Bar 145 searches for the perfect burger

Burger- and bourbon-slinging Bar 145 is challenging customers to create the next great burger. The incentive? Craft the winning meat-and-bun combo and you could earn free burgers and a spot on the fall menu.

The promotion is called Best Burger in Columbus Competition. Here's the deal: Create your own burger at Bar 145 in Grandview. Then snap a picture of the dish and either tweet it to @bar145columbus or post it on Instagram with the hashtag #bar145columbus. Bar 145 will select a winner each week for six weeks. Those six finalists will compete against each other during the last week of October. The winner will receive a free burger every week for the rest of 2014. The winning burger will be featured on the gastropub's fall menu.

According to Bar 145's calculations, there are 300,000 possible burger combinations that can be created from a choice of five styles of buns (think brioche to pretzel rolls), more than 30 toppings (from pear preserves to roasted duck confit), 10 cheeses (like spicy cream cheese and Tillamook cheddar) and more than 20 house-made sauces (think bourbon steak sauce to truffle sea salt to basil pesto).