By Heidi Kerr-Schlaefer
The Surveyor

Two family-owned Colorado breweries, Dad and Dude’s Breweria in Aurora and City Star Brewing from right here in Berthoud, fought it out in the final stage of the Colorado Brewery Cup battle earlier this week, and City Star Brewing came out on top.

After the win, City Star Brewing learned that they’d be featured on “Good Day Colorado” this coming Monday, July 14.

“They never said the winning brewery was going to be on television,” said Whitney Way, owner of City Star Brewing. “There was no endgame. It was just a fun brewery community challenge.”

The Colorado Brewery Cup was the brainchild of Denver’s KDVR, Fox 31, and was inspired by World Cup fever. KDVR put together a massive online competition pitting brewery against brewery in a bracket that included 200 breweries from across the state. The breweries were placed into 16 groups based primarily on region. The top two vote-getters from each group advanced to form a 32-brewery knock-out round, and then, after a five-round tournament, City Star was crowned champion.

During the nine-day competition, the competing breweries encouraged their fans, via social media and face-to-face encounters in their taprooms, to vote online. As each round came to an end, City Star Brewing remained in the hunt, taking out much bigger breweries, such as Fort Collins-based Odell Brewing Company, along the way.

“People came in to the taproom all week telling me that they had voted for us,” said Way.

The two breweries in the final round, City Star Brewing and Dad & Dude’s Breweria in Aurora, fought a tough battle, with Dad’s even offering a “free beer day” if they won. Both breweries have tremendous grassroots support from their communities, and each rallied their troops during the last push for the cup.

“People shared the voting link over and over again on their Facebook pages and were so passionate about it,” said Way. “I noticed a lot of people posting things like ‘help us win.’ It was so cool. It gave me the shivers because it makes me realize that City Star is a cohesive community thing.”

In addition to being grateful for their individual brewery fans’ avid support, Way appreciated that, once out of the competition, several breweries threw their public support behind City Star.

The final tally in the last round was 2,117 votes for City Star Brewing and 1,403 votes for Dad & Dude’s Breweria.

Way says that the timing of the competition was perfect. With the success of Hops & Harley on June 29, and the Colorado Brewery Cup kicking off the next day, their fans were mobilized and more than ready to support City Star Brewing.

“It’s really exciting to have won,” said Way. “It’s a chance to bring the Denver stage to Berthoud with Good Day Colorado coming to town this Monday. It’s really exciting for the City Star community and the Berthoud community, and it was all in really good fun.”