For all that “Return of the King” bent over backward to prove this revival could work, “The Beer Story” is when season 14 starts feeling like King of the Hill again. That could be because it’s written by Norm Hiscock, who has been with the show since its third season and has written some all-timer episodes, including “And They Call It Bobby Love,” “Bobby Goes Nuts,” and, most relevant to this episode, “Dances With Dogs.” Several great KOTH episodes have been powered by Hank and/or Bobby picking up a new hobby or fixation, especially when their shared interest brings out Hank’s competitive side — “Dances With Dogs,” sure, but also “How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying” and “The Son Also Roses.” All of which is to say that “The Beer Story” is built on a tried-and-true KOTH plot foundation, but thanks to the revival’s time jump, it takes on a new, more complex flavor. And, no, Hank, that flavor is not just “hops.”

It is a little unbelievable that Hank didn’t take up home brewing before now, given that it does combine his two great loves, beer and propane, and the home-brew boom was already well underway during the show’s initial run (arguably more so than it is now). But Hank wasn’t retired then, and without a “Pi-lah-tays” instructor to keep in line like Peggy, he has lots of free time to fill. When he stumbles upon a home-brew kit while running errands for Peggy at the Mega Lo Mart, it feels natural, a much better treatment for Hank’s retirement ennui than sitting in front of the new Monsignor Martinez reboot.

Said reboot is a cute layer of metatext — even though this KOTH is a revival, not a reboot, a distinction I will go to my grave annoying people with — but it also establishes this episode’s thematic underpinnings. Not the revenge thing, but the part about sons emulating their fathers (or father figures). Monsignor Martinez’s son vaya-con-Dios-ing in his father’s bloody footsteps is echoed in Bobby jumping on Hank’s home-brew bandwagon, as well as Joseph adopting Dale’s surveillance/intimidation techniques as they each provide their friend with the Gribble version of “help.” Even Luke Jr.’s newfound interest in beer (the nonalcoholic kind, thankfully), which he eventually admits is because he “wanted to be cool like you, Boomhauer,” has that malty aroma of father-son bonding.

Unlike Luke Jr., though, Bobby and Joseph would never characterize their actions as emulation, since both of them are dismayed by their dads’ taste in beer. Hank and Dale wouldn’t read it that way, either, especially once the prospect of entering Hank’s beer in a home-brew competition in Dallas is broached. (Thank you, Brian Robertson, for introducing this episode’s main conflict. I knew I liked having you around.) We’ve seen this sort of embarrassed-child-defensive-parent dynamic before on King of the Hill, but Bobby and Joseph being grown(ish) adults puts an interesting spin on it. Bobby telling Hank he doesn’t want to enter the competition with his dad’s “accountant of beers” because it could damage his professional reputation as a chef is a patronizing overstatement, yes, but it cuts deep at a time when Hank is struggling with not having a job for the first time in his adult life.

A burn like that is enough to drive a man to drink … Cursed Hobbit Stout, part of a beer flight at the trendy brewery that Hank visits with Peggy in an attempt to get a leg up on his son. Peggy is impressed with the creativity on display (she probably means the ping-pong tables), Hank less so with beer offerings that are chewy and taste like a burn pile (a double IPA, I assume). It only strengthens his resolve to win against his son with a “true-blue American beer.” However, he’s thrown by the rising standards of the alley gang, whose initial gushing over his better-than-Alamo beer gives way to more measured reactions once the competition in Dallas enters the equation. Bill’s suggestion that it needs more “old gun flavor” is both unhelpful and upsetting, but Dale gets to the heart of the issue in classic Dale fashion: “Your beer is our generation’s last line of defense against these young punks. We’re the dinosaurs and they’re the virus the dinosaur government created that made them go extinct!”

The focus group for Bobby’s beer is similarly unfocused. Poor sweet Joseph tries his best, offering up “complexual” as his review, but Chane’s buddy Tyler finds the beer’s crushability lacking: “You want a beer that you can drink a lot of, bro. That’s the business model you want. I’m not tasting anything past the tenth one anyway.” Chane loves that, and he also loves his other friend’s observation that you should be able to feel the beer in your nut sac. More than anything, though, Chane loves Joseph’s insistence that no matter what, they just have to beat their dads’ beer, because that would mean “my dad wins.” I, meanwhile, love the button Chane’s non-Tyler friend puts on the issue: “Beat all dads, their generation messed up the climate and took all the houses! And both my dads are always disappointed in me!”

Sufficiently egged on, Hank and Bobby go into competition mode, complete with a training montage. (Did that “Runnin’ Down a Dream” needle drop make you tear up a little, too? RIP Tom/Lucky.) Hank starts a “How to improve perfection” notebook, while Bobby goes the Pepe Silvia route with his vision board (Raspberries = success?), their different approaches neatly encapsulated by their respective background reading: Bobby studies The Art of Brew, while Hank has opted for Beer Math. Peggy, for her part, adopts a may-the-best-beer-named-after-me-win attitude, but beneath that characteristic bit of narcissism lies an awareness of something neither her son nor her husband can acknowledge: This whole home-brewing thing was supposed to bring the family together, not tear them apart.

A true father-son collab would have made a great “story,” something we’re reminded repeatedly that a winning home brew must deliver, but by the time the competition arrives, everyone’s lost the plot. Hank’s hoping a decorative American flag will do the trick, Bobby is adorning his beer’s display with fresh hops and a delicately placed orange slice, and Dale and Joseph have worked their “magic” (dognapping and blackmail, respectively) on two of the judges. Both Hank and Bobby are visibly unhappy about the trash talk being thrown between the two factions, but it’s Hank who breaks first when faced with the judge’s demand for the story of Alley Guys Beer. He attempts to improvise — “Tradition. Freshly cut lawns. Respect for your elders. The roar of a crowd after the touchdown. These are the stories of Texas” — but the unimpressed responses force him to admit that the real story of his beer is one of missed opportunity, a chance to spend time with and maybe even learn from his son that he was too proud to take. And it ends with him pulling out of the competition.

Things are looking up for Wassanasong Ale, if not for Peggy, who, upon learning that no one has named a beer after her, exclaims, “Are you [bleeping] kidding me?” (Yeah, we’re on Hulu now.) But Bobby realizes his dad still has things to teach him, too, so he follows in Hank’s footsteps, declaring that his beer has the same story and the same ending. “Different beer, but the hops fell out of the same tree,” he says. The judge seems underwhelmed, as does Chane, but Peggy declares it an ending so perfect she could have written it herself, if she had the time (presumably that Pil-ah-tays instructor still hasn’t learned).

She does, however, have time to put a perfect cap on “The Beer Story,” hanging out in the backyard with Hank and Bobby as they share chilled glasses of each other’s beer. Hank’s beer is “still boring” to Bobby, Bobby’s is “too fruity” for Hank, but put them together and you get Peggy’s Ale. Whether or not it would have won the competition, as she insists it would have, the important thing is that her boys made it together, and she loves it. Hank and Bobby only give her neutral “mm-hmms” in response, but I think that deserves a “ho yeah.”

Musings

• Nancy and John Redcorn get another brief walk-on, which includes three interesting details: Nancy and Dale’s physically affectionate greeting; Nancy noting “we worked late and my hair got mussed by a tree”; and Joseph’s enthusiastic greeting of John Redcorn, who gives him a stoic “Young Gribble” of acknowledgment. Still not clear what’s going on there.

• One thing Joseph has definitely inherited from Dale is his flight response. Joseph somersaulting himself into a trash bag is both stealthier than Dale’s instinct to drive off in the highly recognizable Dale’s Dead Bug van and a great visual gag. And the two of them bailing on the home-brew competition at the first sight of cops (who are just there to support some colleagues) is weirdly sweet.

• Speaking of weirdly sweet, the scene of Dale and Joseph smoking together as they hide behind a hedge gave me flashes of season nine’s “Smoking and the Bandit,” which is a nice Dale-Joseph variation on the Hank-Bobby bonding episode.

• The Refreshments’ classic theme song has returned for the opening credits, but the new end-credits theme is a variation done by Billy Strings, who rules if you have a taste for modern bluegrass.

 Nothing like a little beer-related father-son rivalry to bring the family back together.