There were fifteen brews from ten NYC breweries listed on the Caskalot cheat sheet, fourteen of which were already tapped and ready when I strolled into Fifth Hammer around 2:30pm on Thursday afternoon; one (Other Half) was still in transit.

I was welcomed by Chris Cuzme who was sitting at the end of the bar, finishing off the label production for the casks.

Checking out the beer strengths and the pricing structure, I reckoned that I could well handle a six-pack and there see where it went from there.

As is my custom, I took out the strongest beer first, the 9.2% Puffin Circus imperial stout; sweet, spicy and dangerous … dealt with.

I next went for the Eckhart Czech pale lager as the antidote, cool and chewy.

I was soon joined at the bar by Endless Life Brewing’s Jeff Lyons, and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours just shooting the breeze while we randomly worked our way through the cask list.

At some point in the proceedings, I must have decided that another six-pack ticket was in order, so that by the time I was ready to head back home, I was 12/15 for the listed casks, making the next day’s cleanup so much easier.

The brews were a real mixed bunch this time around, evenly split between the unadulterated and the gently enhanced.

Surprisingly, both Finback and Other Half brought along their heavy-hitters, 8% hazy IPAs (double IPAs?) with a combined total of seven different piney and fruity hops.

My preference of the two was the Fair Winds from Finback, which tasted like a boozy fruit juice on the first session, but was much more interesting when I went back to it on the second session (for a head to head comparison), the three-hop blend of Citra-Simcoe-Amarillo each coming into their own and adding some much needed complexity; the Other Half Green Power was also a decent hazy (if you like that thing) but I found that the Mosaic overpowered the other three hops, not that there is anything wrong with the dirty funk of Mosaic.

Another interesting comparison was with the two dark beers from Fifth Hammer that were conditioned on maple syrup, the Infernal Optimism smoked porter and the Artifact Engine schwarzbier.

I love maple syrup, but was a little concerned with it sweetening and overpowering the base beer flavors, and I usually associate it with the stronger head-banging brews, such as barley wines or imperial stouts; indeed, I had started the session with one such beer.

I needn’t have worried, both beers were excellent; the syrup must have been conditioned out with barely a hint of sweetness, just a maple essence and a dryness remained, which integrated well with both beer styles.

I ended up rating the Artifact Engine as my favorite beer of the event.