Mug Of Saint Arnold

The World Cup Beer Line Up

Sports are always a good excuse to get friends together and have a few beers. With the world cup though, I wanted to take it up a few notches. To honor the World Cup we held a World Cup Beer Tasting Tournament.  Each person needed to bring a six pack of a beer from a country of their choosing (no repeats were allowed). There were twelve beers, so in order to make a bracket 4 beers got a first round bye. The beer/country was then randomly placed on a bracket by picking numbers out a beer mug for head to head competition.

Each person got a small sample of the two beers that were competing against each other. A  simple vote of which one you liked better decided which beer moved on to the next round. This would continue until we had a World Cup Beer Champion. To make the competition a little more interesting, it was a blind tasting. The beer was poured into simple, white Dixie cups. The only thing people knew was what two countries were being tasted. They did not what kind of beer it was, the brewery, who brought the beer, or even which country was in each cup. This allowed for a more fair competition.

Here are how the round broke down…

Round 1

Italy- La Rossa beats USA- Magic Hat #9

Scotland- Red McGregor beats China- Tsing Toa

Brazil- Xingu beats Poland- Zywiec

Spain-Estrella Damm Inedit beat Neatherlands –Grolsh

First Round byes- Germany- Celebrator Doppelbock, Thailand- Singha, Mexico- Dos Equis, and blank spot do to a no show.

Round 2

Italy- La Rossa advances due to no show

Germany- Celebrator Doppelbock beats Scotland- Red McGregor

Brazil- Xingu beats Thailand- Singha

Spain-Estrella Damm Inedit beats Mexico- Dos Equis

Final Four

Italy- La Rossa beats Germany- Celebrator Doppelbock

Brazil- Xingu beats Spain-Estrella Damm Inedit

Championship

Brazil- Xingu beats Germany- Celebrator Doppelbock

I was pretty excited when my Xingu Black Lager won (I remind you that the tasting was blind, so there was no coaxing). I was pleasantly surprised that a dark malty beer won against the popular American style light lagers.

After this fun take on a beer tasting I look forward to March, when I think I am going to host a Malt Madness tournament.