Merrill brewery takes home the top prize in a national 'beer bracket' competition

After winning the most votes in a statewide beer bracket, Sawmill Brewing Company in Merrill has won the national championship for the 2023 March Brewsanity competition.

The win was announced Sunday over Instagram. When he heard Sawmill won, co-owner Zach Kubichek said, he and his family "all started screaming."

"It's been crazy to hear 'national champs' for anything," he said. "It almost doesn't seem believable, especially with how tough the competition was."

Hop Passport, a company that sells brewery-exclusive coupon books for 30 different states, ran the Brewsanity competition for the first time this year, involving over 1,200 participating breweries. The top prize is $1,000 to be donated to the brewery's choice of charity.

The contest worked in March Madness-style brackets. In each bracket, breweries went head-to-head in 48-hour rounds of voting. The top vote-getter then moved on to the next round.

First, Sawmill rallied its social media following to beat fellow Wisconsin breweries, like Leinenkugel's in Chippewa Falls, Copper State Brewing Company in Green Bay and McFleshman's Brewing Company in Appleton.

Then, in mid-April, Sawmill won the Midwest Regional Championship. Their supporters outvoted Buffalo Ridge Brewing in Hartford, S.D., Roundhouse Brewery in Nisswa, Minn. and Three Blondes Brewing in South Haven, Mich.

Finally, the Merrill brewery went up against its counterparts across the country for the final rounds, beating Wolf House Brewing in Cloverdale, Calif., then Common John Brewery in Manchester, Tenn. Sawmill won the championship round with 4,837 votes to Common John's 4,622.

Common John's owner LeBron Haggard complimented Sawmill and its supporters for a well-fought competition and floated the idea of doing a brewing collaboration with Sawmill sometime in the future.

"You guys really rocked it," Haggard said on his brewery's Facebook page. "We were playing catch-up the whole time."

Haggard also thanked Hop Passport for running the Brewsanity competition and bringing publicity to local brewers across the country. "Craft beer is a community," he said. "A rising tide lifts all ships, so this is good for all of us."

Sawmill Brewing, too, gave a shoutout and expressed gratitude to its competitors and fans.

"It was really cool to see how much each person cares about their own brewery and their own hometown ... and how many people care about beer and the community it creates," said social media and events organizer Maria Schmelling in a video Sawmill posted on its social media page.

As for the $1,000 prize, Sawmill has not yet chosen which charity will receive the money. The brewery plans to choose a couple of local nonprofits and — in recognition of the fans who brought them the championship — let the brewery's social media following decide which one will receive the donation.

And, to celebrate the win, Hop Passport will host a party for Sawmill at the brewery sometime this summer, Kubichek said. Plans for that event are still in the works; the brewery hopes to bring in out-of-state fans who helped deliver them the championship.

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But in the meantime, it's back to business as usual. Kubichek said, "Summer's our busiest time of the year, and we're gearing up to have the best summer we can have."

Sawmill Brewing Company is located at 1110 E. Tenth St. in Merrill. It's open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursdays, 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Find out more by searching "Sawmill Brewing" on Facebook or visit their website at www.sawmillbrewing.net.

Rebecca Loroff is a breaking and trending news reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. Contact her at rloroff@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Sawmill Brewing Company in Merrill takes home top Brewsanity prize