This one’s for all the marbles! The votes have been counted, and it’s time for the final round of BARch Madness! The votes have been counted from the semifinals, and now it’s time to decide who will follow in the footsteps of last year’s victor, Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue Pub.

The Final Four matchups were tight, with Torst and Cinderella story Pacific Standard garnering the most votes of any single match throughout the tournament and one of the tightest races. Ultimately, the Cinderella story ended for the neighbor of last year’s victor, with Pacific Standard’s Its-Its and A’s baseball being no match for Torst’s polished bar and wood, with Torst squeaking by with 50.2% of the vote. Meanwhile, Valhalla punched its ticket to the championship, ousting #2 seed One Mile House in a commanding 62% to 38% victory.

Now, it’s time to decide the champion. The decision is yours! Voting is below.

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Your eyes are not deceiving you. In the ongoing saga that is retail pricing of rare beers in New York City, the Key Food at Queens Boulevard and 78th Avenue in Forest Hills is charging $19.99 for a single twelve-ounce bottle of Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout… plus that 5-cent bottle deposit, of course. And the pleasure of buying a four-pack will actually cost you 3 cents more than buying the bottles individually.

Most other retail shops listed on BeerMenus were charging half that – or less. Even some bars, with a bar markup, are charging significantly less for a bottle. But believe it or not, this is not the worst price point we’ve seen on this: one reader of ours reported seeing a beer shop charge $30 per bottle and $100 for a four-pack. “Owner was freaking grinning,” the reader said. Probably because he’s racking in a ton of money by taking advantage of beer geeks.

There’s two parties responsible for prices like these: the retailers, who think they can get away with charging these prices, and the consumers who are willing to pay such outrageous prices that it encourages the retailers to charge more.

Please don’t be in the second camp. Shop around, and don’t encourage this nonsense.

Fans of Long Island’s Greenport Harbor Brewing Co., take notice: their bottling line is up and running in their new facility in Peconic, and the first bottles have rolled off the line into these new six-packs.

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We’re down to four! The votes have been counted, and it’s time for the semifinals of BARch Madness! The votes have been counted from the third round, and now it’s time to decide who goes on to the championship matchup.

Narrowing the field was hard-fought in the Elite 8, with Torst, the only remaining #1 seed edging out Good Beer to punch their ticket to the Final Four. Valhalla  knocked off Bondurants by just 25 votes to move on. #15 seed Pacific Standard continues their Cinderella story after defeating Covenhoven in the biggest upset of the round, and Proletariat ultimately lost to #2 seed One Mile House in a matchup that even we couldn’t decide between. So, it’s down to just four bars to determine the champion.

Who wins this time? You decide now! Voting is below.

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The Brewers Association, the industry group representing American breweries, released their annual list of the top 50 craft brewing companies in the U.S. by sales volume today. Because of changes in the way breweries qualify for inclusion on the list, no New York breweries are in the top 10 this year, but several in-state brewers still rank among the top 50 in the nation.

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A sampler tray at Denver, Colorado’s Jagged Mountain Brewing Company (Photo: Chris O’Leary)

There’s never a dull moment on the city’s beer scene lately, so we’ve got a wrap-up of the latest bits and bites of New York beer news in this summary. Among them, an update on three East Village bars near last Thursday’s explosion site, two new brewery launches in NYC, and a national TV appearance for Brooklyn’s beer scene.

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