Over 9000 votes and we now have a winner for the STL Hops St. Louis Beer Challenge.  Ladies and gentlemen, the winner is Schlafly’s Dry-Hopped APA.  It was a close final match versus O’Fallon’s 5-Day IPA, with a 52.6% to 47.4% final match-up.

I hope everyone had a lot of fun with this and didn’t take it too seriously.  Next year will be a lot more fun with real rankings and a more detailed list that will hopefully not leave off some very popular beers.  Congrats to all of the contestants and thanks again for giving us some great beer in St. Louis.

Here we are, down to the final two beers.  In one corner we have O’Fallon 5 Day IPA and in the other corner we have Schlafly Dry Hopped APA.   I can’t say I’m extremely surprised by the outcome.  It’s obvious that you guys love hops.

Both of these are fantastic beers that I’m more than proud to see in the final two.  No matter who loses, we all win with these great beers.  The winner will be announced Monday, April 6th.  Get voting!

(If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)

So here we are, we’re at the STL Hops St. Louis Beer Challenge Final Four.  We have three favorites versus an underdog that has fought it’s way into the final four.  This second to final round features O’Fallon’s 5 Day IPA going up against Schlafly’s Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.  The other final match provides Schlafly’s Dry Hopped APA against Charleville’s Hoptimistic IPA.

Could we see a Schlafly vs Schlafly final game or could we see O’Fallon’s 5 Day IPA take on Schlafly’s APA for a battle of the hops?  Perhaps the upstart Charleville will power through another round and make it’s way into the Championship match up.  Well, we’ll find out on Thursday who will be one match away from the STL Hops St. Louis Beer Challenge Championship.  Get voting!

(If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)

This is the big time, we’re down to the Elite 8.  These really are some elite beers too.  With the exception of the Buffalo Rye IPA (Sorry!) and the Mattingly beers that inexplicably got voted out, I think these are some of the best offerings St. Louis has to offer.

I hope you guys are having fun with this.  Next year I promise a more in-depth process with better ranking and better detail.  But in the mean time, I think this has been a lot of fun.

So, get voting in Round 4 and get us down to the St. Louis Beer Final Four.

(If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)

I have to say, this whole experiment is very interesting.  First of all, we’ve had almost 7o00 votes.  Now, I know what kind of numbers STL Hops generates and while I’m happy with the number of people that read this site, it’s not anything near 3500 people.  Not even close.  So, I’m guessing the fix is in!  But, like I said, this is all for fun and wasn’t meant to be a serious competition, so I honestly don’t care that much.

If you’re a brewery or brewpub and you want to rally the troops to have your beer win, then all’s fair.  So, the results of Round 2 were pretty surprising.  I honestly thought we’d see at least a single Mattingly beer in the Sweet Sixteen or maybe even the Elite Eight, but all of them knocked out last round?  Completely surprising.

Sure, I could see Mattingly losing to 5-Day (a Final Four beer for sure) but to lose to Square One – Park Ave Pale Ale or Tin Mill – Skyscraper?  And this isn’t to disparage those beers, but I haven’t really ever heard anything about them from regulars here, so it came as a bit of a shock to me.

But I digress, we’re now down to Sixteen beers and we’ve got some really big match-ups.  Schlafly’s Barrel Aged Imperial Stout versus Schlafly Oak-Aged Barleywine is probably going to be the most interesting match-up.  I honestly think that the IS will crush the Barleywine, but if this competition has done anything it’s proved me wrong.

But Round 3 has started. Time to get voting!

(If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)

Ooops, forgot about this yesterday.  Round 1 was not unlike the NCAA counterpart, where clear favorites  took their victories easily but you’d find a young upstart on occasion that separates itself from the pack.

Some of the highlights include Mattingly’s BrightSide Wittaking down Schlafly’s No. 15 in a 50% v. 50% squeaker!  Schlafly’s Pumpkin Ale taking down the Schlafly Oktoberfest in a 57% to 43% battle of the Schlafly fall seasonals and Alandale’s IPA taking down Square One’s Rauchbier in a 52% to 48% battle.

But Round 2 has started.  Time to get voting!  With the exception of Augusta, each brewery still has at least a single beer remaining.  This should be a much more interesting and difficult.

(If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)

With March Madness creeping up on us, I thought it would be fun to have a contest to see how “St. Louis” beers would do in a tournament. Why is “St. Louis” in quotes? Because I picked outside breweries like Charleville and Tin Mill to play as well. Now, a few things. First, don’t make any judgment about the rankings. I just randomized it and then did a bit of sorting so smaller brewpubs didn’t face off against each other.  (Schlafly, well, sorry guys, a few of your beers are going head to head in the first round.)

Second, I tried doing my best pulling out 64 beers, but I’m sure I missed a few breweries or beers.  Sorry if I missed you, it wasn’t on purpose.  Third, I only chose Schlafly bottled beers, but obviously they have about a billion more beers they produce.  But that was the easier way of pulling this off.  So don’t take this too seriously, it’s just for fun.  Here’s the round times:
Round 1 – Mon Mar 16
Round 2 – Thu Mar 19
Round 3 – Mon Mar 23
Round 4 – Thu Mar 26
Round 5 – Mon Mar 30
Championship -Thu Apr 2

So, good luck to everyone and have fun! (If you can’t see the poll below, click on this link to visit the website hosting it.)