Only 3 more days of voting left in the Taphouse Hottest 100 Australian beers and the voting is very, very close. Even with the shorter voting period this year, numbers are right up there which shows the depth of beery love out there.

What type of voter are you?

Andrew Mitchell, the mastermind behind the online pool this year, has noted some very interesting voting trends this year and has given the respective voter types the following labels. Which are you?

The Style Fiend – all 5 votes will be for 5 beers of a certain style. ie all 5 votes for Pale ales, 5 votes for Double IPAs, 5 votes for Belgians, 5 votes for Dark Ales etc.

The Casual Drinker – the 5 beers they pick appear to be the beers that if they walked into a bar that had 5 taps, and they were going to be at the bar all night, these are the 5 beers they wished were on tap.

The Enthusiast – has hunted and tracked down the extreme, ‘out there’, limited release beers from across the country that are all above $12 a bottle and have all 5 votes for them.

The spectrum voter – all 5 votes are for 5 different styles, they’ve likely picked their 5 favourite styles and then their favourite Aus beer of that style.

Lobbying for votes

There’s been some minor commotion about breweries lobbying for votes by offering prizes. There’s all sorts of opinions about this and it’s a fine line between letting people know about the poll and gaming the poll. We’re looking for the beer drinker’s favourite beers, not which brewery has the deepest pockets and the best social media consultants. There was a bit of a furore over last year’s result, which sours the victory for deserved winners and risks undermining the future of the vote. It will only continue to grow so long as the voting public think that it means something. We obviously want breweries to get out and promote the poll to increase its reach, but also want to make sure that the result reflect popular sentiment. The love of beer should be all the incentive that beer drinkers need to vote for your beers. So please let people know about the poll – those who hear it from you are most likely to vote for you – but let’s keep the voting fair.

Who is voting?

As the attached graphics show, the poll is truly a world wide affair. Melbourne is expectedly huge, while Sydney is a bit of a surprise given the comparative lack of independent beer venues.

So, if you haven’t voted yet, get out and vote!

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