Merriment Social Is Doing Its Own Version of March Madness – With Burgers

Sports fans know that the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament is a reason to get pumped for this month. Here’s another, for patty lovers – Merriment Social’s (240 E Pittsburgh Ave.) March Madness Burger Competition, which starts on March 17 and runs for seven weeks. The premise is similar to the college basketball bracket except it involves local breweries. And of course, burgers!

This is how it works: Each week, two local breweries will compete against each in order to advance to the next round. The competing breweries design their own burgers and pair them with a specific (in some cases, exclusive) beer. This is where the public comes in. Merriment will offer the competing burgers during its regular dinner hours, Tuesday-Sunday.  In voting for their favorite that week, diners help the brewery advance to the next round.

Also, a portion of the proceeds from every burger and beer pairing will be added to a “pot.” Each brewery is partnered up with a nonprofit. The champion brewery from this competition will receive all the money from the pot, plus a dedicated fundraising event at Merriment Social. But every nonprofit partnered up with a brewery stands to win because each of the breweries will have a dedicated tap line for the whole seven weeks and $1 from each sale of beer from that tap line will be donated to the brewery’s non-profit organization.

As for the competition itself, the winners from the first four weeks will advance to weeks five and six. And the winners from those weeks will go head-to-head in week seven for the championship. That’s, well, a lot of burgers.

Merriment Social will post the burger, beer and event details weekly on its social media.