THE 2020 CHARLOTTE Berr BRACKET

Thirty-two beers. Twenty-one breweries. Thousands weigh in

- ANDY SMITH

ABOUT THE methodology

It began as a short exchange in a Slack thread: People miss sports during this pandemic. Can we create a friendly-yetcompetitive tournament-style bracket out of something else?

The recent Stay-at-Home order had placed “uh, beer” at the top of the shortlist of our common pastimes. And the timing was right: We hadn’t ranked Charlotte brews since 2017, a lifetime in “local beer years.” So, in the absence of a 2020 March Madness, we appointed ourselves members of a “selection committee”—hey, it’s our magazine—and scanned the Želd.

THE METHODOLOGY:

The four “regions” couldn’t be geographic, as breweries aren’t equally distributed throughout Charlotte. Instead, we opted for types: India Pale Ales, Darks, Lights, and Sours.

For this first edition, our 32 would be selected only from breweries native to Charlotte and within city limits. To keep it diverse, a single brewery couldn’t have more than two products in the bracket and no more than one per type.

SEEDING: Strictly speaking, there’s no formal power ranking system for Charlotte beers based on strength of schedule or the learned assessment of Jay Bilas (an attorney with the Charlotte law firm of Moore & Van Allen in addition to his ESPN analyst gig). We considered other factors for matchups, like breweries’ opening dates and BeerAdvocate and Untappd grades.

MEET THE champion

Legion Brewing Company’s Juicy Jay is the new king of Charlotte beers