InBev will have an extra $200 million to allocate elsewhere. The last Coors NFL label to be produced in 2011 will likely be for a beer commemorating the Super Bowl XLV champion.

Finally, there’s been some buzz over the past week as to what President Obama will be drinking at the White House this Sunday. News spread that the White House only ordered beer from Green Bay-based Hinterland Brewery for its party. That didn’t sit well with Pittsburgh-based East End Brewing founder and owner, Scott Smith, who wants Pittsburgh represented as well. A Facebook campaign to get East End beer sent to the White House has nabbed over 700 likes in just a few days.