Voting is important. Voting on beer is important-er.
That’s why we launched the Memphis Flyer Beer Bracket Challenge. Voting commenced this morning (Thursday) and will run until the champion is picked on Saturday, February 29th. (Leap Year, weird.)
For this year’s challenge, we split our bracket into four divisions — light beer, dark beer, IPA, and seasonals. We really like the idea of the breweries all competing in (roughly) the same style.
Yes, you’ll still have, say, a cream ale up against a pilsner. But this ain’t the Great American Beer Fest, y’all. This is for anyone out there who loves Memphis craft beer.
We asked six of Memphis’ craft breweries to send us their picks in each category. On Match-Up Monday at the Young Avenue Deli, we seeded those beers on our bracket. We picked the matchups blindly right out of our famous trophy — the VanWyngarden Cup. So, we didn’t influence the match-ups. That’s fair, right? 
The rest is now up to you. Do you love Tiny Bomb? Are you ga-ga for Mexican Lager? Does Midnight Magic have you under its spell? (I’ll stop.) Well, go and do your civic, craft-beer duty and vote at the bracket challenge website. (Did we give you the website yet? If not, here it is.)
You can vote once in each of the five rounds of voting — first round, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and the championship round. It runs just like another lesser-known tournament that happens this time of year involving basketball. Except it’s better. It’s Memphis craft beer.
if you’re not yet convinced to get off your barstool and go vote, let’s sweeten the pot. Some lucky voters will win tickets to the one-of-a-kind Memphis Brewfest, a beer festival held on the field at Liberty Bowl Stadium.
Best of luck to all of our breweries this year: Ghost River, Wiseacre, Crosstown, High Cotton, Memphis Made, and last year’s winner, Meddlesome Brewing.
