2020 Charlotte Brewery Bracket

The Charlotte Brewery Bracket is a tournament style series featuring the 26 Charlotte breweries and cideries in weekly head to head match ups where you can vote for your favorites here on Off the Eaten Path and Instagram to determine the winner. Which Queen City brewery will be crowned?

Scroll down to get to the polls!

It’s back!

For the second year in a row, Off the Eaten Path is hosting the Charlotte Brewery Bracket.

This was an idea born from my love of Charlotte, our local breweries, and my never-ending obsession with filling out basketball brackets in March. (Head over here if you want to read about our favorite breweries in Charlotte or the best breweries with food in Charlotte.)

WHAT IS THE CHARLOTTE BREWERY BRACKET?

Created to celebrate Charlotte’s growing local beer and cider scene, the Charlotte Brewery Bracket is a tournament style series (you know, inspired by the madness that is March) featuring the 26 Charlotte breweries and cideries in weekly head to head match ups.

Which Queen City brewery will be crowned champion?

You get to decide!

Vote weekly for your favorite Charlotte breweries here on this blog post (the polls are below!) and over on Instagram.

The Charlotte brewery or cidery with the most votes in each match up will head on to the next round until you pick the winner!

A few notes (here you’ll also see a few changes from last year):

The Charlotte Brewery Bracket is supposed to be a fun, friendly competition. It’s supposed to highlight and support the local craft beer movement in Charlotte.

The Charlotte Brewery Bracket was not created to put down any of our local watering holes or bash the hard work of our local brewers. Come back each week. Vote for your faves. Have fun. No trash talking or brewery bashing please.

New this year is the inclusion of not only breweries in Charlotte proper, but the Charlotte Brewery Bracket was expanded this year to include breweries in the Charlotte metro area.

Well, what is the Charlotte metro area?

Included in this year’s field are all the breweries from lake to lake (that’s North to South, Lake Norman to Lake Wylie, so that covers Mooresville to Rock Hill, SC) and East to West from Monroe, NC to Gastonia, NC.

I double and triple checked the list (and had a few others do so as well), and ended up with a field of 55 breweries.

Which then gets us to the seeding.

Deciding on seeds was the hardest part of this entire process. (Just like last year!)

With a field of 55, it was very difficult for me to design this bracket without byes, in fact, it was just not possible.

So the fairest way I thought I could do it would be breweries with first round byes this year are the ones that finished in the top 9 of last year’s bracket. (Minus Bold Missy because sadly they closed over the weekend.)

So how did the rest fall into place?

Same as least year. Prior to seeding, I did a lot of research including referencing other local Charlotte publications, more regional and statewide publications, brewery history, awards won, as well as surveying my audience on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram based on a number of criteria including beer, taproom, atmosphere, food and ambiance.

I also spoke with a local certified cicerone as part of my research.

While I’m sure there will be people who have qualms with certain seeds or maybe disagree with the seeding overall, after working on it over a period of time I felt that this was a good result.

And also if you have an issue, don’t leave a nasty Facebook or Instagram comment. Go back to note one, which says this is just supposed to be fun and friendly. And mean comments will not be tolerated.

Below in this post you’ll find the voting schedule, the breakdown of the four divisions (including brewery name and location) and then each week you’ll find individual polls for the individual matchups.)

And one last, quick note: if you aren’t drinking local and support Charlotte’s local breweries already, what are you doing with your life?

Let the games begin!

VOTING SCHEDULE

Here’s the full Charlotte Brewery Bracket voting timeline:

March 9: Voting starts.

March 9-13: First round of voting. The polls will be open on Off the Eaten Path Monday through Friday. On Instagram, there will be four to five match ups each day.

March 15: Second round of match ups announced.

March 16-20: Second round of voting. The polls will be open on Off the Eaten Path Monday through Friday. On Instagram, there will be three to four match ups each day.

March 22: Third round of match ups announced.

March 23-27: Third round of voting. The polls will be open on Off the Eaten Path Monday through Friday. On Instagram, there will be one to two match ups each day.

March 29: Fourth round of match ups announced

March 30-April 3: Fourth round of voting. The polls will be open on Off the Eaten Path Monday through Friday: On Instagram, there will be one matchup each day.

April 4: Final matchup is announced.

April 5-6: The polls will be open on Off the Eaten Path on Sunday and Monday for the final matchup. The poll will be open on Instagram on Monday April 6

April 7: The winner will be crowned!

Each round of the Charlotte Brewery Bracket will be announced on Off the Eaten Path, Facebook and Instagram weekly. Polls will open on Off the Eaten Path for the entire week of voting. Instagram polls for each matchup will be open for 24 hours.

ROUND 2: STARTS MARCH 16

HOPS DIVISION

Wooden Robot Brewery v. Blue Blaze Brewing

[yop_poll id=”26″]

Free Range Brewing v. Ass Clown Brewing

[yop_poll id=”27″]

Olde Mecklenburg Brewery v. Armored Cow Brewing

[yop_poll id=”28″]

Pharr Mill Brewing v. Resident Culture Brewing

[yop_poll id=”29″]

MALT DIVISION

Triple C Brewing v. Fonta Flora Brewery

[yop_poll id=”30″]

Rock Hill Brewing v. Percent Tap House

[yop_poll id=”31″]

Salud Cerveceria v. Dreamchaser’s Brewery

[yop_poll id=”32″]

Southern Range Brewing v. NoDa Brewing

[yop_poll id=”33″]

WATER DIVISION

Divine Barrel Brewing v. Lore Brewing

[yop_poll id=”34″]

Ghostface Brewing v. Amor Artis Brewing

[yop_poll id=”35″]

Lake Wylie Brewing v. Dust Off Brewing

[yop_poll id=”36″]

Red Clay Ciderworks v. Birdsong Brewing

[yop_poll id=”37″]

YEAST DIVISION

Heist Brewery v. Twenty-Six Acres Brewing

[yop_poll id=”38″]

Lower Left Brewing v. High Branch Brewing

[yop_poll id=”39″]

Lenny Boy Brewing v. Seaboard Brewing

[yop_poll id=”40″]

Legal Remedy Brewing v. Legion Brewing

[yop_poll id=”41″]

ROUND ONE: STARTS MARCH 9

HOPS DIVISION

Blue Blaze Brewing v. Middle James Brewing

[yop_poll id=”3″]

Free Range Brewing v. Sweet Union Brewing

[yop_poll id=”4″]

Ass Clown Brewing v. Pilot Brewing

[yop_poll id=”5″]

Armored Cow Brewing v. Thirsty Nomad Brewing

[yop_poll id=”6″]

Unknown Brewing v. Pharr Mill Brewing

[yop_poll id=”7″]

MALT DIVISION

Fonta Flora Brewery v. Cavendish Brewery

[yop_poll id=”8″]

Catawba Brewing v. Rock Hill Brewing

[yop_poll id=”9″]

Sugar Creek Brewing v. Percent Tap House

[yop_poll id=”10″]

Salud Cerveceria v. Sunstead Brewing

[yop_poll id=”11″]

Dreamchaser’s Brewery v. Slow Play Brewing

[yop_poll id=”12″]

Southern Range Brewing v. GoodRoad CiderWorks

[yop_poll id=”13″]

WATER DIVISION

King Canary Brewing v. Lore Brewing

[yop_poll id=”14″]

Town Brewing v. Ghostface Brewing

[yop_poll id=”15″]

Southern Strain Brewing v. Amor Artis Brewing

[yop_poll id=”16″]

Sycamore Brewing v. Lake Wylie Brewing

[yop_poll id=”17″]

Suffolk Punch Brewing v. Dust Off Brewing

[yop_poll id=”18″]

Red Clay Ciderworks v. Eleven Lakes Brewing

[yop_poll id=”19″]

YEAST DIVISION

Twenty-Six Acres Brewing v. Protagonist Beer

[yop_poll id=”20″]

D9 Brewing v. Lower Left Brewing

[yop_poll id=”21″]

High Branch Brewing v. Devil’s Logic Brewing

[yop_poll id=”22″]

Lenny Boy Brewing v. Red Hill Brewing

[yop_poll id=”23″]

Brewers at 4001 Yancey v. Seaboard Brewing

[yop_poll id=”24″]

Legal Remedy Brewing v. Primal Brewing

[yop_poll id=”25″]