Round 2, Bout 15 of Master of Marzen 2021 sees Chilly Water Brewing Company (Indiana) vs. Sketchbook Brewing Company (Illinois).
Both breweries are first-time entrants of the Master of Marzen tournament. Chilly Water progressed against Six Bridges in Round 1, while Sketchbook emerged from their bout with Enegren. Let’s see how this one pans out.
Packaging Design
Both breweries leveraged Oktoberfest branding, but took a different lane.
Chilly Water’s Can leverages interesting shapes with a Bavarian-check background and an sleek diamond shape that hosts the branding. The open aluminum at top and bottom is an interesting take.
Sketchbook’s brew features a semi-caricature of an Oktoberfest attendee. Oktoberfest dominates the space where his face should be, but he’s dressed in the check shirt and lederhosen, and is appropriately double-parked.
Both and enjoyable designs, but it’s hard to beat Sketchbook’s take. Running total: Chilly Water 0-1 Sketchbook.
Aroma
Chilly Water’s Brew offers a reasonably intense aroma. It’s steeped in dry, earthy toasted malts and is accented by quite a generous warmth that lingers over time.
Sketchbook’s Oktoberfest offers a more intense aroma that’s heavy on the earthy base. It’s also incredibly warm, creating enough sensation on the nose to almost coax a sneeze.
On the balance, the winner of this point has to be Sketchbook. Running total: Chilly Water 0-2 Sketchbook.
Flavor
Chilly Water’s brew is an aggressively flavored brew. Consistent from front to back, it’s an excellent mix of sweet and earthy. Sweetness rules the aftertaste, but dissipates quite quickly, resulting in an earthily bitter flavor that retains and builds a tad.
Sketchbook’s brew opens quite mild but sees a significant rush of flavor on the backend. It’s also quite earthy, but reasonably thin. A slight earthy quality lingers on the backend, retaining over time and building very slightly.
This one has to go to Chilly Water. Running total: Chilly Water 1-2 Sketchbook.
Body
Chilly Water is a light-to-mid-bodied and very smooth brew. It has a low carbonation point and coats the mouth reasonably well. It’s an incredibly smooth drinking brew.
Sketchbook’s brew is a lighter-bodied brew that’s also quite low on the carbonation scale. Quite thin, it’s somewhat syrupy but doesn’t cost much.
As you can see above, Chilly Water’s brew is a bit lighter in color and both are reasonably translucent. Sketchbook leads on head retention and lacing.
With Chilly Water having the preferable mouthfeel and Sketchbook leading on head retention/lacing, it comes down to weighting. I feel mouthfeel makes a bigger impact on drinkability, so Chilly Water takes this one. Running total: Chilly Water 2-2 Sketchbook.
People’s Choice
Tied at two points each. Public polling for People’s Choice will confirm a winner. Let’s see how that turned out.
Chilly Water takes the point with 63% of the vote. Running total: Chilly Water 3-2 Sketchbook.
Results
Two excellent brews entered but only Chilly Water will progress. Their Round 3 Bout will see them face the winner of MobCraft vs. Twisted Spike.
Be asure to check back regularly for updated results, and to follow @sargentsuds on Instagram so you can vote on all polls throughout the tournament.
Sgt. Suds 