Last year fellow beer writer Greg Kitsock conducted a March Madness bracket for beer in the Washington Post, calling it Beer Madness. It was a brilliant idea and I vowed to do my own this year (and I still may). The Post will be doing another one again this year, and over 400 hopeful judges submitted applications including “inspired limericks, hopeful haikus, reasoned arguments and, yes, desperate pleas.” Judges are expected to be announced shortly and the beers for this years contest should likewise one upcoming Sunday soon. I’ll follow along like I did last year.

In the meantime, Great Lakes Brewing News, has announced their own contest involving India Pale Ales, the National IPA Contest, or NIPAC. It may not roll off the tongue like N-C-Double-A but I’ll wager it’s a damn side tastier on your tongue. They’ve chosen 32 IPAs from around the country and over four separate rounds will have three brewers judge each head-to-head competition to determine who moves on toward the championship.

To participate you need to register online (it’s free) and then after receiving your password via e-mail vote for who you think will win each of the sixteen contests in round one. You simply choose who you think will win each head-to-head contest of IPAs. You can even win some prizes, which, according to the website rules will “include a full case of beer from the 2008 National IPA Champion, tee-shirts, posters and brewery merchandise.” The schedule of rounds is below. Get picking.

• Round 1: February 23rd
• Round 2: March 1st
• Round 3: March 5th
• Championship Rounds: March 8th

What fun! Now I need to get off my arse and figure out something different from the other two contests. Anybody have any thoughts or ideas?

Saturday’s Wisconsin State Journal had a very well done quiz on their state’s beer labels. They’ve removed the text from sixteen Wisconsin beer labels, and you have to choose which is which. I got two wrong, fourteen correct. How many can you get right? Post your results below. Enjoy.
 

 

I’m not entirely sure why this exists, but I did have fun with it — so perhaps that’s enough of a reason — but Strange Brew, a Canadian software company that makes programs for homebrewers, also has an online Random Beer Name Generator. My first beer name:

Flying Squirrel-Mash Oud Bruin

Being a huge fan of Rocky & Bullwinkle, I thought this one was a great name for a beer. But some others were equally intriguing, such as Craptacular Loch Ness Monster Tripel, Barney and Spiderman’s Transgendered Bière de Garde and even The Squid Formerly Known As Winston Churchill’s Unbefreakinglievable Pilsner. I don’t know how many names are in there. I tried quite a few and never got a duplicate. Give it a try. Let me know your best ones.

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If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you probably already know I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan. It’s really the only professional sports team I have any loyalty to whatsoever. I have rooted for other teams in other sports, but the Pack has been my number one team since I was literally for years old. So on Sunday, of course, they’re playing the New York Giants in the NFC Conference Championship Game, which will decide which team will play the New England Patriots (probably) in the Super Bowl on February 3.

It’s obviously a big game for both places where the teams are located and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Green Bay Mayor James J. Schmitt have placed a friendly wager with one another on the outcome of the game. The bet has been reported in both New York (in Newsday) and in Green Bay (on WBAY Channel 2).

If the Giants win, Mayor Schmitt will send Bloomberg a gift basket from “World Cheese Champion” U.S. Specialty Cheese, featuring 10 pounds of assorted cheese spreads; 20, 16-ounce aged natural strip steaks from Smithfield Beef; 3 pounds of chocolates from Beertsen’s Candies; and a pair of cheese wedge sunglasses.

If the Packers win, Mayor Bloomberg will send a specially made 10-pound New York-style cheesecake from Carnegie Deli in Manhattan; a case of Brooklyn Lager from Brooklyn Brewery; and 20 pounds of Porterhouse steak from Peter Luger Restaurant in Brooklyn, along with six bottles of Peter Luger steak sauce.

It’s nice to see Brooklyn Lager representing New York, but where’s the Wisconsin beer? Titletown Brewery is right there in town. How about a couple of growlers of Titletown’s Mediator, a Belgian Dopplebock. Hell, my friend Todd Ashman, who’s now with Fifty Fifty Brewing used to be the brewer there. There beers are decent, at least the few I’ve had a GABF. And I love their name. If not Titletown, even though it seems the most appropriate, there are even three other breweries in Green Bay. There’s Green By Brewing, with their Hinterland Beer, also on Dousman, and then there are two Legends Brewhouse & Eatery locations. In the end, it probably won’t matter because hopefully Green Bay will win the game and Mayor Schmitt (with his great beery name) won’t have to pay up at all, instead receiving a nice care package from New York City. Fingers crossed.

The Titletown Brewery on Dousman Street is located in an old Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Depot.

The NBWA has a fun little website up asking people to vote for which of the presidential hopefuls they’d most like to have a beer with. The voting is irrespective of parties, and so far Barack Obama is leading the pack with 26%, followed by Ron Paul with 14% and John McCain with 12%. Cast your vote now to have your beer preference heard.

NFL Football is pretty much the only major sport I pay much attention to these days. Of the arguably four major sports (baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey) it’s the only one I think that goes well with craft beer. Hear me out. I know you can get decent beer at most sporting events if you’re willing to pay a premium price and do some extensive searching around the park, stadium or whatever. But baseball is played in the summer months and both basketball and hockey are indoor sports so all three tend to favor warm weather light beers, the kind made in vats the size of Montana. Football, on the other hand, is usually played outdoors in the dead of fall or winter, in rain, sleet or snow, with the wind whipping through the frozen tundra turning everyone into human Popsicles. That’s the perfect time for a nice warming barleywine, doppelbock or Belgian tripel. Or perhaps a thick Imperial Russian Stout, an über hoppy Double IPA or even a nice Wee Heavy. Now those are football beers. Yum.

Despite having grown up in Pennsylvania, I’ve been a Green Bay fan my entire life. But after the Lombardi years, the Packers went through a twenty year drought that made my enthusiasm for the game pretty hard to sustain. It’s hard to keep rooting for a team that never wins, especially when all your friends are 49ers fans, it’s the Montana/Young era and they rub it in your face at every opportunity. But finally in the early nineties, Brett Favre joined the team and they finally started winning again. And ever since it’s been fun again to follow football.

So I’ve set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ‘em game and the other a survival pool, and you’re invited to play along. Up to 50 people can play each game, so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to play.

Pro Football Pick’em

In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…

Group ID#: 32392
Password: bulletin

Survival Football

If picking all sixteen football game every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Last man standing wins.

In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…

Group ID#: 10094
Password: bulletin

I’m a sucker for quizzes of all stripes, be they tests of trivia, intelligence or knowledge. To me, the best pubs are the ones that host a trivia night once a week. My local when I lived in Cupertino, California, many years ago, the Britannia Arms, had a trivia league Tuesday nights with regular teams and season standings leading to a grand prize winner. It was great fun, and my only point is that I love to take tests. Weird, I know, but I even like to take those mostly meaningless personality tests. Case in point, there are a number of these that claim to determine what kind of beer you are based on a few questions about your personality. The latest one I stumbled upon, The If You Were A Beer Test, is on OK Cupid, an online dating website and was created by a 25-year old female member living in New York City, Gwendolyn Books.

There are nine simple questions, and she’s divided the quiz results into dark & bitter, working class, and genuine, presumably three questions apiece since my own score was 66% dark & bitter, 33% working class, 100% genuine and my own beer was Guinness, which the quiz claims as follows:

Okay, we all know Guinness is the best possible score on any “What Kind Of Beer Are You” test, so you can just go on and pat yourself on the back now. Like the world’s most famous brew, you’re genuine, you’ve got good taste, and you’re sophisticated. What else can I say, except congratulations?

If your friends didn’t score the same way, get ready for them to say: Guinness is too heavy; it’s an acquired taste; it’s too serious — and they probably think those things about you at times. But just brush ‘em off. Everybody knows Guinness is the best. Cheers.

I don’t who she means by “everybody” but, of course, I don’t consider Guinness to be anywhere near the best. It’s not a bad beer per se, but it’s certainly lost its iconic status in my eyes, though I realize quite a number of people do still revere it. My wife, sadly, got Corona which, to her credit, she finds every bit as disgusting as I do. And in the end, that’s why as much I love these kinds of things they always tend to disappoint, because the range of beer in these things is decidedly narrow, despite the following cute little ditty that appears just before your beer personality is revealed.

If you were a beer, which would you be?
A Guinness, Sam Adams, or Old Milwaukee?

Do you have a thick head? Are you dark, are you skunked?
Aged at the hands of obscure Trappist Monks?

Are you stout, are you bitter, oaky like Fall,
Or like most of my coworkers, with no taste at all?

However you are, here’s one test you can’t flunk,
All beers are okay, so long as you’re drunk.

At least she’s aware of Trappist Monks, Samuel Adams and the fact that beer can be skunked (especially popular brands like Corona and Heineken), and that put this quizmaster above most, if not all, of the other similar quizzes I’ve taken in the past. Still, I only have myself to blame. I guess I’ll have to add to my growing list of things I’d like to do in my copious free time making a quiz that’s more geared toward the many different styles of beer and the many different personality types. That could be fun. With my personality, though, I’d probably end up a sour beer.

What kind of beer are you? Not much here you’re fond of? I feel your pain.

The Washington Post’s Beer Madness, which I’m still calling Marzën Madness, held Rounds 4 & 5 this past Sunday and here are the final results. In the final four, Brooklyn Lager easily defeated Ellie’s Brown Ale while Saranac Pale Ale continued to surprse with an upset victory over Dominion Ale, advancing to the finals.

My prediction last week:

My pick for the winner: Brooklyn. Go Garrett! Brew, Fight, Win!

I may have done horribly in the real NCAA tournament bracket this year, but there’s some consolation in calling this one. Congratulations to Steve and Garrett at Brooklyn Brewery for their victory this year.

The firkin final four.

The Washington Post’s Beer Madness, which I’m still calling Marzën Madness, held Round 3 this past Sunday and here are the results.

To me half, the matchups produced surprising results. I still can’t believe Allagash White lost to Dominion. I don’t hve anything against Old Dominion, but I think Allagash’s white is world-class. Rob Tod makes some outrageously good beers. The other surprise was Saranac besting Dogfish Head. To be fair, I have not tasted Sam’s Shelter Pale Ale but I have had the Saranac Pale Ale, and do not recall being much impressed by it at the time. And everything else I’ve had from Dogfish Head at least stood out as being not terribly ordinary. But I wasn’t there for the match so it’s hard to say on this one.

The final frothy four will go head-to-head (pun intended) this Sunday, April 1 with the final match the same day. I’m going to have to go with Brooklyn Lager vs. Dominion Ale in the finals, making it an ale vs. lager extravaganza. My pick for the winner: Brooklyn. Go Garrett! Brew, Fight, Win!

The bracket through the quarterfinals.

As several people have sent me an e-mail asking if I was alright, I figure a word of explanation may be in order. Every two months, because I write for a few different bi-monthly magazines, I have paying gigs whose deadlines are all the same week. Usually, my posting just diminishes somewhat, but this time I had a particularly heavy writing load — not that I’m complaining — and so I had to abandon the blog temporarily. I still have one short article to go, but I’m waiting to hear back from someone so I thought I’d do a quick post in an effort to get back on track. So enough rambling, back to the games.

The Washington Post’s Beer Madness, which I’m still calling Marzën Madness, held Round 2 on Sunday and here are the results.

The only surprises in round two were Anchor Steam Beer being ousted by Dominion Ale and Sierra Nevada being defeated by Saranac Pale Ale. Since they’re both pale ales, it should have been an easy victory for Sierra Nevada. I’ve had Saranac’s Pale Ale, and while it’s not a bad beer, it’s no Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which literally defined the style for American Pale Ale in the early 1980s. Anyway, there a few interesting matchups coming up in round three, which will take place this Sunday, March 25. There are two browns slugging it out as Ellie’s Brown goes up against Pete’s Wicked, though it’s looking less wicked and more amber these days (sorry, Jaime). Brooklyn Lager should be able to handily defeat Bud, and Dogfish Head’s pale ale really should be able to pin Saranac’s. But the one to watch, I think, will be Allagash White going up against Dominion, an amber ale. I predict Allagash will make it to the Elite ESB Eight.

The bracket through round two.

The Washington Post has an interesting little diversion along the lines of the 32-team bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament more commonly known as March Madness. The Post is calling it Beer Madness, though I think Marzën Madness is more clever, entirely on the flimsy basis that I thought of it. Essentially they chose 32 American beers from 19 states and then seeded them to go head to head at random. A panel of five then tasted each and declared a winner for each pairing. And although they chose one worthy colleague, Greg Kitsock, and a waitress from the world famous Brickskeller in D.C., the majority of the panel were chosen “entirely for their good looks.” Now I know this is just for fun, but for me it would have been more fun to have five reasonably beer-savvy panelists tasting the beers, but perhaps this will prompt me to try doing it myself next year.

Since the pairings were chosen at random, there were some unllikely beers going head to head, such as Allagash White vs. New Grist (a gluten-free beer) and Anchor Steam vs. Widmer Hefeweizen. There were few upsets, with the notable exception of Budweiser besting Victory Lager (though Victory’s Prima Pils would have been a better contest). The first round was completed yesterday and round 2 will take place this Sunday, March 18 with the finals two weeks after that on April 1. It’s certainly a fun idea, and will be interesting to see how it all turns out, even if I continue to wish the panelists all had some prior beer knowledge.

The bracket through round one.

Want to improve your brain power or your IQ? All you need to do apparently is get this three-dimensional puzzle of a glass of beer. According to the company’s website, doing the puzzle will help both your “Right Brain (Spatial Reasoning and Mental Imagery) and Left Brain (combined with strong nonverbal logic).”