As usual when visiting Fifth Hammer at the start of a crawl, I didn’t manage to get out of there again until it was time to get the ferry back home… I never learn.

But, enough of that misery stuff, we should celebrate instead with a proper pie and a pint.

You know, those perfectly good classic brews that are combined in the cask with all manner of found objects; not limited to actual foodstuffs.

By the fourth round, the completist in me started showing up, and I just had to try a beer from each brewery that I had not yet approached…

It is a known fact, that when all else fails, a beer is the best cure for whatever ails you.

I drink cask because of the joy of anticipation that I get with each and every new pint.

Draft Guinness was the drink of necessity throughout the city for many years of the 1980s.

Stepping off the train at Waverley Station, I was immediately blasted in the face by the pungent smell of brewing… Auld Reekie was going to be my home for the next three years.

I had four destinations in mind, two of which I knew would have cask ale available, but the other two required much crossing of fingers.

Our Queens would have frowned on that sort of thing, you know.

Charles Dickens and I have a long-shared history of pubs.

… without a paddle.

What is a Real Ale zombie to do when forced to endure a 26-hour train trip from NYC to South Florida?

But, what are the odds of stumbling over a cask or two, a little closer to home, down at the Jersey Shore?

There are three current recurring cask ale festivals scattered throughout Connecticut that I have managed to get to repeatedly over the last two or three years.