Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Final Four April 28
BRANDON CRESPIN: And then there were four. …
MAX TOMHAVE: Welcome to the Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Final Four everyone! I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Max Tomhave and believe it or not there have been days during this pale ale tournament when, by noon or so, it was already obvious which pale would be moving on and which would be going home. There were blowouts … oh were there ever. Sometimes, it made our job a little easier; we could work on the next day’s copy at a decent hour before the midnight final buzzer without fear the game would suddenly turn. Oh, but yesterday was different.
CRESPIN: Yesterday, the votes just kept coming — from tip off to the final buzzer. Hi folks! I’m Peaks bartender Brandon Crespin. One game was an open to close win. The other three games were close with an hour left to vote. Georgetown Brewing’s Johnny Utah kept the lead all day, but Holy Mountain Kiln & Cone had big surges in the Northern Washington region. The surges, however, weren’t sustainable and Johnny Utah held the pint high at the final buzzer with 58 percent of the votes. In the Southern Washington sector — the closest battle of the day — E9 Brewing Don of Time and Bale Breaker Field 41 played the numbers game with Bale Breaker roller coasting most of the day until around 10:30 p.m. when it came damn close to tying the game, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Tacoma brewery’s 51 percent of the vote win. Fort George City of Dreams grabbed the lead from pFriem Mosaic Pale at noon, but by 6 p.m. pFriem was back on top and never looked back with a 55 percent victory in the Northern Oregon region. Boneyard Bone-A-Fide won by the largest margin yesterday never giving up the lead and taking a 62 percent of the vote over Pelican’s Paddleback Pale and a trip to the Final Four.
TOMHAVE: Naturally, yesterday’s beer voting action set the mark for the highest vote count for a single day so far in the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales. Let’s remember every pale ale nominated into the Tournament is worth a pint. Still, some brewery’s pale must win. We began April 7 with 64 pale ales brewed in Washington and Oregon. Now, these four boss pales face off for the ultimate glory — hop-to-hop battles to determine the best pale in the Pacific Northwest.
CRESPIN: Thanks to your votes, we’ve narrowed down the Tournament of Beer to these four pale ales:
>>> Georgetown Johnny Utah
>>> E9 Brewing Don of Time
>>> pFriem Mosaic Pale
>>> Boneyard Bone-A-Fide
TOMHAVE: Interesting that we have three number one seeds and a number two seed. Awesome job with the nominations people!
CRESPIN: Alright Max, it’s time to launch the Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Final Four. Please vote for one beer per game on Peaks & Pints’ Instagram Stories. Voting for today’s battles ends at midnight. We’ll announce the final two winners tomorrow morning around 10 a.m., but today’s games went live at 12:01 a.m. on Peaks & Pints’ Instagram Stories.
Friday, April 28, Final Four Northwest Pale Ale Games
Game 1, Washington Region
Georgetown Johnny Utah (#1 seed) vs. E9 Brewing Don of Time (#1 seed)
TOMHAVE: Johnny Utah and Don of Time, two characters, received number one seeds through preliminary public voting in early March. They both proved worthy of the ranking. Johnny Utah beat Ya Ya Brewing’s Genie Pale, Structures’ Frost, Hellbent’s Seattle Sunshine, and Holy Mountain’s Kiln & Cone to grab a Final Four spot. Down in Tacoma, Don of Time strutted its number one seed with victories over Ram Brewery’s ’71 Pale, Matchless Eastside Club Pale, Everybody’s Mountain Mama, and Bale Breaker Field 41 to secure its spot in the Final Four. Tournament of Beer statisticians called Johnny Utah versus Field 41 the game of the Tournament, which is hard to argue with a one and two seed battling it out — that is until Georgetown Brewing Johnny Utah meets E9 Brewing Don of Time on the brew deck today. Seattle versus Tacoma — here we go. …
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Game 2, Oregon Region
pFriem Mosaic Pale (#2 seed) vs. Boneyard Bone-A-Fide (#1 seed)
CRESPIN: After mounting quite a tear through the Northern Oregon Region, number one seed Fort George City of Dreams run came to a halt yesterday when it faced number two seed pFriem Family Brewers’ Mosaic Pale. The delicious Mosaic driven pale ale out of Hood River, Oregon, now faces the challenge of its 14-week life. Coming off a hot win over Pelican’s Paddleback Pale yesterday and ripping through this Tournament like it has a bone to pick, Boneyard Beer’s Bone-A-Fide pale ale is the real deal. Mosaic Pale has a brilliant marketing team and one of the most awarded breweries in Oregon behind it. Bone-A-Fide won PasteMagazine’s 2016 blind tasting with a perfect 100 score and has the Deschutes Brewery team behind it for extra fire power. Let’s see what happens. …
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LINK: Tournament of Beers: Northwest Pale Ales explained
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LINK: Tournament of Beer archives
