Grandstrand's participation in a bar's beer-for-votes promotion is under investigation.

Grand Forks is a college town, and what do you offer when you want college students to do something for you? Beer, of course!

But when you're running for mayor, you can't offer beer to students in exchange for their vote. That's illegal. And today, the Grand Forks Herald reports that Gilly's Bar and mayoral candidate Tyrone Grandstrand are being investigated by the NoDak Bureau of Criminal Investigation for a possibly unlawful beer-for-votes promotion.

Gilly's is located in downtown Grand Forks and is a popular young adult destination. During absentee voting for the mayoral race last Friday, the bar offered a free drink to anyone wearing an "I Voted" sticker. That would be alright if Gilly's was unaligned, but the bar's owner is a "casual friend" of Grandstrand's and some believe Grandstrand was anything but a casual observer.

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Surly Furious was named RateBeer's best IPA.

​Surly is the 11th best brewery in the world, and Surly Furious is the best India Pale Ale in the universe, according to RateBeer's Best of 2012 results.

RateBeer's rankings are based on analysis of over 3.5 million beer reviews. More than 140,000 beers from 12,000 brewers were tallied, meaning that the top 100 brewers represent less than the top 1 percent of all brewers.

That said, it's impressive than Minnesota has two breweries in the top 50 -- in addition to Surly, Minneapolis' Town Hall Brewery ranked as the 42nd best in the world.

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