It’s that time of year when just about everything gets tossed into a bracket. Here at Seven Days, we can’t resist a good trend, so we thought we’d jump in with a subject near and dear to all of our hearts — local beer.
Our distinguished selection committee — staff writers Andy Bromage and Paul Heintz, food writer Corin Hirsch, and yours truly, deputy web editor Tyler Machado — put our heads together and came up with a list of 32 Vermont beers, including choices from the biggest breweries and the tiniest brewpubs. (We threw Woodchuck Amber Cider in there, too, just for you gluten-free types.)
Following in the footsteps of another big tournament that happens this time of year, we loosely ranked the beers and arbitrarily assigned them brackets named after varities of hops: Cascade, Nugget, Centennial and Simcoe.
Now, here’s where you come in. Each of the beers is paired up in a head-to-head matchup, and the winner will be determined by you. We’ll keep moving through the bracket, down to the “Final Pour” and on to the championship round. We’ll start with first-round voting in the Cascade and Nugget regions today, followed by the Centennial and Simcoe regions tomorrow. Voting in the next round will be open all weekend.
Click here to visit the Brew Bracket page and cast your votes.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2012.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
I’ve tasted a lot of beers, in the US and Germany. Hill Farmstead’s Edward is the best beer I’ve ever tasted. Anywhere. Anytime. I’ve never met the guy, but Hill’s a hops genius. His beers are intensely hoppy, but there’s absolutely, positively no bitterness or sting. It’s liquid hops beauty. It’s drinkable art. He has other hops offerings that aren’t on your list, like Double Galaxy IPA. I’ve only had it once, but it was OFF. THE. HOOK.
Heady Topper is a damn fine beer, but the hops isn’t quite as subtlely magical as Hill’s.