2020 Utah Beer News Beer Bracket Challenge

Utah Beer News

The NCAA may have canceled its men's and women's basketball tournaments, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy our own March Madness — Utah Beer News style.

On this episode of the podcast, which we recorded on March 6, 2020, Dave Baker and Tim Haran selected eight beers from eight different breweries to vie for the title in a beer bracket challenge.

For the sake of time (and the health of our livers) we opted to forego a field of 68 or even 64. Rather, we selected our very own Elite Eight. Eight beers from eight different Utah breweries vying for the title of 2020 Utah Beer News Beer Bracket Challenge champ.

It’s not really a contest, of course, and there are no prizes awarded. Taste is subjective. With that in mind, here are a few notes:

• Again, this isn't scientific. It's for entertainment purposes only.
• In other words, we didn’t create spreadsheets evaluating IPA rankings. We didn’t track sales data to learn which lager is Utah’s best-seller. I selected eight beers that are anecdotally (and sometimes empirically) well-regarded. Or that I simply enjoy. I also tried to pick four head-to-head matchups that compared similar styles and ABV amounts.
• The beers are also relatively easy to find around Salt Lake (yes, that’s another limitation — we didn’t venture outside the valley to procure the contestants). I purchased all but one at the source (I picked up one beer at my local Harmons after learning it wasn’t available at the brewery’s package agency).

All that said: I hope you enjoy this episode. I really like these tasting podcasts with Dave because he’s so knowledgeable about craft beer. If you’re new to the podcast, Dave is a longtime craft beer connoisseur and an award-winning homebrewer. He also is a professional writer and editor and a contributor to utahbeernews.com.

Thank you for listening. Please sit back and enjoy the episode.

For an accompanying article about the 2020 Utah Beer News Beer Bracket Challenge, please visit UtahBeerNews.com.

Enjoy the episode!

Episode 32 | March 16, 2020