These past few weeks have been pretty intense, haven't they? Broken bottles, mussel shells and a variety of dipping sauces have paved the way to this, judgement day. There've been some serious blowouts (our condolences to Faxe and vending machine chips who went down fast and hard) and some incredibly tight matches, most of which included our dearly beloved local brews. We're sad to report the Final Battle was a little lacklustre, especially after the Final Four Weekend which was the most intense three days of food and drink since Thanksgiving. But maybe that's because we all knew who'd come out on top. Regardless, here's how it went.

The third place snack saucepot, chicken wings, elbowed its way to the final after taking out peanuts, onion rings and—in two crazy nail-biters—poutine and nachos. On the beer side, tenth-seeded Bridge Farmhouse Ale eliminated Stella Artois, Garrison Nut Brown, Granite Best Bitter and, in the best showing of the entire tournament, Propeller IPA. That shit was crazy, what a match! Props to both teams for some serious sportsmanship. In the end it came down to the underdog of all underdogs vs an army of two dozen wings that somehow slipped through the competition. In no surprise at all (because, duh, beer rules all) Bridge pummeled the spicy little buggers and their wet naps, 63 to 36. High fives and butt pats to the new kid on the block! We love a Cinderella story. Cue the obligatory dog pile.

That settles it folks, beer trumps bar snacks. Liquid lunches for all! Thanks for humouring us in this strange experiment. Eleven months until our next random bracket...get training!

I can barely contain myself. The final four battle is here and it sounds like a recipe for a great Friday night: Propeller IPA versus Bridge Farmhouse Ale, chicken wings versus nachos. Read here for all the necessary background you'll need to complete your mission, and peruse our updated bracket below while pouring out something for the fallen boozes and bites.

First, let's talk yesterday. Nachos crushed the potato skin competition like so many discarded tortilla crumbs at the bottom of the bag. 76 percent to 23 percent! I have to admit, I thought it was going to be closer than that. But then again, one of the snacks had the word "skin" in the name so...

That crushing defeat brings us our final four. I'm all a-tingle with excitement! Will nachos defeat wings? Will wings raise their tiny fists to heaven in victory? You decide:

The beer category is a local barroom brawl, Propeller IPA versus Bridge Farmhouse Ale. Growlers clash, pints attack and you pick your favourite, old favourite and new favourite?

Polls close on Monday morning, so you have a whole weekend to deliberate, throw your rune stones, pray to the snack gods and bite your lip over your choices.

Good morning Halifax, and welcome to the final round of the Elite Eight Battle. And what a battle it's been. Finally some tighter matches that have been both finger-licking, and nail-biting. This weekend brings the beginnings of the Final Four showdown and if your staring at this lovely fried-food graphic and wondering, "Is this real life?" you owe it to yourself to click here to read up on what you've missed over the last couple of weeks. Frankly, I'm way too pumped about today's face-off to educate you on the serious world of bracketing.

Yesterday brought another local beer vs local beer duel, with the underdog success story of the tournament, Bridge Farmhouse Ale (which has pummelled its way from tenth seed), taking on Halifax's nostalgia brew, Granite Best Bitter (which entered the tourney as a confident third place bevvy). And yet again, the new kid in the north end came out swinging its ceramic growlers, showing its Belgian roots (whatever that means, are Belgian people feisty? For the purpose of this blog I'm going to assume YES.) And I'm gonna say it, for someone who should've been defending that "Best" title, Granite really didn't show up for this one. It was a 71 to 28 percent spread, with one percent of sportsfans getting lost in the ether.

Now, today. A food fight to place bets on. Number one seeded nachos is looking for another victory, hoping to take out its piled-high competitor, potato skins, a surviving fifth place snack. Which one of these layered-with-cheese delights warms your belly best? Do you fancy a corn chip or spud slice base? Is sour cream enough or do you yearn for a little salsa too? These are hard questions for the appetizer lovers, I know, but let me share a little prediction here: I think it'll all come down to whether or not those bacon bits are real. If they're true, honest-to-goodness, chopped up bits of bacon, potato skins have a chance. If it's actually those weird dehydrated, slightly-burgundy, sprinkled from a can ones—game over. When you're trying to take out number one, it all comes down to details.

Go teams go! Stay tuned tomorrow for the introduction of your Final Four.

Yesterday, over in the first snack quarter-final, Chicken Wings just barely slipped past the Canadian favourite, Poutine, and let's all say a silent prayer in the memory of our 4am drunken mistake of embracing liberté, égalité, fraternité or sovereignty or whatever the fuck we were going on about when we thought three orders of gravy-ed-up Poutine was a great idea on top of the 14,000 mixed drinks we had had earlier in the evening.

Anyway, on to today's matchup of two north end favourites, both small in stature, but huge in flavour. In one corner, we have Granite, which has bounced around town for decades, a loyal following, er, following, from Hollis Street to south Barrington to Gingers to, now, up on Stairs Street as a retail outlet only. And in the other corner, we've got the upstart Bridge, still wet behind the ears, so new you can smell the new-beer packaging, but hitting the beer fashion world like the bikini hit the beach fashion world in the Atomic Age: BOOM! Talk about trendy! It's hipster heaven over at the Agricola Street brew dispensary, but this is clearly no one-time fad: this very, very decent beer will be here for generations, no matter the result of today's contest.

Polls stay open until Friday morning.

This is it, shit's starting to get real, folks. Don't get too scared now. All you salt-mongerers and beer garglers cut our list of tasty treats down to eight and this is what's happening now. Did you just fall off the bus? We're marching through madness over here, read this for for the low down. And check out the updated bracket to see the way things have been toppling.

Before I get into the whosits and whatsits of today let's take a minute to grieve the loss of that brew-battled renegade Keith's, it went down with barely a fight, collapsing with 19 percent of the vote while Propeller IPA happily danced a jig on its grave, commanding a neat 80 percent of the vote (don't question my math, dammit, I have an English degree) and going down in history as the Keith's assassin—the indie brew that finally brought the monster down. Now what will your dad drink? Heavy stuff, bro.

But today, today is where the real deals get made, where the age-old question of meat versus potatoes really comes a-callin'. On the one hand you've got the illustrious chicken wings, so beloved by snackers of all ages, that they have more than one day a week devoted to gobblin' them on the cheep (haha see what I did there?). And on the other hand you've got potatoes all dressed up and fancy-like, fried to a crisp perfection, drowning in your favourite part of turkey dinner and paired with the ultimate heavy weight—cheese. Don't mess with cheese, you'll only get burned. What's it going to come down to? Protein or carbs? There can be only one. (But, really there shouldn't, consider your food-pyramid health.)

The elite eight have been chosen! From now until Thursday, things slow down a bit—only one match up per day—but let's give a drunken round of applause to the strongest competitors, nachos, potato skins, chicken wings, poutine, Granite Best Bitter, Bridge Farmhouse Ale, and today's warriors, Propeller IPA and Keith's. Have no idea what is happening here? Read this for precious, precious context. And check out the updated bracket over yonder.

Before we start today's hype man spiel, let's talk about the weekend. While you were stuffing your face with ham and chocolate, poor, poor Granite and Oland were having the battle of a lifetime, Azumi-style, in which two friends (I'm assuming) had to fight to the death. Why, master, why??? In the end, Granite delivered the finishing blow to Oland, 58 percent to 41 percent. Snacks were a similarly close battle, with potato skins smothering mussels 52 percent to 47 percent. Mussels had romance on their side, but I'll tell you who I wouldn't like to meet in a darkened alley: MELTED CHEESE.

Today shows two hometown favourites going at 'er, Propeller IPA versus Keith's. One is the strong (certainly in alcohol content), silent type, likely pretty decent at fixing a dripping tap, capable of making a mean carbonara and the other is the life of the party, bubbly, slightly goofy and manages to look oddly attractive in cargo shorts. Who will be your beer boyfriend, guys? Dish:

Is this getting exciting or what? Beer. Bar snacks. For a dozen days in row. There's plenty of gut-patting going on in The Coast office, and we're betting in living rooms all over town. Yum. Haven't a clue what we're talking about? Read this for the full story, if need be, or like Buddy over at the dive bar, just order 14 more beers and jump into the conversation willy-nilly. They'll love ya, promise.

Before getting into today's serious business, let's review last night's drunken hilarity. Over in the beer category, folks were bellying up to the bar all night long, matching pint for pint, pint for pint, pint for pint. There were many elbows bended, and a few thrown in foul. It was a horrifically ugly night, and by closing time, the contest was decided by one measly percentage point, with Keith's just edging out Corona, 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent. This will be a game remembered for all of history. Or would've been, if people hadn't gotten so sloppily drunk. On the grub side, it wasn't even close: Chicken Wings slaughtered Onion Rings, giving the slimy vegetable a taste of its own tear-inducing misery.

Now for today's bouts. The beer contest pits two local favourites against each other: Oland Export, coming off a beer label-thin victory of Japan's Sappora, will face Granite Best Bitter, which last week convincingly walloped O'Doul's. These two beers are brewed within blocks of each other in Halifax's north end—Oland at the gigantic Agricola Street brewery, Granite just across Robie Street on Stairs Street. We predict drunken hooliganism throughout the contest, possibly within camera-shot of the ATV studio. Will Cindy Day take the beer bong challenge? Will Steve Murphy make a cameo, down a few dozen cold ones and condemn one of the contestants for having a french accent? Only time will tell.

On the snack side, we've got an old-fashioned grease vs grease snack attack. Neither side can even pretend to nutrition. I mean come on, Potato Skins ain't even the good part of the potato, just the dirty rind leftover from the indignations of a thousand field hands. Mussels, yea well, sure, find some actual seafood in there somewhere, and call the people who catalog the discovery of new planets circling Star Beta 4,000, because the meat-to-grease ratio in so-called "Mussels" is astronomically small. But hey, have at it:

The polls will be open until Monday morning. And don't miss a thing, get your daily reminders here.