The Final Bottled 4

Update: As of the wee hours of April 8, 2008, the readers have spoken. The winner in the online polling was North Coast Red Seal Ale. The winner in Bob Townsend's original brackets was Victory Prima Pils. Thanks to all who participated.

The original: What are you drinking as you watch the college basketball tournaments? We gave you the gentle reader a chance to choose the winners from 16 original beers, arranged in brackets. Our Draft 16, we dubbed them.

The champion will be chosen from among the top two vote getters in each of the two divisions, the Eastern Beers and the Western Beers. The poll will close in the evening of April 7, when many of you will be watching the finals of the NCAA basketball tournament. Perhaps one of these brews will be your beverage of choice.

Thanks for playing in our mock tournament.

Oh, and if you want to see who won the matchup in my own bracket, click here.
--Bob Townsend, for Evening Edge




Bob Townsend is beer columnist for the AJC and editor of Southern Brew News, a bimonthly beer publication distributed throughout the Southeast. E-mail him at btowns@bellsouth.net.


Editor's note: : Some readers have asked how we arrived at the Final Bottled Four. It was not Bob's fault or his doing. If you want to see his picks, see the link above. The four beers in the Final Bottled Four were chosen by a combination of brackets and vote totals. The first round winners were chosen by the top-vote getter in each bracket. This yielded a total of eight survivors. From among those eight, we chose the two beers with the highest vote totals in each division. If you want to see a pure ranking based on total votes, click here.

It's true that some top contenders were wiped out in the first bracket, which happens in beer as it does in basketball. And remember -- beer is serious, but this mock tournament is just for fun.

• Whiner's Circle Blog: If your favorite beer was unfairly overlooked, talk about it here