In all honesty, this is just another meaningless beer competition. But, these are still fun to watch, aren’t they?

The Beer Madness competition is put on by The Washington Post. They ask they readers to apply to join the beer tasters panel. This means the judges are generally lay-people, not beer professionals. That’s certainly an interesting spin; after all beer is the democratic drink. Beer lovers don’t really need assholes like me telling them what they like. They can figure it out for themselves.

At this point in the game, the panel has assembled. Beers have been tasted, reviews written and judgment passed. The paper is publishing the results once a week with a bracket style rundown keeping track of the winners and losers.

Some interesting results came out of the first round:
Guinness got knocked out by Monteith’s Black Beer
Pilsner Urquell beat Heineken
Stella Artois won over Tsingtao

There are some odd competitions, though. Boston Brown Ale was put up against Xingu. One’s an ale and one’s a lager. How can these two compete? The judges aren’t really picking the superior beer here, they’re picking the beer style they prefer. The same could be said for Schneider Weisse Hefe-Weizen vs. Hitachino Nest White Ale and Chimay Red vs. Smithwick’s Irish Ale.

But, like I said, this contest really doesn’t matter; it’s just fun to watch.

Oh, and the paper is soliciting reader’s votes, too. If you want to weigh in on your favorites do it here.