It's Time To Choose: Voting To Select Beijing's Best Pizza is Now Open

This is it: After a month of voter education and more than 7,000 people tasting 'za over the course of our two day Pizza Fest, voting is now open in the 2016 Pizza Cup.

Yes, the hunt is officially on for you to tell us who serves the greatest pizza in Beijing.

Vote here in the first round of the 2016 Pizza Cup

In the mean time, don't forget to keep those sampling taste buds active via our Pies For The People promotion (because no one this side of Trump likes an uninformed voter).

Those veterans of votes past are familiar with the NCAA-style bracket we have been using where contestants go head to head until there is but one champion left. However, there are two changes this year that we think make it a bit more fair and balanced.

1. The Round of 64 is now a group stage of 88

Rather than having everyone go head-to-head in the first round, we've decided to expand the Round of 64 and make it more like a group stage.

We've used last year's seeding as a guideline and distributed the contestant into four brackets, thereby assuring the heavy hitters are less likely to knock each other out in early rounds.

In this new group stage, you pick the Top 8 of the 22 listed (not familiar with 8? Just pick your favorites). These Top 8 will go into the Round of 32, seeded by their strength of victory.

From then on out, it's head-to-head single elimination until a winner is declared.

2. Winner-take-all bracketing

This year we decided against segregating the pizzas into four categories as we have in years past (Pizza Specialists, Bars/Cafés, Mid-Range Restaurants, and High-End Restaurants). This approach means that every pizza will be going head-to-head, no matter what style they are or in what environment they are served in.

We're also creating a separate mini-contest to rank those things that don't fit under the standard banner of "pizza" but are pretty damn close – things like Baozza, jianbing pizzas, calzones, and the like. We'll announce that bracket later on so we can crown king of the pizza-related fusion alternatives (or some such elaborate title).

So, voter, get out there and exercise your right to indulge, then we'll open 'er up to the first round of voting.

You'll find the ballot when it's launched right here:

2016 Pizza Cup Opening Round Ballot

While you're at it, mark your calendars for the openings and closings of each round:

Sunday, Oct 16: First Round begins
Thursday, Oct 20: First Round closes at 2pm; Round of 32 announced at 4pm
Monday, Oct 24: Round of 32 closes at 2pm; Sweet 16 announced at 4pm
Thursday, Oct 27: Sweet 16 closes at 2pm; Elite 8 announced at 4pm
Monday, Oct 31: Elite 8 closes at 2pm; Final 4 announced at 4pm
Thursday, Nov 3: Final 4 closes at 2pm; Championship match announced at 4pm
Monday, Nov 7: Announcement of 2016 Pizza Cup Champion

In the meantime, check out our ranking of Beijing's best pizzas from the 2015 Pizza Cup here.

Images: The Beijinger, Year of the Pizza