The Winner Of Our Chicago Best Beer Bracket Is...

By Anthony Todd in Food on May 6, 2016 2:44PM

Photo via shutterstock.

It's been a long, tough road, but we finally have a winner in the Chicagoist Best Beer Bracket Challenge.

To recap: We started with 32 of Chicago's best craft beers, and through a series of voting rounds, we narrowed it down to just one. More than 9000 of you voted in the final round, a contest between Ale Syndicate Brewing Richie Imperial Porter and Forbidden Root Wildflower Pale Ale.

This competition has gone places that we did not expect. The strong early contenders, breweries like Off Color and Half Acre, were knocked out entirely, and Goose Island, the 800-pound gorilla in the race, barely made it out of the starting gate.

The final winner is: Ale Syndicate Richie Imperial Porter. And it was a blowout: 71 percent of the votes cast went to Ale Syndicate, while only 29 percent went to Forbidden Root.

All of that said, remember that this bracket is just for fun. Every single beer on that list of 32 is someone's favorite, and this exercise proves anything, it proves that our craft brewing scene is stronger than ever.

The complete bracket is below.