I admittedly put off drinking today’s beers for a while just due to the impending sugar rush, though I did eventually get it done. Today’s matchup promises to be great because it is against two beers that are slightly similar… Well, they are both sweet, we’ll leave it at that.

Normally it’s tough to find a place to start, but I think today the best place is to make fun of the random number generator we used for seeding, considering the Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout got stuck in a play-in match and has run all the way here. I won’t use the play-in to link to our previous reviews because we were still getting our feet under us, but here’s how it fared in round 1 and round 2. The Yeti’s wake has been littered with great beers: Brooklyn Lager, Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Troegs Double Bock, Great Lakes Eliot Ness, and the Ommegang Hennepin. Brooklyn Lager, Torpedo, and Eliot Ness are all personal favorites of mine, and it takes a special beer to get by ALL of them. The Yeti rules its roost, a rich and creamy after dinner or dessert beer that tastes of dark chocolate, caramel, and even has a hoppier side. This beer is a typical dessert: its rich, its filling, you don’t think you can have another sip but you know you want to, which makes this beer the perfect guilty pleasure and an amazing beer.

From a decadent beer to a lighter one that has much more versatility yet still keeps the sweeter theme is the Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale. I said it before and it was the best comment for this brew: it’s like drinking a candy bar. Not in the way that the Yeti is like drinking Hershey’s syrup, the Old Brown Dog creates the atmosphere that used to come with having a candy bar as a kid (talking full-size here, not the minis). After you have it, you always get excited to have another, like I did here, and when you do get your hands on one you savor every minute of it because there’s something about it that’s just right. If the Yeti is an adult dessert like a chocolate mousse or something, the Old Brown Dog is a being 10 years old and sitting outside with chocolate on your fingers dessert. If that sounds weird, just drink one. You’ll get it. The OBD had some interesting opponents from all walks of beer, yet got by all of them: the Goose Island 312, the Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale, the Weyerbacher Hops Infusion, and finally the Victory Golden Monkey. All underrated competitors though many could argue this fine brew was underrated as well. I’m gonna have a couple more of these before the vote to try and wrap my head around how to pick between two favorites, I suggest you do the same so you can understand how classic these beers really are.

UPDATE: Click Here for Match Results!