To view the results of Round One, and for background information on the tournament – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (March Madness) click here: Round One Results and Round Two and Moving Forward – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (The Beer Thriller’s March Madness).

This is the poll for the HEELs Conference – Round Two. You can vote once per day, and you can vote once per poll (there is a poll for each division in round one). Be sure to share and send to your friends and breweries to let everyone vote!

Voting runs until March 14th, 11:59PM (EST).

For past links, go here:

• March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

Vote

Any questions, concerns, or comments about the brackets, or tournament, or breweries in question, you can leave in the comment section or message us directly through our Contact Page.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Voting Polls for Round Two

(Edited: March 8th, 9:02AM). Since this is the landing page when exiting the polls, I am posting the links here for both poll locations, so you can easily jump to the next poll to vote.

• HEELs Conference: Round Two Voting
• FACEs Conference: Round Two Voting

Round One Has Finished

Thank you everyone who has voted in round one. We got 3422 votes in one week and thus has ended round one of the tournament! We have gone from 48 breweries and competitors down to 24 breweries left.

First a word on going forward: due to how I have set-up the brackets and how its not a typical “32” or “64” or “128” tournament, that means we will now go from divisions to two conferences. (We’ll keep the wrestling theme going and still call them the HEELs and FACEs conferences.) At this point we will also re-seed the conferences. Just like before, total global average rating on Untappd will be used to seed the breweries.

But first up, some statistics from the first round:

Round One Statistics

Voting statistics:

• Total votes for round one: 3422
• Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
• Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
• Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
• Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
• Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
• Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
• Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
• Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

• Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
• Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
• Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

• Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
• Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
• Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
• The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
• The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

• Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
• Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
• Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
• GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
• Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
• Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

• Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
• Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
• Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
• Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
• Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

• Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
• Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
• Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
• Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
• Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

• The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
• The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
• Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
• Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

Round Two

Round two now begins and will run until next Sunday night at Midnight – eastern time. (March 14th – March 15th Midnight). We now do away with the divisions and just go into conferences. So there is now two conferences of 12 breweries / competitors each. The conferences are reseeded (again using Untappd rankings) to create the new brackets for each conference.

Round Two Match-Ups

The new brackets for the conferences, and The Battle of the Breweries (2021) March Madness going forward now looks like this:

HEELs Conference:

• Fourscore Beer Company (1) (4.09) vs. GearHouse Brewing Company (12) (3.68)
• Dewey Beer Company (2) (4.08) vs. Desperate Times Brewing (11) (3.69)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (3) (3.96) vs. Chatty Monks Brewing (10) (3.71)
• Urban Artifact (4) (3.90) vs. Sun King Brewery (9) (3.71)
• Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (5) (3.79) vs. Swiftwater Brewing Company (8) (3.77)
• Mad Chef Brewing Company (6) (3.79) vs. Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7) (3.79)

FACEs Conference:

• Ever Grain Brewing Company (1) (3.93) vs. The Church Brew Works (12) (3.56)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) (3.88) vs. The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11) (3.69)
• Funk Brewing Company (3) (3.86) vs. Three Heads Brewing Company (10) (3.71)
• Moo-Duck Brewing Company (4) (3.83) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) (3.74)
• Boneshire Brew Works (5) (3.83) vs. Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) (3.75)
• Rough Edges Brewing (6) (3.82) vs. Tattered Flag (7) (3.79)

Voting Begins Now

The polls will be going up shortly after this post goes live (about 8:30AM EST). Make sure to share the polls to help your favorite breweries in! And hopefully we can beat round one’s total of votes! (We need 3423 votes to break the first week’s numbers.)

Thank you all for participating in the polls!

For past results and information on the brackets, you can check out the following links:

• March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – VOTING LINKS

Since this is the landing page post – survey, I will keep all of the voting links here for quick reference and jumping point, and so they don’t get lost in all the muddle.

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

(Updated: 10AM – March 1st, 2021. Continue on for the original introduction to The Battle of the Breweries [2021] – March Madness tournament – article.)

Who’s ready for some March Madness? Like everyone else, in March, that means we need to fill out some brackets! And we here at The Beer Thrillers are no different!

BUT….

Instead of filling out NCAA or college basketball brackets, we are doing our own take on it – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

So how’s this going to work? Who all is invited? What all breweries are going to be in it? How many breweries? How’s voting going to work? Who decides whose in and whose out? Whats the seeding? Why is Rick such a jerk to Morty? Why is Jurassic Bark the saddest episode of Futurama ever? Why is it also B. Kline’s favorite episode? What does that say about him? Why is the sky blue?

Ok…. enough with the questions!

The procedure for this ‘tournament’ will be similar to most other March Madness style tournaments. Similar to the ones you’ve seen Untappd and Breweries in PA have done, but with a bit of a twist. Because we here at The Beer Thrillers have a terrible time making full fledged decisions, the list of competitors will be 48 instead of the normal 32.

How did I decide what breweries will be involved? Simple. Only breweries that I have physically visited in person. The voting is based on the brewery and their beers; but to be included on this list, I personally had to have been to one of their locations.

How is seeding decided? Thats also pretty simple, the seeding is based on global average Untappd ratings. So the decision of the seeding is out of my hands. Also, bonus, you can’t get mad at me for the seeding. “Why is X above Y? Why is Z below D?” Its all decided by Untappd.

So whats the tournament structure? One total grouping of 48 breweries (in lieu of teams), divided by two conferences of 24 each, which is divided further into a total of four divisions of 12 each. So break down is simple: 4 divisions of 12 each, with two divisions per conference, of 24 teams in each, for a total of 48 competitors / teams / breweries.

How did we decide on who is in what division? Simple – random number generator. I rolled the dice (a D4 to be exact, thank you to my old nerdy DnD days, I just ‘happened’ to have one of these lying about). Rolled the dice for each brewery to locate them into a division. If one division was understaffed and another overstaffed, I re-rolled until they were evened out.

Let’s Meet Our Competitors

So who all do we have facing off in this crazy free for all of brewing expertise? Quite an assembly of breweries actually. There are a heavy abundance of local (Central PA local) breweries but there is an assortment of breweries from my various travels and across a few states. We have a few breweries from the Rochester area of New York; some breweries from Maryland, a Delaware brewery, some from Ohio, one from Indiana, and one from Kentucky as well.

Surprisingly; it actually took a while to curate the list. At even 48 entries, I still had many more to include, and even removed a few to make it a bit more diverse. I wanted to try and make this as diverse as possible (so removed a local brewery for one out of state, etc.). Possibly in the future, maybe the 2022 iteration of this, or the 2023, who knows, it’ll expand to even more breweries.

This has taken up pretty much my entire night to create the list, and to roll the dice for their divisions, and then checking their Untappd scores to get them into the correct seedings. In the case of matching Untappd scores, I did make my own decision, and that was primarily based on my thoughts of their size, notoriety, branding; so there is a few judgment calls due to a few ties, but there isn’t too many of them.

Conferences and division names…. I had to decide on what to pick. I was going to go by hop names, but I saw at last second, that the Breweries in PA have done that this year, instead of their normal divisions based on geography, it appears they decided to use hop names for their divisions, so thats out. I debated doing Jedi and Sith for the conferences and then doing different Jedi or Sith Masters for the division names…. but… instead decided to go with WWF/E names due to WrestleMania 37 approaching.

So I present you two conferences. One is based on HEELs and one is based on FACEs. The names of the breweries are listed in the order of their seedings, and will have their location and their Untappd (global average) rating behind their names.

The Heels Conference

First up, is divisions one and two of the HEELS conference. Triple H and Ric Flair.

Division One: Triple H

• Fourscore Beer Company (Gettysburg, PA) (4.09)
• Urban Artifact (Cincinnati, OH) (3.90)
• Mad Chef (East Petersburg, PA) (3.79)
• Levity Brewing (Indiana, PA) (3.77)
• Swiftwater Brewing Company (Rochester, NY) (3.77)
• Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY) (3.75)
• Sun King Brewery (Indianapolis, IN) (3.71)
• Highway Manor (Camp Hill, PA) (3.70)
• Gearhouse Brewing (Chambersburg, PA) (3.68)
• ZeroDay Brewing (Harrisburg, PA) (3.69)
• The Ministry of Brewing (Baltimore, MD) (3.64)
• Black Forest Brewing (Ephrata, PA) (3.62)

Division Two: Ric Flair

• Dewey Beer Company (Dewey Beach, DE) (4.08)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (Annville, PA) (3.96)
• Yellow Bridge Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.88)
• Troegs Independent Brewing (Hershey, PA) (3.79)
• Twisted Bine Brewing Company (Mount Joy, PA) (3.79)
• Cox Brewing Company (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.71)
• Chatty Monks (Reading, PA) (3.71)
• Land-Grant Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.70)
• Saucony Creek Brewing Company (Kutztown, PA) (3.70)
• Desperate Times Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.69)
• Couch Brewery (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.60)

The Faces Conference

The faces conference is made up of two divisions led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. First up, is Division Three, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Division Three: Stone Cold Steve Austin

• Ever Grain Brewing (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.93)
• Idiom Brewery (Frederick, MD) (3.90)
• Breaker Brewing (Wilkes-Barre, PA) (3.85)
• ShuBrew (Zelionople, PA) (3.85)
• Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.84)
• Liquid Noise (Marysville, PA) (3.84)
• Boneshire Brew Works (Harrisburg, PA) (3.83)
• Rough Edges (Waynesboro, PA) (3.82)
• Tattered Flag (Middletown, PA) (3.79)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown, PA) (3.74)
• Three Heads Brewing (Rochester, NY) (3.71)
• Mount Gretna Craft Brewery (Palmyra, PA) (3.58)

Division Four: The Rock

• Cushwa Brewing (Williamsport, MD) (4.11)
• Jackie O’s Brewery (Athens, OH) (4.02)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (Enola, PA) (3.88)
• Mellow Mink (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.84)
• Moo-Duck Brewing (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.83)
• Logyard Brewing Company (Kane, PA) (3.78)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.75)
• Olde Bedford Brewing Company (Bedford, PA) (3.75)
• Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (Cincinnati, OH) (3.72)
• Isle of Que Brewing (Selinsgrove, PA) (3.69)
• The Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.56)

Alright, that’s all 48 competitors. Tomorrow the brackets will be published and you will be allowed to vote on the first round matchups. Here’s where things get a bit screwy…. mainly because I don’t do math so good (sigh, sad subject, really, since I work at a job where I do math all day). Well, what really happened, is that I didn’t think through the breakdown. 32 breaks down easily for each round…. 48…. not so much. So…..

Week one will be divisions with 6 matches in each divisions. After that, the divisions will break for week two, and it will be by conference, with 6 matches in each conference. After this, we break apart the conferences, and do another 6 matches. This leaves us with 3 final competitors, for a triple threat for the ending.

So…. I kinda sorta walked myself into a corner…. and kinda… sorta…. walked my way out of it. Glad I chose to use wrestler themed people, so that the finale “Triple Threat” makes more sense.

*Smacks head* D’oh!

But anyway, there will be 7 days of voting for each round. With the final round taking the remainder of the month and ending on the 31st.

Voting

Each day you will be able to come to the site to make your votes in the polls. It will be set-up by IPS, so it limits you to voting just once per day per vote. You can vote as many times as you want per round, but only once per day.

Following each round, I will update the brackets and post them and make up the new polls for voting. Round one begins on March 1st, 2021 and will last until March 7th at Midnight, when it will then become the next round.

I suggest helping your breweries out and sharing the poll pages so that as many of your friends and brewery lovers can vote as well. Good luck to all of the competitors… err… breweries!

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

I got to pick up this book by Dr. Alison E. Feeney last Thursday at the Mid-Town Scholar ahead of her panel discussion (alongside Hannah Ison, Jeffrey Musselman, and Sara Bozich). You can read about that here: “For The Love of Beer – Panel Discussion“. It was a fun and entertaining (and informative) night at the Mid-Town Scholar getting to listen to the three of them discuss breweries, beer, brewing, and community.

And that is the heart of this book. Communities. Even moreso than the breweries this is ‘about’, the heart of the book though is communities. And at the heart of a lot of communities, and growing, is craft breweries. Breweries, in particular craft breweries, are the seat of many things in communities now adays. Places like Boneshire, Moo-Duck, Troegs, and many other breweries that give back to their communities through charities and other activities. Breweries like ZeroDay and Millworks that act like centerpieces for revitalization of downtown areas.

There is so much to love about craft breweries and what all they do (and can do). And Dr. Feeney’s book covers that so well. From revitalizing downtown areas, or old historic buildings, to providing a center and a place for a community, to being an employment opportunity for the local town, to sustainability and environmental help, providing spent grain for local farmers, to helping charities, to hosting events, to having delicious food, to having local ingredients, etc, there is so much that breweries do for their local communities.

Dr. Alison Feeney has traveled all across Pennsylvania checking out various breweries, hop farms, malts, grains, communities, universities, etc, and has gotten a feel for the state, its history, its brewing industry, and the breweries and the people. She’s interviewed tons of people, she’s talked to customers, brewers, hop growers, home brew shop owners, just about everyone you can think of attached to the industry.

The book covers a lot of different breweries across the state. From big to little. From regional powerhouses like Victory and Troegs to smaller localized shops like Moo-Duck, Boneshire, Bonn Place, etc. She has traveled all across the state, all of the regions covered.

There is a wealth of information in the book detailing the history of beer, the history of brewing, the history of Pennsylvania, and brewing and beer in Pennsylvania, as well as a wealth of information and knowledge on brewing, the beer industry, and hops and other things in general. There is a ton of information on the breweries she’s visited as well, small details like the beers they have, or the information on how they restored the buildings they occupied, or little bits and info on the brewers or their styles.

The book is filled with pictures and images from all assortments of things, like hops, to the various breweries, to beer, to the workers at the breweries, to signs, to locations, etc. These pictures help fill in an overall image and idea of the breweries from across the state for those who haven’t gotten to visit them yet. Also with each brewery mentioned there is a small map of Pennsylvania showing where its located with an actual address as well. Its not a complete map of every brewery, and Dr. Feeney even states at the beginning that she isn’t providing a comprehensive listing of every brewery in PA as it’d be out of date before the book even saw print. Case in point – the book mentions Harty Brewing which has since folded up (relatively recently). But don’t let that fool you, this book is chock full of information and knowledge about PA beer and breweries.

At the beginning of the book is a note saying that a portion of the proceeds of the book are going to animal shelters and local places for animals. After this is the chapter previews which list which breweries are mentioned in which chapters and provides an outline for the book. Early chapters discuss beer and the history of it, progressing from Europe and Africa and Asia to America. Detailing the early pioneers to America and bringing beer over on the Mayflower, etc. It then discusses the history of beer and brewing in Pennsylvania.

Following this is how breweries affect communities, how they revitalize communities and buildings, and a chapter on historic buildings and how breweries are reusing old buildings. A chapter on the sustainability and environmental issues and help that breweries are doing and then a closing chapter on looking forward.

This book is a good read for anyone interested in beer, brewing, and especially for those interested in the craft breweries of Pennsylvania. She has provided lots of knowledge on the inner workings from the beginning to the present day on just about every tangential topic with the beer industry. I would certainly recommend this for anyone looking to learn about brewing and beer in Pennsylvania or just loves reading about breweries in Pennsylvania.

My GoodReads Score: ****
Global GoodReads Score: 4.00 (two ratings, three now, as of 10.9.19)

This was the first book review on the blog, hopefully you all like it, I know its a bit different then the beer and brewery reviews. But I am looking forward to doing a few more of these as I have a lot of beer books to read and go through. This is combining two of my loves – literature / books and beers, so this is definitely a double-win for me getting to review books about beer here for the blog. So if you are interested in this, let us know! Also if you have any beer book recommendations, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Thanks and cheers all!

-B. Kline
My GoodReads review link can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3007622590