So, I had over a week to prepare this posting.
You would think that would be plenty of time to go into every excruciating detail of my day trip to Philadelphia the Sunday before last.
But this past week has been a long busy week.
You are lucky to be getting anything at all.
But seeing as I am contractually obligated to produce some sort of entertaining and/or informational prose on a weekly basis, here we go.
But remember you asked for it.
So how do you get to Philadelphia in the first place and how long does it take?
I think that I have been to Philly four times now, three for recent Yards Invitational events, and one other occasion, waaay back, where I was just exploring some of the historical sites.
I took the train the first time that I went because there were no “cheap” bus services back in my day, no Bolt, no Megabus; actually, it is a little like that now.
It took a couple of hours if I remember correctly, and it drops you off at 30th Street Station, which is a bit of a hike from historic sites, breweries, and cask bars (which will be investigated in a future visit); not a bad hike, but a hike, nevertheless.
Megabus was still around the first time that I went to the Invitational, and again, it took around two hours but dropped me off very conveniently right by the Liberty Bell, which is a short ten/fifteen minute stroll from the brewery.
They were gone, or just dormant, last year but FlixBus picked up the pieces and dropped me even closer to the brewery, under the highway overpass on Spring Garden Street, barely five blocks from my destination; another two hour trip, on a Greyhound going out and a FlixBus coming back.
This year, I noticed that Megabus was back (sort of), basically because they have been bombing my email inbox for months now, so I booked my trip on their site, and they put me on a Peter Pan bus there and back; it also deposited me and Alistair, after two hours again, on Spring Garden Street, just half a block further away from the brewery.
So yeah, Megabus, FlixBus, Peter Pan, they are all basically Greyhound.
And no matter which service you choose, you can expect the journey to take two hours each way, which is really not that bad for a day trip.
Not that we were intending to spend the day in Philly this time.
The focus was purely on the cask festival, and the buses were scheduled accordingly, allowing an hour and a half to do a little exploring (i.e. getting breakfast) on the way in, and no slack time to get back out again.
So we met up deep in the bowels of Port Authority Bus Station around 8:30 in the morning for what turned out to be an uneventful trip down the turnpike.
And after getting off the bus right on schedule, we wandered along Spring Garden Street to see if anything was happening at Yards yet (nothing obvious) and kept on strolling to Chinatown in search of pastries, which was more difficult than I remembered from last year.
We eventually located a Hong Kong pastry shop, purchased our beer sponges, and then leisurely consumed them on a nice sunny bench in the Independence National Historical Park within throwing distance to the Liberty Bell pavilion and Independence Hall.
And that was it for the Philly experience this time around, as we made a hasty return to the nearby Yards Brewery which now had a substantial line of folks outside waiting to get their IDs out and their wrists tagged.
Fortunately this time around we had purchased the VIP tickets (primarily for the included tee shirt) and were able to flash them at the head of the line and head straight in.
But not before grabbing our first beers at one of the two outside stations.
There is nothing like walking into a cask ale festival with the first pour (in my case, an English Pale Ale from Guildford Hall Brewery) already in your hand.
The layout and organization was exactly the same as last year, with eight stations of four casks arranged around and between the massive pallets of filled beer cans in the warehouse space, and two more stations outside in the small patio/entrance (he means loading dock) area.
Forty beers listed on the cheat sheet with an extra unlisted “beer” (a sour with Kool Aid) hidden amongst them; it made a good palate cleanser (or all-purpose cleaner).
I knew where I was heading first, and it wasn’t Human Robot this go around, although I did check to see what size of stichfaß they had and made a note to get it in quickly.
I also made sure to locate Forest & Main and Tonewood, knowing that I could get a good British style ale at both of them, but the beer that I really wanted to try after seeing it on the published list was Alyston’s Ordinary from Concrete Blues.
A 3.5% ordinary bitter, it was everything that I hoped it would be; medium to pale amber with a floral nose and initial bite, very drinkable, and finishing with the kind of spicy bitterness that is the hallmark of a good ordinary bitter.
I made a point of thanking Alyston Upshaw when I spotted him in the crowd.
And yes, this would turn out to be my favorite beer at the event.
Both Forest & Main and Tonewood brought along dark milds which were also spot on and made my top five list.
As did the dark Mexican lager from Human Robot (excellent as expected, first to kick as expected) and the Keller Helles from Yards themselves.
The overall selection and quality of beers was the best yet for this event, with many milds and bitters in all strengths (most under 5%) and colors, and a handful of well-crafted lagers.
The musicians were great, playing mostly age-appropriate crowd-pleasers for the mostly older crowd, and playing at an unobtrusive volume to allow us old fogies to chat amongst ourselves; there was a lot of chatting going on, a lot of stories being swapped.
The strongest beer that I had was also my last one (unusual for me) which was The Goat, a Maibock from Kings Road Brewing of Medford NJ.
The strangest (other than the Kool Aid thingy) was Cup or Cone from Levante of West Chester PA; a 6% NEIPA with all manner of fruity additives including cherry, but actually tasted like coffee to me.
I sampled 24 different beers in total, all “local” from either NJ, PA, DE or MD.
No duds, all possible honorable mentions, with the top five being real standouts.
Overall another great event.
We made new friends, reconnected with old acquaintances, drank good beer and did a lot of bullsh*tting.
Oh, and we grabbed some of the free pizza and shoved it down our throats to soak up the excess beer, as we raced out to get our bus home to NYC.
I say this every year, but I really do have to find time to spend a weekend in Philadelphia to check out the local cask breweries and cask bars.
As for upcoming cask events, we are entering the summer doldrums with just the one at Seneca Lake Brewing at the end of May coming up.
But we do have the World Cup to get us through a “dry” summer, and it will give me time to get back on my regular rounds.
Starting very soon.
I have to do my research for the next post.
Scorecard w/e 04/21/26
In the past week the Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Old Glenham Shire Porter @ Jones Wood Foundry
And the prior weekend, all of these were sampled at the 2026 edition of the Yards Brewery Real Ale Invitational in Philadelphia PA:
Brew | Brewed by | Style |
Bohemian Gold | Czech Pilsner | |
British Pale Ale | English Pale Ale | |
Pub Ale | English Pale Ale | |
Krista Light: Citra | Yards | American Blonde Ale |
Golden IPA | Golden IPA | |
Cheshire Smile | Dark Mild | |
Dresden Codex | Dark Mexican Lager | |
Beach Traffic | American Light Lager: Coffee Beans | |
Cup or Cone | NEIPA: Cherry % Stuff | |
Keller Helles | Yards | Keller Helles |
Bancroft Beer | American Pale Ale (APA): Mosaic | |
Bedford | Dark Mild | |
Cliffs to Cape | Dry Irish Stout | |
Krams Ave | Yards | Amber Lager |
11th & Pattison | American Blonde Ale: Peach | |
Hue | Amber Ale | |
Bilbous | New Zealand Bitter | |
Fellow | Dark Mild | |
White Hart Lane | Extra Special Bitter | |
Extra Mild Bitter | Extra Mild Bitter | |
Alyston’s Ordinary | Ordinary Bitter | |
Bloodhound Brown Ale | English Brown Ale | |
The Goat | Maibock | |
Oh Yea! | Yards | American Sour Ale: Kool Ade |
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
- 5/23/26: NYS Brit Festival @ Seneca Lake Brewing Company, Rock Stream NY
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- 4/25/26: Strong Rope will be tapping a cask of Fresh Hopped Seeds of Love & Outrage West Coast IPA at Covenhoven in Brooklyn.
- 4/29/26: Strong Rope will be tapping another cask of Fresh Hopped Seeds of Love & Outrage West Coast IPA at City Swiggers in the UES.
- 5/1/26: One more Strong Rope cask, this time the Pub Ale at Brouwerij Lane in Greenpoint.
- 5/16/26: Das Bock returns to Plattduetsche Biergarten. Again, no promises of a cask but there were several stichfaß and a surprise cask at last year’s festivities.
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
- City Swiggers
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).
