March Madness bracket 2023: Vote for area's best beer, basketball rankings-style

Laurie K. Blandford, Treasure Coast Newspapers
·8 min read

Editor's note: TCPalm is investigating a possible voting issue. We will allow voting to continue through 2 p.m. Thursday as planned, but we will not show the results until we have corrected any issue.

March Madness — Treasure Coast beer edition — was narrowed down to the Championship after the third round of voting eliminated Sailfish and American Icon and left only Walking Tree and Islamorada Brewery & Distillery standing.

Your last chance to vote in the fourth and final round is by 2 p.m. Thursday, March 30.

Our home is home to 12 unique watering holes that tie together the Treasure Coast Wine & Ale Trail, which includes nine breweries, a winery, a cidery and a meadery. TCPalm has ranked these contenders based on popularity for fairness as they face off each week in basketball-style brackets. Scroll down to read about each one.

Vote in the fourth and final round below. We'll announce the final winner on Monday, April 3.

Treasure Coast March Madness bracket 2023 | Round 4 Matchups
Treasure Coast March Madness bracket 2023 | Round 4 Matchups

Here are the latest brackets:

Week 4: Vote from March 24-30 to determine Best Beer

Using the app? Click here to cast your vote.

May the best beer win!

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Summer Crush Vineyard & Winery

Gary Roberts opened the Treasure Coast’s first and only winery in 2012 on the same property as his nursery and landscaping business. On 10 acres, he planted 6 miles of vines of two native muscadine grape varieties: carlos for white wines and noble for red wines. He supplements his homegrown grapes with the same varieties from other Florida vineyards. Estate wines are made with only his grapes. Summer Crush has all four components of a boutique winery: a vineyard; cellar and crush pad; tasting room and gift shop; festival and event area with a covered pavilion for concerts.

Sailfish Brewing Co.

Friends David BuShea Jr., Nick Bischoff, Mike Sturgis and Danny Horton opened the Treasure Coast’s first brewery in 2013 in the historic Edgartown area and moved in 2017 to a larger, 25,000-square-foot space in downtown Fort Pierce. The brewery went from a three-barrel system to a 20-barrel system. It expanded to Vero Beach, opening a second location in 2021 in the Portales de Vero building on Ocean Drive. The Orchid Island Brewery taproom that was there previously moved to distribution-only in 2020. Fort Pierce has a pizza kitchen; Vero Beach has a gourmet menu.

  • Fort Pierce: 130 N. Second St.; 772-577-4382

  • Vero Beach: 2855 Ocean Drive; 772-842-0224

  • Website: sailfishbrewingco.com

Pareidolia Brewing Co.

Pete and Lynn Anderson opened Sebastian’s first brewery in a U.S. 1 plaza in 2014 before moving two blocks north to the original Sebastian post office in November 2017. It gave them better exposure and a bigger location to triple their beer production. The couple, who moved to Florida in 2004, previously lived on the West Coast and were exposed to the craft beer scenes of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California that had been around since the mid-1980s. They named the brewery after the human tendency to see familiar objects or patterns in otherwise random or unrelated objects or patterns. Its small kitchen offers hot dogs, flatbreads, paninis and other snacks.

Side Door Brewing Co.

Dwayne Buchholz opened Port St. Lucie’s first brewery in a Village Green Drive plaza in 2015 — on the anniversary of Prohibition's repeal. During that bootlegging era, the “side door” was the secret entrance for bars, saloons and speakeasies with unmarked fronts. The small brewery often has food trucks and and allows food delivery.

Walking Tree Brewery

Mike Malone and Alan Dritenbas opened the brewery in a former World War II aviation supply warehouse just south of the Vero Beach Regional Airport in 2016. Malone now runs the business with his wife, Brooke. The name comes from the nickname for red mangrove trees whose roots continually “walk” outward toward the water. Its beer has won multiple awards at the Great American Beer Festival. The building uses large industrial fans instead of air conditioning. It often has food trucks and events.

Islamorada Brewery & Distillery

College friends Tyrone Bradley, Chris Trentine, Nik Schroth and Jose Herrera, who later left the company, started the small brewery on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys in 2014, then opened a second location near the Treasure Coast International Airport in 2016. Its 25,000-square-foot production facility and taproom allowed for 10 times more brewing. It later expanded to add a distillery.

Hop Life Brewing Co.

St. Lucie County firefighters Jim Kelly and Robert Tearle, along with Tearle’s cousin, Jeffrey Blitman, opened the brewery in a St. Lucie West industrial park in 2017. They started homebrewing in 2011 and created an apparel company to raise enough money to open a brewery. Its 2,000-square-foot brew house, containing a 15-barrel system, is separated from the taproom by large glass windows. It often has food trucks.

  • Address: 679 N.W. Enterprise Drive, Unit 101, Port St. Lucie

  • Phone: 772-249-5055

  • Website: hoplifebrewing.com

American Icon Brewery

Developer Michael Rechter opened the brewery in 2017 in Vero Beach’s former diesel power plant, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. He paid the city $500,000 for the building in 2016 and spent over $4 million in renovations. Its original giant diesel engine is the backdrop. The brewery has a full-service kitchen, garden area, outdoor patio and mezzanine that allows customers to look down on the operations. It opened a second location in Fort Lauderdale in 2019. Restauranteurs Carl Berry and Jason Emmett took over as majority owners at the end of 2019.

Pierced Ciderworks

Jon Nolli opened the Treasure Coast’s first cidery in the historic Edgartown area near downtown Fort Pierce in 2018. The 1901 home previously was owned by photographer Harry Hill and occupied by Sailfish Brewing Co. Nolli’s cidermaker, Chelsea Luper, moved from Washington state, known for its apples. Unique flavors include caramel apple, lime habanero, chocolate hazelnut and peanut butter jelly. It typically has a food truck near the outdoor back deck and an old, brown rat rod parked in front.

Mash Monkeys Brewing Co.

Derek Gerry and Patrick Kirchner opened Sebastian’s second brewery within walking distance of what later became Pareidolia Brewing Co. in 2018. They started brewing beer together as members of the Boil Over Boys homebrewing club. The brewery name references their previous blue-collar lives. They make traditional brews, such as a German-style Kolsch, as well as their own creations, including a bloody mary beer. The brewery offers small bites at the bar and often has food trucks.

Ocean Republic Brewing Co.

Chris and Amanda Cischke opened what is currently Martin County’s only brewery at the former U.S. 1 location of Illuminati Gastropub in 2019. Over a decade ago, before the local craft beer scene exploded, the county's first brewery was Monkey King Brewery & Floribbean Grill, in the current location of Casa Tequila — across the street from Ocean Republic. New owners Alex Caron and Anne-Marie Roy took over in November 2022. Head brewer Matt Webster started brewing professionally in 2008 when there wasn’t much to the craft beer scene in Florida. The brewery is open for lunch every day and has specials daily. Its menu features the “beerza,” a pizza in which the dough is made with its flagship lager, “Flo Cal,” instead of water.

Hani Honey Co.

Jennifer and Chris Holmes opened the Treasure Coast’s first meadery at their existing business in The Shoppes on Colorado in 2021. The beekeeping couple started the honey company in 2014 and added a storefront with a cafe in 2021. Since it had to be registered with the state as a winery, it technically also is Martin County’s first winery. It offers mead flights to try their creations, as well as meads made elsewhere.

Week 1 results

Week 1: Vote from March 3-9 to determine Elite 8

Week 2 results

Week 2: Vote from March 10-16 to determine Final 4

Week 3 results

Week 3: Vote from March 17-23 to determine Treasure Coast Championship

Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter and columnist dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Follow her on Twitter @TCPalmLaurie and Facebook @TCPalmLaurie. Email her at laurie.blandford@tcpalm.com. Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: March Madness bracket: Vote for your favorite Treasure Coast brewery