FOOD+DRINK
1 Our Beer Bracket’s New Champion The local brew competition returned this year. Here are the results
WE BROUGHT BACK our annual Beer Bracket in May on charlottemagazine. com. We matched up 32 local brews in a March Madness-style competition—initially divided into four categories: IPAs, Lights, Darks, and Sours. Thousands voted, but several contests came down to single-digit wins. On this page, you’ll find this year’s winner, and on the next page, the second-, third-, and fourth-place beers. —Andy Smith
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CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // AUGUST 2021
WOODEN ROBOT BREWERY’S
OVERACHIEVER
It seems fitting that a pale ale called Overachiever would be the beer to best a wildly popular Imperial IPA. At 5.3%, it’s a little more than half the ABV of Hop Cakes, but that’s what Wooden Robot head brewer Dan Wade set out to do: pack the character of a hazy, heavy-hitting, New England-style IPA into a more approachable, “obsessively drinkable” pale ale. “We originally wanted to brew it as a brewer’s beer,” Wade says. “At the end of the day, as a brewer, you want to have a low-alcohol beer that still tastes great with full flavors and won’t get you inebriated.” Overachiever was on the original lineup at Wooden Robot, which opened in 2015 in South End before it expanded to NoDa with a new wood-aging facility in 2019. Despite being a “brewer’s beer,” it’s grown in popularity and is now regularly canned. In Charlotte magazine’s friendly competition, it cruised past brews that include the beloved Jalapeño Pale Ale from Birdsong Brewing. “IPAs can turn people off because of the bitterness, which can be polarizing,” Wade says. “We were able to make something that really has some broad appeal, with a soft mouthfeel and that haziness. (Overachiever) is flavorful enough to make it noteworthy but light and easy enough so you’ll enjoy more than one.” LAST YEAR’S TOP LIGHT: Wooden Robot Brewery’s Good Morning Vietnam
COURTESY
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