![\"Where](\"http:\/\/www.appellationbeer.com\/images\/20110321-roadtobend.jpg\")
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Surely you are familiar with Beer Madness<\/a> at the The Washington Post<\/em>. If not, read this.<\/a><\/p>\n Basically, beer fans get to vote between two beers — for instance, right now you can pick Breckenridge Vanilla Porter<\/em> or Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout<\/em> — a panel of eleven has tasted blind. Then the paper reveals the results and another round commences based on the beers the panelists favor. <\/p>\n Had I not been traveling Oregon’s sometimes snow-covered roads* in order to learn the mysteries of hop genetics, quality pelletizing and other information that belongs in a book about hops<\/a> I would have liked to have handicapped the tournament. <\/p>\n * The road got more exciting after I took the picture at the top. Eventually I came to flashing lights that demanded vehicles have chains or traction tires. My travel tip to you is: visit hop country when hops are growing.<\/em><\/p>\n Well, maybe not the whole thing. But I’d just read one of way too many analyses about how to win your office March Madness pool; this one based on find value. The example was Texas, which was undervalued (correctly, it seems) since a respected numbers guy gave Texas something like a 5 percent chance to win the tournament and at that moment more like 3 percent of people entering some online mega-pool picked Texas.<\/p>\n You’ll have to trust me on this, but I was going to suggest that Great Divide Claymore Scotch Ale<\/em> offered similar value. At the time, Founders Dirty Bastard<\/em> was already burying Claymore<\/em>, which is such a beautifully balanced beer I feel compelled to comment on how that balance and finesse is what seems to set Great Divide’s beer apart every time I drink one. In fact, Dirty Bastard<\/em> won the popularity contest, 1,017-351. The panelists preferred Claymore.<\/em><\/p>\n I’m not really that brilliant, but you knew that. Because I had a 50 percent chance to be right. This contest is a random walk through better beer land. That’s not a bad thing. I love Edmund Fitzgerald Porter<\/em> — one of these days the T-shirt I bought in 1993 is simply going to fall apart — but it received more than 70 percent of votes from fans. The panelists preferred it over Hoppin’ Frog Silk Porter<\/em> by a 6-5 vote, which probably better represents the difference between two. <\/p>\n Personal preference is good, and the contest is fun. But I’m not sure it is different than flipping a coin. In the first round, the panelists and crowd agreed sixteen times. They disagreed fifteen times (Anchor Old Foghorn<\/em> and Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot<\/em> tied at 512 — or 32 pints apiece — in the popularity contest. It doesn’t get more random that that.<\/p>\n My value bet for this round? How about Smuttynose (And speaking of fans, check out how many votes have been lodged in the showdown between Evolution Rise Up Stout<\/em> and Port City Porter.<\/em>) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Surely you are familiar with Beer Madness at the The Washington Post. If not, read this. Basically, beer fans get to vote between two beers — for instance, right now you can pick Breckenridge Vanilla Porter or Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout — a panel of eleven has tasted blind. Then the paper reveals the results and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-1A3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6079"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6090,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions\/6090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Finest Kind<\/del> Finestkind IPA?<\/em> A 1,228-357 underdog to Bell’s Two-Hearted<\/em> it captured eight of the eleven panelists’ palates. Now it is running way behind Lagunitas Maximus.<\/em> <\/p>\n