It’s my favorite time of the year!  It just doesn’t get any better than this.  St. Patty’s Day, College Basketball and Beer.  There’s also the Brewing News National IPA Championship. An IPA tournament with 64 entries judged by brewers in blind-tasting style.  The bracket includes many of the familiar names in IPA as well as several from smaller, regional producers. Click here for the current bracket.  Last year, our friends Riki and Kelly decided to set up their own little IPA tournament.  They went about procuring some of the winning obscure beers, as well as some old favorites, and about 12 of us beer lovers met up in Brooklyn for the tasting competition.  At the end of the day, Southern Tier Unearthly IPA was the last beer standing.  The 2nd Annual IPA-Off is today in Williamsburg.  We will follow the same eight beer, single-elimination blind tasting format as last year.  Each judge tastes two different unmarked beers from clear plastic cups (to ensure a good look at the color of the beer, not because we’re cheap) and the majority decides which one moves on to the next round.  We’ll certainly miss one of our esteemed judges and fellow hop-head, Martin Walker, who’s spending some time tasting his way around the England beer world.  We’ll be live-tweeting all the action from Brooklyn starting at 2:30pm.  Follow us here.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS