It’s my last full week of school — a time for reflection, scrambling to finish projects, emotionally blackmailing your girlfriend into staying with you, and giving out a few superlatives to the best beers we’ve taken a look at this year.

I wish I could say I reread all of my columns when selecting the nominees, but I’ve been told newspapers are supposed to tell the truth.

Welcome to the Beer Bites Best Brews Bonanza.

The Dylan Sorensen Stamp of Approval Award is given to the beer the most people have given me positive feedback about. Sadly, most of the feedback was agreeing this particular beer doesn’t taste very good, but we’re going to focus on the positives here.

The runaway winner is the Iron Throne Blonde Ale from Brewery Ommegang. These brewers are taking their talents to Westeros, and I can only pray to the Old Gods — and the New — that they roll out a second run for the season finale.

The Darker Than Ann Coulter’s Heart Award is given to the brew that will disappear when you turn the lights off. Like Bane, these beers were born into darkness.

This was an especially strong field with a lot of good candidates: Magic Hat’s Heart of Darkness, Saranac’s Black Bear Bock, Great Divide’s Yeti Imperial Stout, Sam Adams’ Maple Pecan Porter and Troubadour’s Obscura.

Saranac’s Black Bear Bock gets my motor running, but it should probably redshirt before heading into the starting lineup next year. The Maple Pecan Porter is a hit-or-miss, innovative take on a porter, but it doesn’t measure up to the three-headed final between Yeti, Heart of Darkness and Obscura.

Yeti is the biggest, baddest, strongest brew on the other side of the Mississippi, and that doesn’t fit with the Coulter very well. Instead, I’ll give the nod to the complicated and heavy, inky-black, Belgian-style stout Obscura.

The Pretty Little Liars Guilty Pleasure Award is furtively left in the parking lot for the beer you try to drink out of a glass — or more likely a red Solo cup — so no one will see the label.

Anything consumed in the name of getting white-girl wasted is the only drink that could actually win this category. And so the collective hangover caused by every Four Loko, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Coronarita and Smirnoff Ice was unable to attend tonight’s ceremony because it’s sorority formal season and they are swamped.

The Freshman-year Ex Award is given to the most bitter of India Pale Ales that conjure up memories of post-breakup stare-downs across the dining hall and jumping out of windows when you see them at a party you’re at or hosting.

The first nominee is Middle Age’s Wailing Wench because, let’s face it, she’s got a great rack and hop palette to match. Great Divide’s Rumble IPA also packs a wallop, and definitely did not bring a knife to the hop fight.

Southern Tier’s IPA is paler than most, but maintains a distinct and crisp balance of flavors with a strong hops presence that forms the foundation of the palette. The Saranac family of IPAs can be grouped together as one beer and still not win.

The winner of this award is Dogfish Head 120-minute IPA, even though I didn’t review it because it costs way more than my budget of $0.

There you have it. My Beer Bites is officially dead. Flowers and six-packs can be sent to Dylan Sorensen for commencement 2013. You can also follow me on Twitter at @3BadMen if you want to keep up with my looming liver disease.

Published on April 24, 2013 at 12:48 am

Contact Dylan: djsorens@syr.edu