I honestly had no idea how this would go.

Much like the actual NCAA bracket, the 32 breweries we started with were strikingly different. Some had been around for a while and had huge, nationwide fanbases. Others were mid-majors, known mostly to those living nearby.

There were some people mad online about the breweries selected, and how they were seeded, and that’s completely fair. This bracket certainly did not start out the way it would have if you asked the 100 most active reviewers on Beer Advocate to pick their 32. And it’s much different than what a random sampling of 100 people buying beer at your local store would have come up with (here in Baltimore, Natty Boh would have been a No. 2 seed, at least.)

It tried to be something of a hybrid of those two. And the goal was to create an interesting discussion about beer using an informal, unscientific poll.

But is anyone really, truly angry about this finals matchup?

I’m fond of Founders because back in 2006 or so when I discovered beer with flavor, I was living in the Midwest and making frequent trips into Michigan. Founders and Bell’s were turning out such carefully crafted ales, different than anything I’d had. To this day I make sure each November to grab a case or so of Breakfast Stout and Backwoods Bastard.

And Wicked Weed is impressive because it has emerged from the country’s most crowded — and one of its best — brewing scenes. I spent a week in Asheville back in 2010, before Wicked Weed even opened, and my friends and I were just starting to really understand why the country was falling for big, hoppy beers. It felt, even then, like you could turn any corner and find a micro-brewery making something better and more original than anything you’d ever had before. For Wicked Weed to emerge from that and into national prominence tells you how special their beers are.