We all love beer in different ways. That’s a fair assumption given the fact that you’re reading this piece with this title. But it’s important to point out that beer lovers are not a monolith, because that sometimes gets lost in the excitement surrounding craft beer. We have different tastes and different levels of enthusiasm for suds.
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Some of us love the same lager we’ve always had, the lager that our father might have let us sip when we were young. Some of us have fridges full of the trendiest hazy IPAs. Some skew sour, or dark, and love the taste of barrels. Some of us follow craft beer more casually. Some of us buy beer directly from a local brewery, some of us have a relationship with a salesperson at a local specialty store, and some of us just buy what’s at the grocery store, now that grocery stores have better selections. Some of us don’t care about those selections, some of us are overwhelmed by them.
And so, when we talk about beer, we often end up talking past each other. Make a comment about Coors Light and you’ll get equal amounts of enthusiasm and denigration. Try to talk about the best craft beer and you’ll eventually get one-upped by someone who lives closer to an impossible-to-get beer than you do. Is there a way to crown the best overall beer when Coors Light and Stone Enjoy By IPA are very rarely in the same conversation?
The state we currently find ourselves in can lead to some unity, though. Yes, the craft-heads can support their local craft breweries by ordering directly — an effort that I’ve tried to assist with SupportBeer.com, a searchable and filterable list of Patreons, GoFundMes, and beer shipping links — but so many of us are also cutting down the beer budget, and the number of contacts with the outside world, and getting beer delivered from the grocery store. There’s statistical evidence for this, too. Grocery store beer sales are flat or up, while the overall craft sector is down, found Bryan Roth at Good Beer Hunting. More of us are getting our beer from Kroger and Safeway these days.
Those grocery store aisles provide us a great setting for the question: What’s the best beer? Because, largely, that grocery store aisle ensures that we’re talking about the same kinds of beers: nationally available flagships. Beers that we all recognize, beers that most of us have had or at least know of. In this beer bracket, we’re not asking about that double-dry hopped fruited milkshake IPA from that place two hours out of town. We’re talking about the beer you throw in your virtual cart next to the yogurt and the salami.
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In this beer bracket — which you can fill out here — we’re looking to crown one beer. The flagship to end all flagships.
The first round was culled down to 32 beers (from 64) after a series of Twitter polls that collectively garnered thousands of votes. I decided to forgo seeding so that like beer could battle like beer. That way the first round would be populated with the iconic beers of each style, and the bracket would basically follow the same pattern until the elite eight and the final four, when, finally, we’ll see drastically different beers go at it.
In the first light beer “region,” we’ve got stalwarts Coors Light and Miller Lite, as they beat their respective light lagers in the first round (Bud Light and Rolling Rock). They’ll join Brooklyn Lager (fresh off a trouncing of Trader Joe’s Simpler Times Lager) and Stella Artois. The winner of this round will have massive sales numbers on their side, but very few beer snobs.
Would you rather have:
— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) April 16, 2020
In the second light beer group, it’s time for regional and import beers to battle. Yuengling beat Pabst Blue Ribbon in what some might call an upset, and Old Style edging out Hamm’s definitely brought some online yammering. Peroni beat Rainier, possibly just because more people have had Peroni than a regional lager out of the Northwest. In an import-only matchup, Sapporo came up victorious over Bitburger Pilsner, and I can’t complain all that much. I’ll drink a Sapporo with my sushi any time.
In the first session group, Sam Adams Boston Lager edged Kona Longboard Lager, and Firestone Walker Easy Jack had an easy win over Dogfish Head Sea Quench. Allagash White beat out Blue Moon despite only being available in about 20 states — no bracket is perfect, even at the rules it sets itself. Boulevard Tank 7 is ubiquitous and beat Saison DuPont easily, which was sad for me, as DuPont was my crossover beer, the beer that got me interested in beer again.
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In the second session group, Founders All Day IPA beat out Lagunitas Daytime in a battle between my two favorite daytime crushers. Modelo had a double win — Modelo Especial beat out Pacifico, and Negra Modelo beat out Dos Equis. Only one Modelo will leave the bracket though, and they’ll have to battle Tecate, which defeated Corona on Twitter.
Picking 16 nationally available IPAs was difficult, but a few flagships made it easy. Lagunitas IPA breezed by Goose Island 312 in the first round, and Stone Enjoy By dispatched Elysian Space Dust … by three votes in a battle that saw 1,216 votes cast. Yowza. New Belgium Fat Tire had a much easier time with Voodoo Ranger.
Would you rather
— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) April 17, 2020
In the second IPA group, DogFish Head was victorious with 60 Minute IPA (over Six Point Crisp) and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (a No. 1 seed if there ever was one) trounced Harpoon IPA. Sweet Water 420 pulled a tough matchup, against Ballast Point Sculpin, but one of 420 or Cigar City Jai Alai or Dale’s Pale Ale would’ve been screwed any way the group matched up. As it is, Cigar City Jai Alai is the super-regional IPA that advances to battle the Original Gangsters of the style.
When we got to the darker beers, some matchups were uneven, it seems. Yes, North Coast Old Rasputin and Deschutes Black Butte Porter are not in all 50 states, nor are they the same style. Nevertheless, Old Rasputin moves on and that feels right to me. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout used to be a beer you line up for, but now it’s at my Safeway in California. It beat Stone Russian Imperial Stout in a surprisingly close first-round matchup. Again, Left Hand Milk Stout and New Holland Dragon’s Milk are not the same style, but this time the lighter beer won easily, and Left Hand moved on.
I had no idea where to put the brown ales, so here come Four Peaks Kilt Lifter and Newcastle Brown Ale, with Newcastle moving on. Two Belgian matchups saw Ommegang Three Philosophers easily beat Westmalle Tripel (weird!), and Delirium Tremens edging out Chimay Blue. Where do you put Guinness Draught? Against Rogue Chocolate Stout in this bracket, but it didn’t matter, as Guinness (another likely No. 1 seed) moved on easily.
So that’s how we got here. Now it’s your turn to fill out the brackets as you see fit. Vote for each round between now and Friday, May 1. Come back each day to see which beers advanced and vote for the next round. By Friday, we’ll all be ready for a round of beers … and the finals. One beer to rule them all.
Fill out your bracket here.
(Top photo: Jeff Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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