What a match, what great brews, and what great rationale behind the voting. Our reviewers can spin it however they want but at the end of the day, SweepWater takes home the gold!

John: What a fitting match to wrap up the second tournament!  I can still see reasons why both of these brews deserve to be on top of the podium. At least we can all have comfort knowing that the “loser” today still walks with silver!   I’m voting for the SweetWater IPA. One of the primary deciding factors for me was its well-rounded nature and “anytime” drinkability.  Congrats to both beers today!

Brad: To me, today’s match isn’t voting for a winner because that would be nearly impossible, it’s just putting in order the top two beers in this tournament. And for me, the number one beer is the Sweetwater IPA because of its superior drinkability and broader appeal, combined with a fantastic taste and great overall beer experience. It feels good to have tournament #2 behind us and thanks to you, the fans, we couldn’t have done it without your record fan support!

Fans: You came out in droves and you came out for SweetWater mostly. The guess is that more of you identify with the beer you can snag at the bar with the game on, as you have come out en masse for this brew all tournament. Anyway, with a near 3:1 ratio, the SweetWater IPA takes him the gold with a 74%-26% victory. Thank you for voting early, voting often, and mainly coming back! Your support keeps us going and your voices are certainly being heard by the breweries!

Sorry for the delay in posting action, we’re so used to holding the suspense of our winner posts until around 4 that I forgot there was really no reason to pause today. We have our winner and it is Southern Tier Phin & Matt’s Extraordinary Ale!!!! Only having one beer in the tournament didn’t matter for these guys as they really made it count. Before we break down the fan voting that put them on top, let’s get to what our reviewers thought today:

John: Well folks, it’s all said and done. The first bracket is in the books. Who do I pick for my choice for gold medal winner, you ask?  Well, I have the luxury of not having to pick. Both of these beers deserve it in my book, I’m just glad that the worst case scenario for either is a silver medal. Congrats to both breweries, and if you haven’t tried either of these yet, please, do so immediately, for your own sake!

Brad: Thank you all for the immense outpouring of support. Considering this whole thing was just a spark of an idea 6 months ago, its amazing to believe we’ve gotten the support we have. Well, actually, Smuttynose and Southern Tier got the support, we just counted it up. It’s so difficult to say what I would have picked and I don’t want to ramble on and on, especially because it doesn’t matter, but I think if I had to pick I’d have gone with Phin & Matt’s. The Old Brown Dog is incredible but I just couldn’t find a reason to vote against the Extraordinary Ale so, there you have it.

Fans: What can we say other than thank you! You truly made this a great tournament with all of your suggestions, comments (though they were on Facebook, we need to get some trash talking on this site next time around), and support of your favorite beers. Speaking of your favorite beers, two of the best competed today and as of this morning it was almost dead even. Rallies from both sides for the past week lead to the crowning of the eventual winner, Southern Tier Phin & Matt’s Extraordinary Ale!!! by a margin of 54%-46%, though less than 100 votes separated the two until shortly after noon today.

Congrats again to Southern Tier Brewing Co. We look forward to seeing you in future runs of the tournament. Keep an eye out at your brewery as we will be presenting you with a gold medal award of some kind once we get it made.

And of course, thank you to the folks at Smuttynose, who will win my outstanding brewery award for having two beers that I honestly thought were going to square off in the finals for awhile. You guys do a fantastic job and we know for sure you will be back next time with a vengeance!

To the fans: Again, thank you for everything! We aren’t done yet. As we work diligently over the next few weeks to improve the site and the tournament as a whole, your feedback will be critical to the process. Our beer polls will be replaced with some random questions about the tournament, feel free to answer them to help us out so that the next tournament can be bigger and better. Suggestions@brewlimination.com is open to receive any ideas, the two biggest suggestions so far have been a bracket and a contest with prizes for the winners and a message board to get out the trash talking.

Also, keep an eye out for our Special Award Winners, some fun things we are going to give out to some beers that may never have gotten off the ground that still deserve some recognition.

Thank you all so much for everything and keep stopping by. Will Southern Tier be able to defend the title? Or will the Old Brown Dog and Star Island Single Sneak by? What about the Yeti still lurking in the Bronze, and a host of other beers that were ousted early on? We’ll be back soon with so stick around!