The second round of the Vermont Brew Bracket is over, ending in some shockingly close matchups — and a few blowouts, too.

First, the close ones: In a victory for hop-heads, Lawson’s Finest Liquids Double Sunshine IPA defeated top-seeded Magic Hat #9 by just 22 votes. What an upset!

In an even closer matchup, Shed Mountain Ale took down Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout by a mere 5 votes. And Trout River Rainbow Red beat Rock Art Vermonster by 41 votes.

Hill Farmstead Edward, Switchback Ale, the Alchemist Heady Topper and Long Trail Ale all won their matchups by more comfortable margins.

The big winner of the round was, once again, Woodchuck Amber Cider, who blew out Otter Creek Copper Ale. The number of votes in that pairing was nearly twice as many as any other in the round. (Two things to say about that. First, to other brewers: Woodchuck is winning big thanks to lots of promo on its Facebook and Twitter pages — push this to your social-media fans, or Woodchuck will win this thing handily. Second, to Woodchuck fans: You can vote for Woodchuck AND vote in the other matchups! But maybe not if you’ve got a gluten allergy.) Woodchuck’s social-media juggernaut faces its toughest challenge yet in the next round: the Alchemist Heady Topper.

Now we’re on to the regional finals — the Heady Eight. The winners from this round will move on to the prestigious Final Pour, so choose wisely. Voting for this round closes Tuesday night at midnight. Click here to cast your votes.

This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2012.

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Tyler Machado was the digital media manager at Seven Days. He mostly worked behind the scenes making sure the website, email newsletters and social media feeds stayed in tip-top shape.

7 replies on “The Vermont Brew Bracket: Close Results and Upsets in Round 2”

  1. What a horrible monstrosity of a poll. There goes 7 days creditability on VT beer! The title should read, “Which corporation has the better public relations social media coordinator?” No doubt real Vermonters and beer lovers know what the real brew gold is, not who can beg their twitter fans to vote the most. Prost!

  2. HA! Exactly what I was thinking! Apparently the whole brewing community as well, check out rate beer and beer advocates bashings of this poll!. What 19 year old kid came up with this? None of it makes sense! Smells like a P.R. shakedown to me. Didn’t think seven days was about that….Have fun with your “title” woodchuck!

  3. The reason Woodchuck’s been killing it, frankly, is because they’ve been Tweeting and Facebooking the link to their followers multiple times a day. Which is perfectly legal. Nothing stopping the other breweries from doing the same… and the beer forums can cast votes too!

  4. I find it comical that anyone could spend an ounce of energy being pissed off by something so trivial like an alt-weekly’s beer bracket. Sure, the winner would more accurately be labeled “favorite” than “best” but who cares? It’s not like we’re picking the official beer of Vermont and it’s not like the winning beer gets to go to Disney World. And if a cider wins this thing, that’s awesome because the point of this contest (as best as I can determine), is to celebrate Vermont products. I’m proud that Woodchuck calls Vermont home; and I’m just as proud that we have so many damn fine big and small breweries around the state.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go vote for the two keg options from my wedding: Switchback and Woodchuck.

  5. Point of order!  Cider is not beer.  Beer is made from malted barley.  Cider is made from the juice of apples.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good cider, but cider is closer to wine than it is to beer.

    So, with all due respect to the good folks at Woodchuck, I don’t think they should have qualified for this tournament . . . as the 7Days post introducing the tourney on 3/21 made clear, this was about “local beer” and “which Vermont beer is best.”

    Tourney organizers, I suggest you click here for more info on the difference between beer and cider:  http://www.differencebetween.n…

  6.  That’s a valid argument, Michael. We decided to include it to include something for the non-beer drinkers, and cider gets lumped in with the beers on many taplists and beer coolers. It just so happened that the cidery did a much better job of rallying its troops to vote than the breweries have, so far.

  7. Go on the Woodchuck Facebook page right now. There are instructions on how to cheat and vote multiple times unlimited, which they all are saying they are doing. Poll over. 

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