Who’s got mad hops?

We’ll know tonight whether the Gonzaga Bulldogs advance in the NCAA basketball tournament, but either way, an Elite Eight awaits tomorrow.

Manito Tap House launches the second and final round of its IPA March Madness competition, with customer voting based on blind tastings of the eight finalists: Bale Breaker Topcutter, Fremont Interurban, Georgetown Bodhizafa, Iron Goat Head Butt, No-Li Born & Raised, River City Riverkeeper, Schooner Exact Hopvine and 7 Seas Rude Parrot.

Each survived head-to-head matchups with other Washington-brewed IPAs in the first round, which was based on Facebook and Twitter polls – popularity contests with no guarantee participants had actually tried both beers (or even set foot in Spokane, for that matter).

Now things get more serious. Voters will need to go to the Tap House, order a taster tray of eight unidentified, 2.5-ounce samples and pick their favorite. “It will be fun to see how the locals stack up,” says Manito owner Patrick McPherson.

One of the original local contenders, Twelve String’s seventh-seeded Batch 201, lost to 10th-seeded Rude Parrot from Gig Harbor’s 7 Seas, which mounted a social media campaign asking its followers to vote (as did several others) .

McPherson and his managers assigned seeds to each beer based on how well they typically sell. As usually happens in the NCAA tourney, there also was an upset by a 12 seed, with Hopvine taking down Icicle’s fifth-seeded  Bootjack.

Not surprisingly, top seed Topcutter rolled over its competition with 91 percent of that vote, the most of any contestant. Fourth-seeded Born & Raised wasn’t far behind, with 85 percent in its race, while second seed Bodhizafa had 80 percent.

The final voting runs through next Friday, with the winner receiving a permanent tap handle at Manito – at least until next March, when the madness will likely start all over again.

“We’ll probably continue with it,” McPherson says. “People seem to be digging it.”