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Friday, May 23, 2008

Bracketology - IPA Winners

I see there's a request to report on the winners of the IPA challenge refered to in the post below. Happy to do it, though all I can do is reprint what I found on the Hops and Barley blog. Add more if you have inside info in the comments below.
Biggest First Round Upset: #31 Weinhard's IPA over #2 India Pelican Ale. Weinhard's went on to the Elite 8 after upsetting #18 Pike IPA in the second round.

Other big first round upsets:
#10 Hop Ottin' lost to #23 Mongoose IPA; #27 Fish Tale IPA over #6 Titan IPA; #26 Dick's IPA over #7 Indica IPA; #24 Broken Halo over #9 Total Domination; #29 Thunderhead IPA over #4 Hop Devil.

In the second round, top seeded Stone IPA made it past Lagunitas IPA, and Broken Halo upset Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Thunderhead's slipper no longer fit after loosing to #13 Mojo IPA, and #5 Seed Green Flash West Coast IPA cruised through a second round victory over #12 Avery IPA. As mentioned earlier, Weinhard's made it through to the Elite Eight, as did Dick's IPA.

The Final Four:
The first match-up of the Elite Eight yielded the second largest upset of the Challenge with #1 Stone IPA falling to Broken Halo! In the second match-up, Green Flash West Coast IPA had more mojo than Mojo IPA. On the other side of the bracket, Weinhard's IPA slipper fell off against Dick's IPA, and Big Sky IPA kept the momentum from their second round upset of Racer 5 by defeating Boss IPA.

And the winner is: Dick's IPA beat Big Sky, but Broken Halo ran the table with victories over Green Flash and Dick's in the final heads-up match.
I would love to see the actual brackets, but you can actually sense the drama in the write-up. Sounds like a fine time.

9 comments:

  1. There is no way on God's green earth that Henry's IPA beat India Pelican Ale. Whomever made that call does not like beer, that is the only conclusion I can reasonably make.

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  2. Wow . . . it's not often that you lose complete and total respect for a competition by the first sentence. "#31 Weinhard's IPA over #2 India Pelican Ale."

    In a way, that's really impressive.

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  3. That is a slightly curious result, but Henry's IPA is a pretty respectable beer. Although I think it indicates what kind of palate-orientation the tasters had, I personally see no reason to write it off out-of-hand. Particularly when you get to the eventual winner, which is actually quite a similar beer.

    A challenge to youse guys who think he's wrong: run the brackets yourself. I'd love to hear how they went.

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  4. I (a different anonymous that above) have been astonsihed by some of my choices in nearly every blind tasting I've done. It's amazing what stripping away the prejudices created by brand and label can do! That being said, I really can't imagine *myself* picking Henry's over Pelican.

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  5. Yah, or picking broken halo over anything? I mean seriously? who did this bracket?

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  6. I have a feeling that the ego's of most of these "anonymous" posters would get in the way if they came out with similar results.

    I hope some of these folk realize that Full Sail is making some of the Weinhard's products. So as you slam Weinhard's please realize you are also slamming a good local brewery and brewing team!

    Cheers
    Ben D.

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  7. Hey, no need to take jabs at anonymous egos! I (anonymous # 2 when reading from the top) didn't slam the Henry's IPA... I just said that I perceive myself as liking the Pelican IPA better. I might be surprised by the results of a blind tasting; as I mentioned in my post, I have been before.

    And really, you shouldn't let the fact that some of the Henry's lineup is brewed by Full Sail bias you in one direction any more than I might let the fact that they carry the Henry's name bias me in the other. :-)

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  8. [...]The Final Four: The first match-up of the Elite Eight yielded the second largest upset of the Challenge zithromaxwith #1 Stone IPA falling to Broken Halo! In the second match-up, Green Flash West Coast IPA[...]

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  9. Beervana, thanks for mentioning/linking to my post on the IPA bracket. For those of you concerned about the taster's pallete: a) I was unavailable to attend, so I'm just reporting the results; b) the tasters included 30+ of my closest friends in Portland who all enjoy a wide range of different beers, and it was noted by the organizer that many folk were put off by some of the more XTREME hoppy beers.

    Check back to www.hopsandbarleyblog.com soon. The Amber Bracket was run over Memorial Day Weekend. I'll post the results when I get 'em.

    ASG - www.hopsandbarleyblog.com

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