Did you read the Beer Madness article in Sunday’s Washington Post? Where Posties put 32 beers in an elimination round similar to March Madness? Might you like I, stopped caring when the idiots, lead by Greg Kitsock, somehow ranked Budweiser better than Victory Lager and Rolling Rock over Purple Haze?
It seems I wasn’t the only one pissed off by the poor palates of the poser participants. In the Beer Madness Live Chat, readers took Greg & crew to task. The first question?
Springfield, Va.: I don’t get it. How can you compare a lager and a bock in the first round? Or a wheat and an ale? Two different kinds of beer. How do you leave Guinness, Harp, and Bass out of the bracket while including PBR?
Greg Kitsock:…Drinkability was another key factor in choosing our line-up. These are all beers that you could down a couple bottles of while watching the big game on TV – no hop monsters or high-alcohol beers like imperial India pale ales or barleywines. (Imagine how we would have felt after sampling 32 IPAs or imperial stouts!)
Remember also that the average consumer picks a beer based not on stylistic correctness, but whether he or she likes the taste. And tastes vary greatly. There is no one correct answer to the question, What’s your favorite beer?
Yeah, and there is a difference between beer and flavored water. No self-respecting quality beer drinker (vs. frat boys and 40 oz’ers) would even put Budweiser in a match-up or feel a contest valid when every single hefeweizen wheat beer was eliminated in the first round. Or as the last commenter so elegantly explained:
McLean, Va.: How on earth did some of these make the round of 32? And where are any of the extraordinary brews from Stone Brewing Co. of Escondido. The Web site Beeradvocate.com named them the country’s best brewery. ratebeer.com named Stone the best brewery in North America, and the third best in the world, behind two Belgian brewers. This is like March madness without Duke or UNC!
So DC drinkers, what other Georgetown or GWU of beer was missing from this miss-match-up?
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
