10 Years and 45,745 Pints: Inside d.b.a.’s Annual Epic New York Beer Showdown
With one hour left on the clock, the scoreboard goes dark. There’s no guaranteeing a win now, only blindly ordering pints of beer until a champion is revealed. A frantic set of neighborhood locals, brand reps, and loyal fans crowd the bar purchasing one frothy glass after another, eager to raise the score by just a few more points.
Some customers gulp back brews to show their support, while others try to strategically hide cups of beer around the bar — in the bathroom, in the dark corners around the Pac-Man machine — just to keep the tally rising. The competing breweries anxiously wait for the announcement as the time on the board ticks down to zero. And in one epic moment, a fresh champion of New York beer is crowned.
This tense yet thrilling scene is what an elite set of New York craft brewers experience each year at East Village beer institution d.b.a. as they compete in the bar’s Crown of New York tournament. The annual event consists of a series of showdowns that follow a bracket, roughly coinciding with the NCAA’s March Madness schedule. Night by night, breweries from across New York state are pitted against each other in one-on-one face-offs, seeing which brand can sell the most pints in the allotted time period. The winner moves on to the next round, and the loser is eliminated. This culminates in a final battle that decides the year’s champion. The prize? A dedicated tapline at d.b.a.; a coveted position guaranteeing a steady stream of sales and exposure.
Over the years the competition has undoubtedly uplifted nascent craft breweries, helping them on their way to becoming household brands. Beer shop staples like Five Boroughs and Montauk Brewing Co. were just starting out when they first got involved with the Crown of New York tournament, and now newer labels like Mad Love and Round Table Brewery are throwing their hats in the ring, looking to grow their names.
In craft beer’s currently shaky state, it’s increasingly rare to find these jubilant moments, with big crowds coming together to cheer breweries on and yes, buy a lot of beer. As d.b.a. celebrated its 10th annual Crown of New York showdown this April, VinePair connected with proprietor and “the dude who came up with this ridiculous concept” Brian Dillon to reflect on a decade of the intense beer-selling competition and how it has impacted some of New York’s most beloved small craft brands.
Building the Bracket
When d.b.a. first opened its doors in the East Village in 1994, the concept of a bar focused on small-batch brews was groundbreaking. But even as its surroundings caught up with it amid the craft beer boom era of the 2000s, d.b.a always stood out as a center of the community. Some might credit its dog-friendly backyard or lax policy on bringing in outside food, but Dillon suggests that the bar’s unique relationship with brand reps helped keep it relevant to the industry over time. “I’ve always been very kind to sales reps because they often get treated like crap,” he says. “I buy them pizza for my office hours every Wednesday.”
In 2015, the spark of an idea for a beer-based competition first presented itself. “This was originally about football,” Dillon recalls. The bar had an offshoot location in New Orleans, so d.b.a. became a haunt for Saints fans in New York. Atlanta’s SweetWater Brewing had just launched in the New York City market and the Falcons were about to play the Saints, so naturally Dillon thought to pit the Georgia-based beer against Louisiana’s Abita Brewing Company to see who could sell the most pints while viewing the matchup.
“It went really well,” Dillon recalls. “One of the things that was great about it from our perspective was that I spent about $300 on those two kegs, and the people I bought it from bought every ounce back from me at five times the price so that they could win.”
Itching to replicate the excitement (and sales) of the high-stakes competition, Dillon devised a plan for a new tournament that would amplify its success by several degrees of magnitude: a full March Madness-style bracket.
“There is absolutely a strategy. The first couple times we just tried to get as many people as we could to come out, but eventually we did things like offering guests wristbands so the team behind the bar would know to serve them our beer.”
With his close connections to local brand reps in mind, in March 2016 Dillon assembled a lineup of the state’s most exciting new breweries (in the early days, the bracket was divided by location: New York City on one side, New York State on the other) that were willing to give the experiment a go.
At the end of the first year’s festivities, Coney Island Brewery took home the crown, along with the dedicated tapline. In the age of bars switching up which hot new brew was on tap each week, that stability was precious. And the competitors were hungry for another shot at the title.
Evolution of the Game
The concept is simple if you take it at face value: The brewery that sells the most beer by the end of the night wins and moves on to the next round. To accomplish this, brand reps would spread the word about each matchup, asking friends, family, and fans of the brewery to come out and buy a few pints. But as the competition heated up, brands devised ways to game the system. Soon a culture of beer-buying shenanigans emerged from the tournament, and the antics only escalated with each year.
A big screen featuring a timer and scoreboard looms over the chaos at d.b.a. during the event so brands can keep track of their progress; each time someone orders a pint of beer, that brewery gets a point. But to keep it a fair race, the scoreboard goes black for the last hour of the competition to avoid strategically calculated orders. Dillon recalls that while on its winning streak, the team at the now-closed Alewife Brewing would “call in the archers” each time the screen went dark at the end of the night, and a group of large men in leather jackets would stroll in to finish the job.
“There is absolutely a strategy,” says Ann Reilly, who was on the team at Five Boroughs during its Crown of New York runs in 2018 and 2019, and now works as executive director of the New York City Brewers Guild. “The first couple times we just tried to get as many people as we could to come out, but eventually we did things like offering guests wristbands so the team behind the bar would know to serve them our beer.” Reilly fondly looks back on the outrageous behavior spurred on by this healthy competition. “People get so into it, our sales rep at the time came in a wrestling costume one day,” she says.
Sometimes teams would get so desperate to win they would try to order pints of beer and hide them around the bar to rack up more points, but as per Dillon’s lengthy email statement he sends out each year with the rules dictates, the beers must be consumed in order to count. “Famously we’ve had to pay a second security guard on finale night to watch for sh*t like this,” Dillon says. “We’ve caught brand reps pouring multiple pints in the men’s room sink — people have tried all manners of ways to cheat the game.”
“I spent about $300 on those two kegs, and the people I bought it from bought every ounce back from me at five times the price so that they could win.”
When Round Table Brewery, a tiny operation based in Garnerville, N.Y., made its run for the title in 2025, it also employed some unconventional methods. Sales manager Pat Fondiller was a regular at d.b.a and befriended a group of about a dozen local finance bros who would frequently stop by the bar to play on its Mario Kart machine. Fondiller noticed their affinity for “Beerio Kart,” where the player wasn’t permitted to finish the race on the screen until they finished their beer in real life, and recruited the squad to come to Round Table’s matchups that year.
“They would come to all of his battles, post up at the machine, and crank out beers,” Dillon reminisces — though he staunchly stands by his motto “this is a sales contest, not a drinking contest.” The Mario Kart bros were Round Table’s ringers, playing an essential role in the small brewery bringing home the crown.
Joe Scura, regional sales representative of Catskill Brewery — champion of the 2026 tournament — noted that his winning strategy involved working the whole room, establishing a “base camp” near the door, and trying to get samples to as many customers as possible. “After doing this for a few years, we began really establishing a following for the brewery in NYC, and among the regular crowds at d.b.a. who wanted to see us succeed,” Scura says. And this year it finally paid off.
“It was an immense relief. In previous years, we’ve lost in almost every way imaginable,” Scura laments. He recalls the semi-final against Alewife in 2023 that resulted in a tie. The tiebreaker? A three-person team chug-off that ended in a tragic loss for Catskill. “So seeing that scoreboard light back up this year, as Brian announced the winner and all of my closest friends started yelling — it was definitely surreal,” Scura says.
Credit: d.b.a.
Small Breweries, Big Impact
Wrestling costumes and Mario Kart games aside, d.b.a.’s Crown of New York event has helped many brands find their footing in the competitive New York beer scene. And even though the landscape is rough, it still provides a platform for up-and-coming names in craft beer.
Before working for Round Table, Fondiller was on the team at Alewife during its years at the top of the bracket, and found that it was a worthwhile venture. So when he started at Round Table, he thought the competition would be the best way to make a splash in the Manhattan beer scene. “I had set out last year to win,” he says. “We’re a new brand and there’s a lot of hype that goes into it, so I figured it would turn some heads if we won — which it did.”
“It’s definitely offered smaller breweries the opportunity to get passive marketing and hype around them,” Reilly says. A recent example is Mad Love Beer, a small contract brewing operation based on Staten Island. Owner Ricky Boyance still has his ‘day job’ while he’s getting this off the ground, but found himself in the 2026 finals, bringing a good amount of attention to the brand. “For breweries that don’t have the budget for a marketing team, it’s an opportunity to be seen by drinkers at a legacy bar like d.b.a.,” Reilly adds.
While there are many beer tasting competitions across the country eager to hand out silver medals for best “Belgian Style Sour Ale” or what have you, the Crown of New York competition has set itself apart. “There are countless tasting competitions out there,” says Dillon. “But this isn’t about how the beer tastes, it’s about the community.”
For the event’s 10th anniversary, Dillon literally rolled out a red carpet for the event, hosting a pre-game Hall of Fame ceremony for those who have been the most involved over the years including Fondiller and Reilly — and each received a custom Hall of Fame ring engraved with their names.
About 3,424 beers were poured over the 2026 tournament, bringing the total number across the past decade to a whopping 45,745 pints. In addition to helping prop up smaller craft brewers, the Crown of New York competition has played a big role in keeping d.b.a. afloat, especially when so many craft beer bars are struggling to stay in business.
“The finale is the busiest night we have every year,” Dillon says. When it’s cold out, d.b.a. is usually dead, but this tournament helps bring people in during a slower time. Though the bracket is a huge undertaking — and Dillon threatens to give it up each year — the Crown of New York tournament has become part of the identity of d.b.a., and New York’s craft beer scene as a whole.
The article 10 Years and 45,745 Pints: Inside d.b.a.’s Annual Epic New York Beer Showdown appeared first on VinePair.