tasting tournament

At the start of March Madness, the Post did its annual beer tournament. I wasn't pleased with many of the entries and wrote in that it was the NIT. A friend Megan and I decided we would have to do our own, so on Friday a few co-workers and friends (not mutually exclusive) had our own tournament. Lelaine, not partaking in the joys of beer, did an excellent job as the officiant.

The eventual winner of the 16 beer tournament was Xingu. It was entered by Jennie, the host of the shindig who makes a mean taco as well as homemade chips, tortillas, many different types of salsa, beans, and a great cheese dip. In addition to the excellent food and beer, another benefit is that because you have to buy enough beer for each entry in case one goes all the way and is tasted in many rounds, you have a lot of left over beer. We all walked away winners, although next time we are having a One Shining Moment montage at the end.

I had five entries: Bells Two Hearted IPA, Stone IPA, Rogue Mocha Porter, Southampton Double White, and Victory Prima Pils. I thought Victory would win it but it ended up losing in the first round. Goes to show you what I know. Bells did make it to the finals, but lost in a 5-2 vote to Xingu, a Brazilian schwarzbier - that's German black lager to you and me. I would also like to point out that Doug, who picked out a couple of good beers (one of his, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, is my go-to beer), managed to have all his choices shown the door in the first round. I expect you will train hard in the offseason.

The final bracket is below. Ignore the "regions" as a they were kind of thrown out the window with a few last minute changes. Seeding was based on Beer Advocate rankings, although a few of those were also off after a couple of the last minute substitutions.