Trying to catch up a little this week.
It will not be easy.
But it will be brief, the gory details are all down below in the Scorecard section.
Two weeks ago I made my annual pilgrimage out to Patchogue to attend the 20th edition of the Blue Point Cask Ale Festival.
Now owned by cannabis lifestyle/pharmaceutical company Tilray Brands after AB Inbev. dropped all of their US craft beer acquisitions, the cask event this year was always going to be an interesting proposition, as Tilray had also picked up some of the veteran breweries that had started as independents in the 80s and 90s and early 00s.
With that in mind, I carefully studied the brewers list that Blue Point had posted several weeks back, looking to sample some of those long-ago “craft” brews, several of which had never made it to this coast in cask form, including entries from the likes of Redhook, Widmer, and even Shocktop (shocking, eh?).
There were others from the Tilray stable that folks were getting excited about, such as Green Flash, Alpine, Breckenridge, and Sweetwater, but I decided to skip over those as they were quite commonly available in DC around ten years ago, and besides, I also wanted to leave room to enjoy the offerings from the three Long Island homebrew clubs, and the NYC breweries that had made their way east for the day.
So, I went in with a shortlist of twenty breweries and came out the other end with samplings from twenty five, not a bad tally.
Those samplings included several ciders, a mead, a graf, a sahti, and a hard seltzer; equal opportunity cask drinker that’s me.
I did also drink some beer.
Some standouts:
- I did enjoy the Long Hammer IPA from Redhook, it was a real blast from the past.
- Bubble Stash from Hop Valley Brewing wins the award for the dankest beer of the session.
- Smokiest beer was actually the graf, Toddy Doesn’t Know, from the Handgrenades Homebrew Club.
- Forever Ever from NYCs Other Half was by far the juiciest, at least of those that I tasted.
- My favorite was the Kangal from Miles. The Prince of White Plains NY. I have had several beers in the past that were labelled as a sahti, but still ended up tasting like a sahti-flavored beer (too malty); this did not taste anything like a beer, and actually refreshed me more than the hard seltzer did. Bloody brilliant!
Fast-forward two weeks to this past week; a week when my missus was out of town checking up on her folks, and a week when I wasn’t going to get myself into anything untoward … Yes, Dear.
Can I help it that there were two anniversaries last week, and two England games that needed to be watched, and some random stuff that just popped up on the radar at the last minute?
Shoutout to the NYC Cask Crew for the IG post about the Sierra Celebration at The Owl Farm.
Yes, it turned out to be a busy week for our intrepid cask hound … Sorry Dear.
I was good until Thursday (“I only left on Wednesday!” – The Wife) when I just had to get myself to JWF to see if England could pull off a miracle and win in Greece, after failing miserable against them at Wembley.
Happily, unless you were Greek, they did it in style, and I was obliged to consume a couple of Fifth Hammers and another couple of Old Glenhams; besides, Jason had come upstairs to watch the game with me, and I had to be sociable, didn’t I?
That all made it a little dicey as I passed City Swiggers on the way home, and decided to pop in and help them celebrate their thirteenth anniversary by consuming a more moderate American-sized pint of the Forest & Main English Porter, that they happened to have on cask at the corner of the bar; they also had a Sierra Celebration hidden away out back, but I was done for the night.
I was done for Friday night too, missing out on the first day of the Wild East Brewing fourth anniversary event, blowing Jason off in the process … Sorry Jason.
Fully recovered by Saturday, I set off by subway to Gowanus, no ferry this week; I may have recovered, but was still running a little slow and sluggish, so I decided to roll the dice and go underground.
It will not come as a shock to those that know me, but I did essentially open the taproom at Wild East, arriving at the crack of noon just as the cleanup crew was finishing up after the prior night’s festivities.
I came for the cask of course, but decided to sign up for the brewery tour and tasting, as I found myself alone and surrounded by the tour participants.
Oh, am I glad I did, despite the hassles of trying to purchase a ticket from my phone just as the sale wound down (don’t ask).
Owner/brewer Brett Taylor gave a very informative tour (even I was informed), and I got to briefly see one of the brewery kitties, which was the main reason that I signed up in the first place.
Having not read the fine print (well, I was rushed, wasn’t I?), I was actually only vaguely aware that there was going to be a tasting at the end of the tour, and not just any tasting, but a vertical tasting of their Contour Interval mixed-fermentation solera farmhouse ale.
Starting with a pour straight out of the foeder (I guess that almost counts as cask), and then going back through time with three successive generations, Contour Intervals 3-2-1.
The tour finished off with a tasting of their Urban Flora, a blend of spontaneous and not so spontaneous fermented, wine-barrel aged sours; dry, refreshingly sharp, oaky, funky (in a good way), and earthy … just outrageous.
The taproom was emptied when we all ventured into the depths of the brewery, but was absolutely packed and rocking when we crawled back into the light again; it was a long tour and tasting.
The Radiance cask had kicked and had been swapped out for a Temperance, so I grabbed another pint, and hung around to chat with the Wild East folks and a couple of the tour participants, before heading out in search of The Owl Farm with fingers crossed that there would still be some of the Celebration cask left.
My first visit to The Owl Farm and I was very impressed; the cask was still available (yay!), and the place was cool … Brooklyn cool.
I finished off my untoward week with a return trip to JWF on Sunday to watch England seal the deal against the Republic of Ireland. Jason was not around, probably because I had neglected to mention that I was coming in … oops, sorry Jason.
I was joined at the bar by visitors from Austin TX who came bearing gifts, beery gifts.
Award-winning beer writer Ruvani de Silva and hubby Justin arrived around halftime and hung around chatting and supping on casks of Old Glenham and Strong Rope for a couple of hours.
Now, I just have to remember to bring those beery gifts back into JWF for sharing later this week.
If my wife ever lets me out again.
Scorecard w/e 11/19/24
In the past week the Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Fifth Hammer Finer Bines Wet Hop Pale Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Weavers Pale Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Bobbin Red Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Wild East Radiance with Brett @ Wild East Brewing
- Wild East Temperance with Cacao Nibs @ Wild East Brewing
- Contour Interval Infinity (straight from the foeder) @ Wild East Brewing
- Strong Rope Condzella Wet Hop Pale Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Strong Rope Pub Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Sierra Nevada Celebration @ The Owl Farm
- Forest & Main English Porter @ City Swiggers
Two weeks ago the Cask Whisperer sampled the following casks, all at the 20th Annual Blue Point Cask Ale Festival @ Blue Point Brewing:
- Atwater Brewery Plain Porter [London Porter]
- Berlin Brewing Company Spider Ale [IPA]
- Cow Harbor Brewing Company Blackbeard’s Abyss [Stout w/Coffee]
- Freedom Brewing Café Oh Yay! [Cream Ale w/Coffee & Vanilla]
- Hop Valley Brewing Bubble Stash [West Coast IPA]
- The Prince Kangal [Sahti]
- Red Hook Brewlab Long Hammer [West Coast IPA]
- Revolver Brewing Baba Yaga’s Pumpkin Spice Scream Ale
- Shock Top (yes, that one)
- Widmer Bros Barrel Aged Rauch [Smoked Helles]
- Transmitter Brewing S10 [Spruce Tip Saison]
- Strong Rope Brewery Barnacle King [Blonde Ale]
- Wild East Brewing Temperance w/Pumpkin Spice [Dark Mild]
- Wild East Brewing Puck Drop w/Nelson [APA]
- WA Meadwerks John Daley [Black Tea Shandy Mead]
- Hand Grenades Homebrew Club Toddy Doesn’t Know [Graf]
- Hand Grenades Homebrew Club Don’t Drink the Cthulhu-ade [Hard Seltzer]
- Long Island Beer & Malt Enthusiasts (LIBME) Bebe’s Caramel Apple Pie [Caramel Vanilla Cider]
- LIBME I’m Your Cherry Bomb [Chocolate Cherry Cider]
- Brewers East End Revival Homebrew Club Ginger or Maryann [Blueberry Ginger Cider]
- Other Half Brewing Forever Ever [Double Dry Hopped Hazy IPA]
- Blue Point Brewing & Wild Fork Caliente
- Blue Point Brewing & Subtle Tea Plum Lager
- Blue Point Brewing New York Oyster Stout
- Tradewinds Brewing Pumpkin Spice Porter
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
12/7/24: 6th Annual Indie Cask Fest @ TBC Beer Co. Bay Shore NY
4/2/25 – 4/5/25: 26th Annual NERAX will be held in Boston MA. Save the dates!
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- This Friday, November 22nd the NYC chapter of the Pink Boots Society will be tapping a cask of their collaboration with Strong Rope, a Baltic Porter at Strong Rope Gowanus at 7pm.
NYC Cask Venues
Known Operational/Active Beer Engines
- Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
- Fifth Hammer
- Wild East
- The Shakespeare (x3)
- Cask Bar & Kitchen
- Drop-off Service
Occasional Pins (worth a follow on Instagram)
- Strong Rope
- KCBC
- Tørst
- Blind Tiger Ale House
- Threes Brewing
- Brouwerij Lane (First Friday Firkins)
- The Owl Farm
