Yes folks, this is the one that everybody has I have been looking forward to all year.
The Annual NYS British Real Ale Festival, shortened this year to NYS Brit Festival, and further shortened this year by the dreich weather to the Annual NYS British Real Ale Festival.
You read it right.
It takes a little more than a few drops of precipitation to keep a Brit from his Real Ale.
And they came from all directions.
From NYC, from Buffalo, from Rochester, from Ithaca, from … you get the idea.
There were even folks, repeat visitors by the way, from all the way down in the Philly and Bethlehem areas of Pennsylvania.
And they were not all Brits either.
That is dedication to the cause.
The only person missing was my darling wife, who had to make an expedited visit to Florida during the week last week and is expected back later this week.
So that made me the designated driver for the weekend, with my old pal Alistair, on his first visit to the Finger Lakes, as designated non-driver.
Fortunately, we had all booked into the Golden Knight Inn across the street from the venue, the Beerocracy Pub and Snug of Seneca Lake Brewing Company, so we could both be designated (and dedicated) drinkers for the evenings.
But I racked up a lot of driving over the three days and nights that we were there, with the consequence being that I am now slouched over my keyboard, gritting my teeth through the lower back twinges, in order to pump out this week’s edition of “The Thinking Man’s Idiot’s Guide to Cask Ale in the Americas”.
Google maps claims that it is “only” four and a half hours drive from NYC, and if you divert through Ithaca it only adds another fifteen minutes to the effort.
But, if you divert through Ithaca to get in the required visits to Lively Run Goat Dairy (to say hi to the goats and sample and buy cheese) and Belweather Hard Ciders (to say hi to the dog and sample and buy bottles of cider), now you are up over five hours behind the wheel.
And if you spend some quality time at those two establishments, you are ready to get your head down as soon as you have checked in to your accommodations.
Well, you would be, if there wasn’t a brewery just down the road and across the street.
Yeah, we hit it pretty early on Friday evening.
And we were very happy to see that Bradley is serving food again.
Good, “stick to your ribs”, British food.
Who doesn’t love a big bowl of roasted potatoes with gravy and Colman’s mustard?
Not me, and not the two resident pups; I was their new best friend while I had that plate of roasties in front of me.
It was pretty drizzly when we got there with the worst to come, but mild enough to sit outside on the covered deck, enjoy the lake views, and line our stomachs with some solid stodge.
But we were not planning to stay outside and be antisocial for long, we had come for the banter as much as the beer, and got both in spades once we joined the party inside the pub.
It was wonderfully busy, with accents from all over world; from the Toons to the Tartan Army to the Estuary and the Black Country and even the land of the Wurzels.
All of humanity was there, even some Americans.
Locals and lucky drive-bys and determined visitors from far away, such as ourselves.
I reckon I knew about half of the crowd when we first went inside, and knew all of them by the time “last orders” was called, just before midnight; that would be considered to be a lock-in back home.
Alistair knew nobody on arrival, but had chewed the ears off of everyone who was unfortunate fortunate enough to have come into close proximity during the Friday evening proceedings.
Bradley runs a happy shop and makes sure that all are welcome and that all get sucked into the general mayhem, whether they like it or not.
They all like it.
I love it.
Eventually we all realized it was time to head to our homes to get some beauty rest if we wanted to be in peak condition for the actual event, and so Alistair and myself and our new best biker buddy staggered across the road in the wee hours to get some kip, dodging the drizzle, the drunks, and the psychotic truck drivers.
First session survived.
Beers consumed – Oh, I can’t remember, but by the end of session two I had at least a half pint of each of the ten brews on the pumps in the pub.
Day two started late and wet, and it didn’t get any earlier or drier.
With the event officially kicking off at 2pm we had a couple of hours to skip breakfast and lunch, as we ventured west to Keuka Lake, Penn Yan and the Apple Barrel Orchards and Cidery for a wee (not so wee) tasting flight; we somehow managed to skip dinner too and made do with packets of crisps and some of the cheese that I picked up at Lively Run to take back to NYC.
I had tried to get to Apple Barrel on two previous occasions, but missed it by a right turn the first time and a full open day the second; they are only open on Saturdays outside picking season.
They are the new kids in town, barely four years old with no bottling program (just draft and growlers), but they have learned fast and produce lovely traditional ciders; they also have a very welcoming tap room (barn).
And then it was time to hurry back and drop off our car at the motel, before a short wet walk to the brewery and the Brit Fest.
The rain and the cold temperatures had taken their toll on the non-beer vendors and had caused the last-minute cancellation of the classic car show, but the casks were there and so were the cask drinkers and the cask producers, so all was well.
Old Glenham took home the best in show for a second year in a row, with the beautifully conditioned Ambleside Best Bitter (think Boddingtons), but the two stouts (Oatmeal from Mystic Hills and Irish Dry from Wayward Lane) gave Ian a run for his money this year.
We stuck it out, together with a few other brave souls, to enjoy the music and wait out the presentation of the ceremonial cask award.
We even ventured out onto the grass when the rain died down briefly, to kick a ball around; it’s a cultural thing, we couldn’t help ourselves.
But as the official end time passed, we headed back up the hill to join the bustling afterparty in the pub.
As if we didn’t get enough abuse banter the night before.
We crawled out after midnight.
Thus went session two.
Day three began with some solid food (finally), with Bradley cooking up and serving full English breakfasts to the survivors, before turning on the two tellies so we could all suffer through the expected, yet still tragic end of the 2025/26 Premier League season.
Well, the Spurs fans were happy I suppose, but we bailed out at half time to go off in search of some of the other beverages that Seneca Lake offers; talking about spirits and mead here.
First stop was the gas station in Watkins Glen; I had really pushed my luck with the tank but made it with a few miles to spare.
We left the car at the south end of town and walked a few blocks to check out the state park, but the waterfall gorge trail was closed off while they fixed the lower entrance bridge, so we wandered down to the lake front instead, not wanting to deal with muddy rim trails after Saturday’s constant rain.
After getting our daily steps in, we drove along the east side of Seneca Lake to Hector and the Finger Lakes Distillery, where we sampled a few diverse spirits (Soju, Grappa, Poitin, and Applejack) and a wee dram of white rum, before returning to the west side of the lake and driving up to Himrod/Penn Yan and Earle Estates Meadery.
A quick sampling of four meads and a cider, a purchase of four bottles of mead, for my wine cabinet and as presents, and then back south to Watkins Glen again to hang out in the historic bar at Seneca Lodge for a quick pint of their brewery’s Peach Blonde (non-cask this time).
And that brought us up to the early evening, so we finished exploring and returned to The Beerocracy Pub for a Sunday roast and a night cap.
Not quite as crowded and crazy as the two prior nights and the earlier breakfast session, but the bar was still quite busy with a new cast of characters, locals and drop-ins.
The roast was massive and outrageously good, the night cap turned out to be a handful of pints and halves from the pumps, and the company was excellent.
We met a couple of new friends from Pennsylvania, and then wound down the evening in the company of our gracious hosts Bradley and Megan.
By 8pm, session three was complete.
All that was left was to wander back to the hotel for an early night; we were travelling home on Monday and needed to be in good nick for the drive.
The drive was long but surprisingly easy, if not completely painless.
I took a detour into Queens in order to drop Alistair at his door with his bottles and his growler of cider, and then after parking the car, I swung by my daughter’s apartment to give her some meady gifts, before dragging my rolling suitcase, my very heavy rolling suitcase back home to Whispering Falls.
A wonderful adventure.
It would have been even better if my missus could have made it too.
I have put their Bonfire Night event (November 7th) in my calendar and need to do some planning before then, but for the foreseeable future there are no other cask events to be found … stupid summer.
I guess there is the World Cup, so it won’t be a total loss …
… unless it is.
Either way, you can expect some beer, Brits, and banter in JWF.
Scorecard w/e 05/26/26
In the past week the Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following cask ales:
- Old Glenham Black Country Mild @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Black Country Bitter @ Jones Wood Foundry
And then all of these at The Beerocracy at Seneca Lake Brewing Company:
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Archies Dark Mild
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Big Ben English Porter
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. For Fawkes Sake! Smoked Rauch Bier
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Fust Dubbel
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. The Colonial NEIPA
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. American IPA (Fruity Version): Vista
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. UKtoberfest Session Marzen
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Steamship Foreign Export Stout
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Berties English Brown Ale
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Dunmore Extra Special Bitter
And all of these at the Snug at Seneca Lake Brewing Company:
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Berties English Brown Ale: Strawberry
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Berties English Brown Ale: Dark Berries
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Dunmore Extra Special Bitter: Lime
- Seneca Lake Brewing Co. Harvest Ale English Harvest Ale
- Old Glenham Brewery Ambleside Best Bitter
- Old Glenham Brewery Bobbin Red Ale
- Horseheads Brewery Cherry Blossom Wheat
- Mystic Hills Living After Midnight Oatmeal Stout
- Scale House Brewery David Atten-Beer-Ough Dark Mild
- Lucky Hare Belgian Golden Ale: Ginger/Szechuan Peppercorns
- Seneca Lodge Peach Blonde
- Wild East Brewery Radiance Golden Summer Ale
- Wayward Lane Brewing Sacred Grove Dry Irish Stout
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
- It looks like we are in for a quiet period.
- We may need a World Cup to get us to drag our sorry butts out to the boozer.
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- Not seeing anything nearby.
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).
This Post Has 2 Comments
Why. What a good read that was Nigel. Yourself and Alistair certainly added to my most fantastic weekend. I have put bonfire night in my calander and hope to see you there if not before. Went to the Anbelside this week , still think the Belgium one was the best. .
All the best mate, till I seem you again.
Hi Pete, it was awesome meeting you at the Beerocracy and the Knight. Definitely on for the fireworks this year. I also got up to the Ambleside for a couple of the WC games and will probably make at least one and maybe two more trips before the games finish. I will give you a heads up by email directly if I do.