22 March 2011

Round Two of Washington Post's Beer Madness



Article here.      Revised brackets (and voting ballot) here.

The Baltimore loser: Stillwater Stateside Saison lost out to Flying Fish Exit 4.  Still in the running from (reasonably) local breweries: Flying Dog Raging B*tch, Evolution Rise Up Stout, and DuClaw Misery.

It's intriguing to go down the brackets and see the discrepancies between the panel and the votes.

4 comments:

JohnM. said...

"It's intriguing to go down the brackets and see the discrepancies between the panel and the votes."

Not so much. We all know that most of the customers voting are just sheep, and really don't know what they're talking about. The folks on this panel are experts after all.

Personally, I plan to completely rearrange and change my drinking habits after this "tournament," to make sure they are more in line with the top selections made by the panelists... even if in the past, I was under the impression I really didn't care for some of those beers.

This tournament has really been very, very helpful for me.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

Well, it's "interesting" in an academic sense as much as anything. I mean, a widely available beer (local micros, Sam Adams, etc.) is likely to trounce a relatively scarce beer (say, Duck-Rabbit, Goose Island, Russian River, etc.). And I know for a fact that some of the breweries have rallied voters to "ballot-box stuffing" with Facebook, blog posts, and the like, and that's more likely to happen with the papers that actually get the Post than those outside the area.

Now, if they had a vote-off between Bud and PBR, or Natty Boh and Yuengling......

JohnM. said...

Of course you're right Alex, and in fact it appears the popular vote has played out exactly that way (local and/or more widespread beers trouncing smaller or less known beers).

My feeling is that this is all for laughs and giggles anyway. It's somewhat interesting I suppose, in the same way that it's interesting to read over the panel selections, recommendations and grades in publications like NW Brewing, Atlantic Brewing news, the celebrator brewspaper, etc.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

Well, isn't that whole "March Madness" basketball balderdash supposed to be just for laughs and giggles too?