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CASK ALE WHISPERER

Blog by Nigel Walsh

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Crawling Around After Dark

Everybody knows that the Cask Whisperer is never seen outside the Whispering Catacombs after the sun goes down.

Folks have heard the same complaint on many an occasion – “It’s way after my bedtime”.

Nevertheless, a shadowy presence was noticed prowling around the quieter parts of East Williamsburg and Bushwick late into the evening of Halloween.

While the good hostelries of Eckhart and Grimm were distracted by the anticipated arrival of the horde of merrymakers participating in the Bushwick Brewery Halloween Crawl, the presence slipped quietly into Eckhart Beer and moved almost imperceptibly towards the back corner of the bar.

“Hello Nigel!”

“What are you doing out?”

“It’s way past your bedtime!”

Yep, busted.

I tell you; I can’t go anywhere these days without somebody there knowing my name.

Not that I am complaining, it just means I am probably doing something right.

I was expecting to be recognized eventually, but I thought it was going to be the Eckhart crew as they ventured out of the brewing area and into the bar, and not the nice young couple already sitting at the bar.

I also recognized them immediately, or at least as soon as I was able to see past their Halloween stylings; we had met and briefly spoken a couple of times previously at Strong Rope Caskiversary events.

This time though we got to spend a good hour or so in wide-ranging conversation; comparing travel and entertainment notes on Connecticut towns (Bridgeport down through Stamford) and their relative edginess or dodginess or emptiness, the joys and dangers of frequenting breweries in El Segundo and delis in Compton, and of course cask beer and the options available in Mt. Kisco and Patchogue.

At some point the Eckhart crew did venture out of the brewery and came by to chat as well, before heading out for a break, but not before giving me a heads-up on events in my neighborhood next week that were to feature Eckhart casks (see the scorecard below, which I will update as more details come in).

All of these conversations were well lubricated with several pours of Eckhart’s fine Czech Dark Lager, dispensed from a stichfaß displayed prominently behind the bar.

Rich, dark, and foamy, roasty and nutty, made all the better by the gentle carbonation of the gravity keg.

I had four, and at under 5% (4.7% to be precise) I could have easily stayed for more, but I had the pitchfork-wielding brewery-crawling mob to outrun and another haunt to haunt, so I slipped quietly out into the night.

Only a few weeks ago I had walked Morgan and Johnson Avenues during the daytime, and I had always thought that they were a really cool part of the city, but in the dark they were deliciously desolate.

I passed just one other soul on my walk from Eckhart to Grimm, but there was plenty of traffic on Morgan Avenue, and the various industrial compounds were hives of late night activity, all bright floodlights and noisy moving machinery.

There wasn’t a full moon, but there might as well have been; what moonlight there was, eerily lit up the dramatic clouds left behind by the previous day’s nor-easter.

Spooky and exhilarating.

I took my time walking, and stopped frequently to stare at individual buildings with their murals and graffiti glowing from the headlights and the streetlights and the moonlight.

By the time that I got to Grimm I was buzzing, and it wasn’t because of the beers that I had consumed, or the beers that I anticipated.

Yes, there was to be another dark cask beer at Grimm, but a totally different beast than the easy-drinking lager at Eckhart.

This was a special cask variant of their award winning Double Negative Imperial Stout, the Grimm Reaper.

At 10% and dangerously laced with Carolina Reaper peppers, I was not expecting to have four pours, and I didn’t.

But I did manage two small pours before the mob caught up with me, and it was absolutely delicious, in a buzzy, mouth-burny sort of way.

I thought I was being clever by ordering one of Grimm’s malted chocolate chip cookies to accompany the second pour and provide an antidote to the intensifying heat, but then blew it by dipping said cookie into the beer and inhaling it.

Bloody brilliant!

And then the official crawl participants arrived, and it was time to escape the angry villagers beery flashmob and return to my lair.

Just a short walk in the shadows along Metropolitan to Graham Avenue, and the L to the 4 train.

No long walk back to the ferry on this occasion.

There were no more ferries for the night.

It was way past their bedtime.

Scorecard w/e 11/4/25

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

  • Old Glenham Loom Cornish Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
  • Eckhart Czech Dark Lager @ Eckhart Beer
  • Grimm Double Negative: Grimm Reaper @ Grimm Artisanal Ales

Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)

Upcoming Random NYC Casks

  • Not seeing anything so far this week, but this Friday is the first Friday of November so keep an eye out for activity at Brouwerij Lane.
  • Next week we see the anniversary parties at both City Swiggers and Vinyl Beer on the UES; no dates or details confirmed online yet, but rumors are that Eckhart will be supplying some cask lager at both events.

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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