Consumer Nation has embarked on a most noble task: To find the most-loved beer label in a March Madness-inspired contest. Here are the Round One, Day One results.
It's called madness for a reason and the first round, which featured two contests, Pacific and Central/Mountain, saw its share of upsets.
The biggest upset came in the Central and Mountain region as the No. 16 seed Black Box Brewing rode a surge of popularity in its "A Christmas Story"-inspired label to defeat the No. 1 seed New Belgium Brewing. The region also saw a lot of love for the No. 15 seed, Prairie Artisan Ales Merica label, but it eventually succumbed to the social-media presence from the No. 2 seed Boulevard Brewing. Other upsets in the region included the No. 11 seed Left Hand Brewing Fade to Black label defeating the No. 6 seed Stevens Point Brewery 3 Kings Ale label.
In the Pacific Region, voters loved the space monkey label from 21st Amendment and powered it to victory over No. 3 seed Lagunitas Brewing's Lagunitas Sucks label. Ballast Point, No. 12, pulled the upset against Alaskan Brewing. The strongest performance in the region was turned in by Ninkasi, which received the most votes of any label in the region.The No. 8 seed Ninkasi delivering a message in round one that they will be a force to be reckoned with in future rounds.
Now on to Round One, Day Two. Polls will remain open until 1p.m. ET Wednesday. You can find the East and the South match-ups here.
On your mark ... get set ... vote!
The full schedule is as follows:
Round of 64 – Part 1 –Monday, April 1
Region 1 = Pacific
Region 2 = Central and Mountain
Round of 64 – Part 2 –Tuesday April 2
Region 3 = East
Region 4 = South
Round of 32 – Part 1 -Wednesday April 3
Pacific and Central
Round of 32 – Part 2 -Thursday April 4
East and South
Round of 16 – Monday April 8
All Regions
Round of 8 –Tuesday April 9
All Regions
Round of 4 Wednesday April 10
Pacific winner versus East winner
Central winner versus South winner
Round of 2 – Finalmatchup – Thursday April 11
Pacific/East winner versus Central/South winner
Voting will be done on the CNBC Beer News Facebook page and will last for a 24-hour period, beginning at 1 p.m. ET, after which time the results will be finalized. Any votes occurring beyond the 24-hour period will not count.
Go to our Facebook page to vote!
-By CNBC's Tom Rotunno; Follow him on Twitter @TomRotunno
Questions? Comments? Email us at consumernation@cnbc.com.
