It's Washington Beer vs. Massachusetts Beer In The Super Bowl Of Taste Tests

Beer and the Super Bowl go together better than Bill Belichick and controversy. Americans reportedly drink 50 million cases of beer the day of the big game -- which translates into about six cans of beer per drinking-age adult.

Most people surely plan to drink cheap, drinkable beers from brewing giants Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors on Sunday. But let's face it: In 2015, macrobrews are totally #basic. The Seahawks and Patriots both hail from states with relatively robust beer cultures, so why not upgrade your beverage game by serving beers from Washington state and Massachusetts?

To find out which specific beers you should serve, HuffPost decided to hold the Super Bowl of Taste Tests, pitting Massachusetts beers against Washington beers. We invited a panel of football- and beer-loving staffers to taste five beers from each state and tell us what they thought, then translated their reactions to each beer into football plays to determine which state reigns supreme.

Before we dive in, a note on the selection: It wasn't easy to assemble a strong lineup of Washington beers here in California -- though over 200 breweries call Washington home, almost none of them distribute their beer outside the state. For that reason, we included two beers, Olympia and Rainier, that are based on traditional Washington state brands, but are now brewed by Pabst Brewing Company. We also included a beer branded with The Hobbit, which was made by Fish Brewing in Olympia, Washington. On the face of it, that should give Massachusetts, which had an all-craft lineup, a sizable advantage in the tasting.

As always, the brands included did not in any way sponsor or influence the outcome of this taste test.





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