Honestly, I am totally and completely overwhelmed with all the new beers and beer happenings in New York this week. I don’t know where to begin. So, that’s a good thing, right? It certainly says a lot about how far the New York craft beer scene has come.

First, there’s the new entrants from out-of-town. Founders Brewing out of Michigan and Nebraska Brewing Company out of (shocker) Nebraska are officially available in New York City. I managed to snag a sip of both last week. Nebraska’s EOS Hefeweizen is on tap at The Pony Bar as we speak, and others should be appearing at Rattle-N-Hum tomorrow during their official New York City release. Founders will also be making its debut tomorrow at Rattle-N-Hum, although you can already get their Centennial IPA and Dirty Bastard - their Wee Heavy - right now. If you can splurge, though, you should order a $15 bottle of the Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout. It’s their award-winning stout aged to perfection in bourbon barrels. How perfect, you might ask? Perfect enough to get an average score of an A+ on Beer Advocate… with 1,027 reviews.

There are certain beers that people are willing to travel long distances for. One such beer is the Captain Lawrence Rosso e Marrone, which is being released at 10am on Saturday morning at their Pleasantville brewery. People will show up at the crack of dawn to get in line and spend $15 a bottle for this American Sour Ale made with red wine grapes and aged in oak barrels (limit 4). I know of several people who will be taking an early train up to Pleasantville just to secure a place in line… and I can’t blame them at all, even though I love to sleep in on the weekends.

And, naturally, there are beer events this weekend, too. There’s a Lagunitas Tasting at Dive Bar tonight at 7, which will include the Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot - or WTF - Brown Ale). Founders Brewing will have NYC launch events at Rattle-N-Hum and The Double Windsor tomorrow afternoon. And starting Saturday, South 4th Bar in Williamsburg will pit eight Sixpoint beers against each other in a bracket of which keg kicks first. Fill out your brackets first, then root for the winner. There’s even a play-in game between the Diesel and Otis stouts. I’m pulling for Double Sweet Action, personally.

Happy drinking this weekend!

Hot Tip: when promoting beer specials at a bar with 144 taps to throngs of loyal craft beer fans on Facebook, you might not want to mention Michelob Ultra.

This Saturday’s Spring Beer Festival is not the only beer festival coming up on Long Island. Blue Point Brewing will be holding their 6th Annual Cask Ales Festival on-site on April 17th from 2-6pm at their brewery in Patchogue, Long Island. They’re promising cask pours of beers from 15 other breweries in addition to Blue Point, and [insert fanfare here] the World’s Largest Cask filled with Blue Point’s 10th Anniversary IPA.

For $40, you get six tastings, a souvenir glass, and a coupon for a free Blue Point growler fill on your next visit. Tickets are available online here.

For those in the city, the brewery is easily accessible by LIRR, just three blocks from Patchogue Station, which is a 1 ½-hour ride from Penn Station. It’s a nice little day trip for a boatload of cask beer on what (we hope) will be a lovely spring day - a vast improvement over last year’s late-January cask festival.

In case you’ve overlooked it, the Spring Craft Beer Festival is this Saturday at Nassau Coliseum. While the all-you-can-drink offer invites a crowd that may be less than tolerable for beer geeks, the festival is a great way to get your hands on some new local beer - including the debut of Long Island’s Great South Bay and the distant North Fork Greenport Harbor Brewing Company.

Tickets for both the afternoon and evening sessions are still available for purchase online at the going rate of $45.