We saw some awfully close races in Round 2 of the Vermont Brew Bracket presented by Three Penny Taproom — and the choices only get tougher from here.

The big upset of Round 2 was the rise of 14th Star Valor, which defeated last year's debutante Fiddlehead IPA by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin. Somewhat curiously, this matchup had about twice as many votes as the other polls — 2880 total votes, while the others had between 1321 and 1692. I'm sure our dear readers wouldn't do anything untoward and stuff the ballot box ... right?

Yesterday saw the end of the Round 1 matchups in the Vermont Brew Bracket, presented by Three Penny Taproom, and once again, there were no shocking upsets. Some of the biggest names in local brewing, including Long Trail, Switchback and Wolaver's, handily defeated overmatched opponents. The only brew to defeat a higher-seeded rival was Hill Farmstead's Twilight of the Idols, which took down Trout River Rainbow Red 60 percent to 40 percent. In another close-ish matchup, Zero Gravity TLA IPA beat Long Trail Double Bag by 16 percentage points.

Now, we're on to Round 2, where the matchups will presumably be tougher to decide. The Alchemist vs. Lawson's Finest Liquids? Switchback vs. Zero Gravity? The choice is yours, drinkers. Voting for this round will be open through midnight on Thursday. After this round, voting periods will be open for longer than two days.

Click here to see Round 1 results and cast your votes for Round 2.

We're now voting in the second half of Round 1 for the 2013 Vermont Brew Bracket, presented by Three Penny Taproom.

Round 1 voting has concluded for the left side of the bracket, which didn't see many close races. There were a few upsets, though, as the Valor amber ale from 14th Star Brewing Company in St. Albans defeated the world-famous Magic Hat #9 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin.

Harpoon UFO also sustained a somewhat surprising loss, going down to Middlebury's Drop-In Brewing Heart of Lothian.

Now it's time to vote for the right side of the Bracket. Heavy hitters here include Long Trail Ale and Switchback, but you can also make your choice for beloved brewpubs such as Zero Gravity or the Bobcat Café. There's also Backacre's Sour Golden Ale, as profiled by Corin Hirsch last week. Cast your votes now; this round of voting closes Tuesday at midnight.

Click here to see the full bracket and cast your votes.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your tap handles. The 2013 Vermont Brew Bracket presented by Three Penny Taproom is here.

Once again we selected 32 of the finest craft beers in Vermont and seeded them based on popularity and ratings on sites like BeerAdvocate, RateBeer and Untappd. Defending champion Heady Topper is here, of course; so are the usual suspects in Vermont beer like Long Trail and Rock Art, plus some new faces from the likes of Drop-In Brewing, 14th Star and others.

And once again it's up to you, dear reader, to decide Vermont's favorite brew. Pick your favorite in each of a series of head-to-head matchups. We'll pair up the winners for the next round, and we'll keep going until there's one beer left standing. And if you want to buy each and every beer and taste test for yourself, that's OK — just be sure to drink responsibly and designate a driver.

Voting is now open for the first two of the four brackets, aka the left side of the big bracket. Voting will close on Sunday night; on Monday, we'll open the polls for the second half of Round 1.

Click here to see the full bracket and cast your votes.

Erin Donovan started home brewing while she was still in grad school in Colorado, but back then she wasn't sold on sour beer, even after trying some at that state's Great American Beer Festival. "Your mouth was puckering; your eyes were watering," she recalls.

A few more tastes and visits to Belgium later, sour beer's "unique flavors" hooked Donovan, and she and her husband, Matt Baumgart, began brewing it, too. Eventually the pair moved to Belgium for two years, where they tasted scores of gueuzes and lambics and became even more enamored of the style.

Now back in Vermont, Donovan and Baumgart — with the help of Donovan's dad, John Donovan — have taken their crush to a new level. For the past three years, they've been socking away wort — or unfermented beer— in oak barrels inside their Weston barn. There, they added wild yeasts, let the mixture ferment and planned to blend a commercial sour ale once their first batch tasted ready.

When they were brewing at Stowe's Trapp Family Lodge, head brewer Allen Van Anda and his assistant, Jamie Griffith, mastered the delicacies of producing Austrian-style lager, that brewery's specialty.

Van Anda left the brewery last spring, Griffith a few months later. Now, both are resurfacing a few miles north, in Morrisville, and will open their own venture, Lost Nation Brewing, later this spring.

For the last few months, Van Anda and Griffith have been transforming the former Rock Art Brewery space at 254 Wilkins St. into a nimble, 6000-barrel brewery and tasting room — though they're still awaiting some major equipment. 

"Our tanks are on a train in the middle of Canada right now," says Van Anda. He has his fingers crossed that by the end of the month, he and his partner will be producing "honest, good-drinking, session beer."  

All of that quaffing you do at the Vermont Brewers Festival every summer? Well, it has some good karma.

Some of the money raised during last July's shindig just provided a boost to the nascent Vermont hops industry when the Vermont Brewers Association gifted UVM's Vermont Hops Project with enough dosh to buy a key piece of new equipment.

At the Winter Hops Conference — which took place at the Essex Resort & Spa last weekend — Vermont Pub & Brewery's Steve Polewacyk handed over a cool $20,000 to Heather Darby, the UVM agronomy professor and researcher who heads the project.

"It really helps us further our research by being able to make [our hops] measurements at UVM," says Darby, who plans to use the money to purchase an ultraviolet spectrophotometer for measuring the quality of UVM-grown hops.

For nearly three years, Darby and her colleagues have raised and studied hundreds of hops plants on their test plot in Alburgh. To assess the acids in the hops they've grown, they have generally sent each sample out of state at $35 a pop — which adds up to thousands of dollars each year, and occasionally a lost sample. Since those plants are entering their third year of growth, says Darby, the 2013 growing season will be high time to see how the 20 or so varietals fare at full maturity.

They may possess wild talents, far-flung followers and occasional swagger, but Vermont's brewers, chefs and restaurateurs are also generous. That's what the Vermont Foodbank found out last week when it got an unexpected email from Dave Brodrick, one of three owners of South Royalton's Worthy Burger: A big check was on the way.

The Night Before the Night Before, a December 23 fête at the eatery, drew together hard-to-find beers, five courses of food, a cadre of local restaurant and brewing persona and some 85 beer fans for a benefit that was actually initiated by an out-of-stater: Sam Calagione, the founder of Delaware's Dogfish Head.

,The Worthy crew, along with peeps from Hen of the Wood, Prohibition Pig, Three Penny Taproom and American Flatbread, drew in beers from Lawson's Finest Liquids, the Alchemist, Hill Farmstead Brewery, Zero Gravity and the Bobcat Café and Brewery, as well as finger food from HOTW and sliders and oysters from Worthy's kitchen.

Calagione himself appeared with what Brodrick calls "four super-special kegs," including Birra Etrusca Bronze, an "ancient ale" planned partly according to analysis of 2800-year-old Etruscan drinking vessels (for realz).

The organizers had little problem selling $75 tickets, which probably made some beer geeks very, very happy — and also pulled in $2200 in proceeds.

It was many moons ago that Crop Bistro & Brewery ordered an 8.5-barrel brewing system from Caspary, a Bavarian brewhouse and manufacturer that produces compact, nimble systems with multiple vessels. Then the staff waited, and a corner of the pub sat empty in expectation.

Crop's head brewer, Will Gilson, who joined the staff in September, has had months to ruminate on what he might do with the copper-clad system — the first of its kind (at this size) in Vermont. Gilson is already known for German-style beers, Weiss beers in particular, to which he has devoted himself during his 20 years of brewing in Utah, Vermont and at New Hampshire's Moat Mountain Smokehouse & Brewing Co. (Gilson attributes his love of German styles in part to studying abroad in Germany during college.)

In December, the equipment finally arrived, accompanied by Caspary founder Rudolf Caspary, who traveled from Germany to Stowe to help install it. In early January, Gilson brewed two batches of Münich-style Helles lager while Caspary assisted.

This evening, Gilson will tap that Helles for the first time, as well as his hallmark style: a Bavarian-style Weiss beer. 

Chef Michel Mahe has found a novel way to make the grey winter months pass quickly: He's working on two new eateries, one each for Vergennes and Middlebury, that will open in coming months.

In Vergennes, Mahe — who already owns three restaurants, in Shelburne, Bristol and Vergennes — is busy transforming the former Park Squeeze on Main Street into a 60-seat burger, flatbread and local-beer joint that he expects will be open by April under the same name.

The place will be similar in feel to his Bobcat Café & Brewery in Bristol, sans an on-site brewery. "I think what the Bobcat has shown me is if you create a local place that is affordable, accessible and casual enough, people will show up in droves," he says. "This will be a sort of 'let's go out and not make a big deal about it' kind of place." He'll leave up the Park Squeeze's iconic neon sign, with its yellow arrow guiding people in.

Though a menu is still a few weeks off, Mahe emphasizes that the fare will be limited to local-beef burgers and "flatbreads with flair." The upstairs bar — which will share the same antique Irish feel of the Bobcat — will offer local brews on tap and be a replacement of sorts for Vergennes' Up Top Tavern, which Mahe closed two months ago.