Welcome to the STL Hops 2010 St. Louis Beer Challenge! With March Madness starting today, I thought it would be fun to have a contest to see how local beers would do in a tournament. Thanks to an influx of new breweries, we now have a tournament featuring beers from within 50 miles of downtown St. Louis.

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 a brewery didn’t face off against itself 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, you’ll notice I didn’t include Schlafly AIPA, the reason being is that we’ve yet to try the bottled product and I kind of stuck to Schlafly bottled beers. Fourth, don’t take this too seriously, it’s just for fun.

Round Dates:
Round 1 – Thu Mar 18
Round 2 – Mon Mar 22
Round 3 – Thu Mar 25
Round 4 – Mon Mar 29
Round 5 – Thu Apr 1
Championship – Mon Apr 5

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.)

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.)

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.)

Go vote.  It’s your civic duty and it’ll make you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something today.

The results are in and I’m proud to say that Missouri won the Short’s Brewing Vote Your Short’s distribution contest.  Here are the top ten:

1 MO 137 Up 2
2 MA 108 Up 2
3 OH 92 Down 2
4 PA 87 Down 2
5 MN 66 Up 1
6 IL 62 -
7 MI 59 Up 1
8 CA 54 Up 1
9 FL 50 Down 4
10 MD 45 -

But apparently it’s not quite over yet, according to Scott Newman-Bale of Short’s Brewery, they’re planning on leaving the voting open to be used as an analytical tool moving forward.  So if you haven’t voted, feel free to vote and get your friends to do the same.  It also looks like there will be one more final tournament later on pitting the top states against each other to determine an ultimate winner.  When that contest takes place, I’ll make sure to let everyone know.

I want to thank everyone that reads this blog for participating.  It’s our continued passion for craft beer that’s going to keep getting us the best beers in the world available in Missouri.