And by visual, I mean mostly pictures.
Don’t get too excited folks, we have a history lesson coming up.
After several consecutive weeks of critter care, I didn’t have the energy to write a lot this week.
Although I did have the energy to walk almost nine miles through the gritty streets of Manhattan to take said pictures.
Pictures of pubs.
Or to be more specific, pictures of pubs that used to have beer engines that served beer the proper way.
Some of these pubs may still have those handpumps and just gave up on them.
Some may have removed those handpumps from the bar.
Others may no longer be viable establishments.
And some may not even be the same buildings anymore.
Consider this to be the first episode of a multi-part series; I can only walk so far in any given day.
I have drawn the western boundary at Fifth Avenue and the southern boundary at East 14th street, considering anything south of that to be the Village and subject to a future exercise.
So, let us start at the northern-most cask bar on the East Side of Manhattan, which happens to be pretty much right across the street from the Whispering Halls.
Third Avenue Ale House
A local hangout/sports bar on the Upper East Side that has a fairly typical “craft” beer selection alongside the usual suspects, and also does a pretty good burger.
It has gone through a couple of changes since I moved into the neighborhood, when it was divey and known as Name This Joint, or just The Joint, before becoming a Brother Jimmy’s seafood shack for many years, and then taking its present form.
The beer engine here was short-lived unfortunately, but can’t have been that short-lived, because I have visited and enjoyed cask ales here on nine separate occasions; ales from the likes of Troegs, Stone, Weyerbacker, Flying Dog, Ballast Point and Bronx Brewing, which should give some indication of when it was in its heyday (i.e. pre-covid).
The bar is still going strong and appears to be popular with the young-uns, but the handpump is no longer on the bar.
Bondurants
A cool place with a sophisticated vibe just off the avenue (Second Ave.) at 85th Street.
They have always had a well-curated beer selection, which for a very short period included a cask offering.
My kids used to bring their friends there when they wanted to have a decent beer, decent munchies and a quieter atmosphere from all of the other bars in the area.
Notable to me as the place where I first sampled Grimm’s Double Negative stout on cask.
I haven’t been inside for many years now, but looking through the front window, it does appear that the handpump has been removed.
The Pony Bar (UES)
This was one of my regular haunts (almost fifty cask pints) whenever I was back in town from DC, and I must admit that I do still poke my head in on occasion.
And I always have a little grumble to whoever is unfortunate enough to be serving me, seeing as the two handpumps are still displayed prominently on the bar, but are now merely decorative.
Sadly they have no plans to reconnect them.
David Copperfield’s
One of the craft beer pioneers in the city, and most certainly one of the cask beer pioneers.
The cask was almost always off, but this was way back in the nineties when the craft beer scene in NYC was still in its infancy.
I went there anyway because they always had a good selection of European beers to go along with the “new” American microbrews.
There was nowhere else like them at the time in the neighborhood.
Treadwell Park
One-part beer hall, one-part cigar parlor, with a side of cask.
The handpump was sort of hidden away from the rest of the beers on the small bar, but I found the staff knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the beers that they served.
It probably helped that I usually visited during the quieter times, when the folks had the time to engage.
It has been many years since I was last in, and should probably swing by again just to see if the vibe has changed.
I assume that the cask is long gone as it hasn’t appeared on their beer menus for ages.
The Jeffrey
Back in 2014 they had a cask ale festival here in their back garden space, featuring only beers from Stone Brewing, twelve of them in total.
Luckily I went with my son as wingman, and between us we managed to try all of them.
I was hoping for many years that they would repeat the event, but they never did.
They did keep their single handpump on the main bar operating for a while, enough to keep me coming back several times, but then they just seemed to lose interest.
The Ginger Man
When covid (or was it the landlord) killed off the Ginger Man, NYC lost one of its most reliable cask ale outlets.
I would make sure to visit every time that I returned to the city from down south (basically every other weekend), either dropping in on Friday evening after getting off of the bus, or swinging by on the Sunday or Monday afternoon on the way back to the bus.
I had a lot of casks there over the course of nine years.
Eerily, they still have their lights on inside even now, and everything inside the bar still looks untouched.
The ghosts have a lock-in.
Cask Bar + Kitchen
I don’t know what to say about this one.
They just closed for good and I will miss them, but I rarely managed to go inside and actually enjoy a cask there.
They started with a lot of enthusiasm but even then I am not sure that they knew what they were dealing with.
I was once very excited to see that they had a Sierra Nevada Narwhal 2013 Imperial Stout on cask, on one of their two beer engines at the time.
I was a little intimidated when they proceeded to pour it for me, in a full 20oz pint glass.
Luckily I had my younger son with me that day, and I made it home, but I still do not know how I actually got home.
Then at some point they dropped to one handpump and started to focus on the + Kitchen part of the name, with cocktails thrown in for good measure.
And while I was happy that they still kept up the cask until the very end, you were never sure what you were actually getting unless you asked the bartender, who would then reluctantly bend down to look at the firkin itself.
“It’s an IPA!”
The Albion
This one hid in plain sight for a long time before one of my boys mentioned to me that he had a cask ale in there.
A small quiet place during the daytime, which was when I was always likely to visit.
In the same neighborhood as Cask Bar, and my preferred stop if I was down that way.
I believe that they were associated with the still open Drop Off Service, but they quietly closed while I wasn’t looking.
A missed opportunity there.
Taproom 307
Also hiding in plain sight, but in a very different way.
A cavernous place that shouted out kiddie sports bar from both the outside and inside.
The very sort of place that I would studiously avoid, especially as it was right in the middle of the Kips Bay yahoos crawl.
But they turned up on Beer Menus once with a cask listed, so I ventured in and was actually served a pint from the engine, which was okay.
As expected, I was pretty much invisible to the bar staff.
First and last visit.
Highlander Brewing Company
This one is from the very distant past.
Well, the nineties; I want to say the early nineties.
It was an awesome Scottish themed brewery with excellent Scottish ales on cask.
Two beer engines, with their 60/- and 80/- on at all times.
I don’t think that they ever actually got around to brewing on site (sounds familiar) and all of their beers came from Middle Ages Brewery up in Syracuse.
But they were brilliant brews.
The building that they were located in was absolutely gorgeous inside and out.
The historic building is still there, but they are long gone.
I am not sure how long they survived as I moved uptown and didn’t manage to get there as often as I wanted.
What did I miss?
Hopefully, I managed to capture all of the ex-cask haunts on the East Side, but if I did forget any, please let me know in the comments.
I did skip over Jones Wood Foundry and The Shakespeare, but those are both doing very nicely thank you.
And by coincidence, I did pay visits to both this past week.
Proper visits, with proper beer, from proper beer engines.
Scorecard w/e 12/23/25
In the past week the Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Old Glenham Spinners Stout @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Black Country Bitter @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Spinners Stout @ Rough Draft
- Strong Rope Pub Ale w/Whole Cone NYS Vista @ City Swiggers
- Old Glenham Fezziwig Winter Warmer @ The Shakespeare
- OEC Dapple Dark Mild @ The Shakespeare
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
- 1/9/26: RIF-RAF Rhode Island’s Finest Real Ale Festival (session 1) @ The Guild Pawtucket RI
- 1/10/26: RIF-RAF Rhode Island’s Finest Real Ale Festival (session 2) @ The Guild Pawtucket RI
- 2/7/26: Strong Rope 10th Anniversary/Caskiversary @ Strong Rope in Red Hook
- Save the dates! The 2026 edition of NERAX will be from March 25th to 28th next year. Tickets will be available in early 2006.
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- 12/25/25: Owl Farm will be tapping a cask of Wayward Lane Portmanteau London Brown Porter at 5pm.
- 12/31/25: City Swiggers will be featuring a cask of Sierra Nevada Celebration at their New Year’s Eve Party this year.
NYC Cask Venues
Known Operational/Active Beer Engines
- Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
- Fifth Hammer
- Wild East
- The Shakespeare (x3)
- Drop-off Service
- Rough Draft
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).
- Little Dog Brewing, Bradley Beach NJ (one handpump, Little Dog beer range).
This Post Has 2 Comments
Love your reports. It would be really great if the Jones Wood casks listings were available and updated when new on an app like Beer Menus or Untappd. Drop Off does pretty good updates on BM, but with Jones Wood & Shakespeare it’s hard to know what’s on and what’s new unless you’re walking by… thanks.
Hi Jon, I feel your pain. The problem with JWF and Shakespeare are that they both go through casks at an insane rate, and as soon as they are ready or able to update the websites the casks have already moved on, and that is a good thing. I used to use Beer Menus all the time but found that most of the bars in the city had given up on it, and Untappd requires a lot of resources for the provider and the consumer to report or find anything, I would love for them to provide an advanced search option for dispense method. I find that Instagram is my best bet for finding casks in the neighborhood especially if you follow NCY Cask Crew and NERAX, and I am happy that our latest venue Rough Draft has been using it to post all new tappings. But most of the time, I just use my legs to do the hunting. Cheers.