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CASK ALE WHISPERER

Blog by Nigel Walsh

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Borderlands

I have always loved the bleak places.

Places on the edge and places in between the civilized spaces.

I was born in Ramsgate in Kent, the very southeastern tip of the UK, but the family moved to the Medway Towns, further west along the North Kent coast, when I was four years old.

We returned to Ramsgate, and Margate and Broadstairs, every summer for day trips when I was growing up, and lively visits they were, as they were still bustling seaside resorts back in the sixties, at least in mid-summer they were.

I regularly returned by myself once I reached my mid-teens, but by then I preferred to take the train down to the coast during the offseason, when most of the shops and amusements along the seafront were closed, to walk the empty beaches and cliff fronts and to spend an hour or two in the few arcades that were still operating, and to drop by a pub or two.

I loved the quiet.

Sometimes I would get off the train earlier, at one of the more genteel resort towns on the Isle of Thanet, Herne Bay or Whitstable, where it was just me and the seagulls and the bitter driving wind coming down the English Channel.

And the pubs.

The pubs were always open.

Closer to home I would walk, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, all over the Hoo Peninsula:

  • Along the Medway Estuary to Upnor to visit the Tudor Rose, or the Ship or the Pier or the Kings Arms, and then further to Hoo marina, walking along the stony beach looking for WWII defense relics and clay pipes from the prison ships.
  • Through the quiet lanes, the pea and potato fields, through Higham and Mockbegger, to the villages of Cliffe and Cooling and High Halstow and then on to the Cliffe Marshes, or the abandoned cement works and the Royal Albert; we would drive those same lanes in later years on our way to or from the working men’s club at Cliffe.
  • All the way to Allhallows, through St. Mary Hoo and Stoke, to see what remained of the once bustling Victorian resort where we used to be taken for donkey rides on the beach; nothing remained by the time I was walking there, but it was still interesting to me; there was a pub, there isn’t now.

Here and now in NYC, when deciding where to go for a lazy walk, if I do not have a particular beer destination in mind (and sometimes even when I do), I still seek out the desolate places, the places along the edges of the rivers and creeks, and along the industrial edges in between the boroughs.

The places on the map that are empty white spaces.

The borderlands.

This past Sunday I did have a particular destination, namely the Eckhart Beer brewery and taproom in Bushwick, on the more quiet industrial side of the neighborhood.

They had been showcasing their Festbier and Märzen in stichfaß for the last couple of weeks of the Oktoberfest season, and would be finishing with the Märzen, which I had yet to try.

The plan was to walk there from the LIC ferry terminal, have a couple of beers and maybe a bite, and then wing it; maybe the L train, maybe the Flushing Avenue bus to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or maybe, just maybe, a return walk stopping off for a beer and bathroom break on the way back to LIC.

It would be five to six miles for the outbound walk which was well within my range these days.

I had done the same walk many times in the past, Pulaski Bridge from LIC to Greenpoint, McGuinness Blvd to Humboldt Street, Metropolitan Avenue to Morgan Avenue, and then on to Johnson Road for the final stretch; hey, I did the same walk just a couple of weekends ago.

I had always been intrigued by the section along Morgan Avenue, a blend of industry and art, seemingly on the very edge of the city, or at least Brooklyn.

I had the map memorized and knew that a stretch, the final stretch, of Newtown Creek ran parallel to the avenue, just behind the impenetrable buildings and gated yards to the east side of the street.

I had once furtively wandered along one of the unnamed dead-end streets on that side, following the seemingly abandoned rail tracks for a couple of blocks until I caught a glimpse of the creek and English Kills; just the once, never repeated.

I took a different tack this time, continuing along Metropolitan Avenue past Morgan for a couple of blocks until it merged with Grand Avenue and crossed over the creek at the drawbridge.

Grand and Metropolitan continued on their own separate ways on the other side of the bridge, and I stayed on Metropolitan for a couple of blocks in this strange industrial neverland, scoping out the streets (Stewart and Varick Avenues) running to the south where I believed that they would eventually reach Bushwick.

I was briefly distracted by a couple of murals before returning back over the drawbridge and following Grand Avenue back to Morgan and my original path.

After turning onto Johnson Avenue for the final quarter mile to Eckhart I again crossed over Varick and Stewart Avenues, and at that point I had pretty much decided that I was going to walk back to LIC and explore these boundary streets.

But first, I had beer to attend to.

Eckhart was open when I got there at 12pm, indeed they had been open since 11am, very considerate when most other breweries in the area were not opening until 1pm.

I went straight back to the bar area and noticed the wooden keg sitting already tapped, also very considerate.

I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours there, drinking three glasses of the Märzen, pigging out with a dessert (it went very well with the beer) and chatting with the bar staff and any fellow customers who would listen to me.

I like this place, I really do, and it will most certainly be added to my regular weekend rotation.

Without consulting the map again, I decided to take Varick Street back towards Metropolitan Avenue, hoping that it would actually connect, and encouraged by the distant view of the evolving LIC skyline.

All factories, warehouses and light industry with a lot of Asian import businesses but no commercial or residential properties.

I did indeed find myself back by the drawbridge, which I crossed and then angled back towards Metropolitan Avenue and East Williamsburg.

But I decided to roll the dice one more time and turned right onto Vandervoort Avenue instead of taking the more familiar route back past Grimm brewery.

This was another long isolated industrial stretch with no sign of the Newtown Creek which I knew to be on my right, and no sign either of the residential area of East Williamsburg which I believed to be somewhere on my left; that is until I crossed Beadel Street, a lone outpost of humanity still several blocks from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the civilization of Greenpoint beyond.

After the BQE, Vandervoort became Apollo Street and I was back in the familiar, although far-eastern, surroundings of Greenpoint; a few blocks of pretty residential row-housing before turning back into a residential/industrial borderland at Norman Avenue.

I went industrial one more time by taking Moultrie Street to Greenpoint Avenue instead of heading directly back to McGuinness Avenue, but I got to McGuinness eventually, and took that back over the Pulaski Bridge to LIC and Fifth Hammer Brewing.

I was over eleven miles into the day’s walk and was ready for one more pint before the ferry home.

By final count, I had effortlessly chalked up almost thirteen miles for the day and could have walked further.

But that would be for another day.

I wonder if I can find my way to Finback?

That should be interesting.

Scorecard w/e 10/7/25

In the past week the Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:

  • Strong Rope Pub Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
  • Old Glenham Severn Summer Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
  • Fifth Hammer Bartholemew Neverbart w/Nelson Sauvin @ Fifth Hammer Brewing
  • Eckhart Beer Märzen @ Eckhart Beer

Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)

  • November 8th: Blue Point 21st Cask Fest at Blue Point Brewing, Patchogue NY (Tickets now available!)
  • Save the dates! The 2026 edition of NERAX will be from March 25th to 28th next year.

Upcoming Random NYC Casks

NYC Cask Venues

Known Operational/Active Beer Engines

  • Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
  • Fifth Hammer
  • Wild East
  • The Shakespeare (x3)
  • 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

Cask Venues Reachable from NYC by MTA or NJ Transit Train in Under two Hours

Metro-North Hudson Line

  • Draught Industries, Beacon NY (one handpump, Old Glenham beer range).
  • Coopers, Beacon NY (one handpump, Old Glenham beer range).
  • Happy Valley Arcade Bar, Beacon NY (one handpump, Old Glenham beer range).

Metro-North Harlem Line

  • The Ambleside Pub, Mt. Kisco NY (four handpumps, Old Glenham beer range).

Metro-North New Haven Line

  • Marlowe Artisanal Ales, Mamaroneck NY (one handpump, Marlowe beer range).
  • Nod Hill Brewing, Ridgefield CT (two handpumps, Nod Hill beer range).

NJ Transit NJCL Line

  • Triumph Restaurant and Brewery, Red Bank NJ (one handpump, Triumph beer range).
ASK NIGEL

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