It was going to be the weekend when the Cask Whisperer got back into circulation, and got some serious exercise in the process.
After existing on the diet of a six-year-old girl for the past six weeks, I had managed to put on way too many pounds; pancakes, pizza, chicken nuggets, ice cream, and Kraft mac and cheese will do that to a person …
… if said person is not a six-year-old girl.
The reduced exercise didn’t help too much either; we managed to get out for one extended walk into Central Park’s Great North Woods and a couple of short hikes down to JWF and back, and that was about it.
You don’t get to walk off your munchies if you spend all of your free time laying on your back in the air conditioning, watching Paddington videos and playing Pokemon GO; is it even considered to be Pokemon GO if you don’t actually GO anywhere?
Alright, so it was kind of hot and nasty for much of the last two months, and we did have our hands and minds full, but it was certainly not the most productive two months that I have ever spent.
But that was all going to change the past weekend.
With my granddaughter returning to Texas on Thursday to start school this week, I had no excuses any more.
I started off well on Friday with my weekly visit to Jones Wood, and was happy to see that they finally put the Old Glenham Bobbin Red Ale on one of the pumps.
I had been watching it for weeks, just as soon as it appeared on the horizon on the JWF website, alongside the Severn Summer Ale (keeping my eye on that one now), neither of which I had tried before.
I am happy to report that it is not an overpowered malt bomb, as many red ales tend to be in this part of the world.
It does start out malty and chewy but not really sweet at all, instead when you get a couple of sips in, an underlying earthy bitterness shows itself, perfectly balancing out the overall flavor profile.
You basically get the opposite of the typical pale ale experience; instead of the malt backbone toning down the hop fruitiness and bitterness, here we have the earthy hops toning down the initial maltiness and sweetness.
Oh, and it does a great job drying out your mouth as well.
Not a style that I had experienced back in the old country, but it did remind me somewhat of Belhaven Light (60/-) and Heavy (70/-) in both appearance and taste, and in its after effect on my bodily coordination and navigation skills.
It may have also curtailed my desire to spend the weekend hiking around the city, as I woke up Saturday with a serious case of the blahs and barely got off of the couch all day.
But that may have just been sheer exhaustion, as my good wife was experiencing the exact same symptoms, with nary a drop of the red touching her lips.
Come Sunday morning, I decided it was time to get my body functioning again, and set off early (not that early) to do my rounds on the eastern shores; Long Island City and Gowanus.
Plan A (the ambitious plan) was to get the ferry to LIC, grab a beer, walk to Gowanus (ha!), grab another beer, walk back to Navy Yard, maybe grab another beer, and then get the ferry home.
That plan got shot down before I even got to the ferry, it was way too humid to be attempting a six-mile hike through Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Clinton Hill, so I shifted to Plan B (the sensible plan), which reversed the route and replaced most of the hiking bit with the G train; there would still be the little matter of getting over Fort Greene, but two and a half miles would be a lot easier than six.
I survived the hill and arrived at Wild East Brewing around 1pm, and was very happy to see that the cask was on, and the cask was their superb Radiance Golden Summer Ale.
This is another style that I never got to experience before I moved across the pond, but became a favorite on trips back home.
Wild East brew a beautiful example of the style; only 3.4% ABV, a clear luminous gold body with a tight creamy white head (great use of a sparkler).
The taste is all tea and biscuits up front, but then, as with the Old Glenham red ale, a dry bitterness comes to the foreground, a little earthy and a little spicy, but overall very refreshing all the way to the end, where it drags you (or possibly me) back for another.
Before heading up to Queens, I grabbed tasters of a couple of other “summer” ales, Return of the Bretti (all Brettanomyces and very pale and very complex) and Alfresco Cucumber (think pickle beer but Kolsch not sour), and then consulted the maps app to finetune the next leg of my route.
Wait, what happened to the G train?
Time for Plan C (the desperation plan).
Note to self, always check the scheduled subway track work before venturing out in NYC on a weekend.
For some reason, the G was only going as far as downtown Brooklyn, which would be a pointless walk for me, so I just jumped into the subway mess at Atlantic Avenue to grab the first train heading into Manhattan, figuring that any train would cross the 7-line at some point, and I could get to Long Island City that way.
Say hello to the Broadway Local R train, four stops in downtown Manhattan before even getting to Canal Street, no thanks; I bailed out after one stop at DeKalb Avenue, knowing that I could switch to the Q, which I just missed, and rolled the dice with an N train that just slid in unannounced.
That actually worked pretty well (I have to remember that) and before too long, I found myself at Queensboro Plaza facing a short walk to Fifth Hammer.
Where I was happy to find a seat at the bar and a nice cool pint of Dotty Neverditty pale ale from the handpump.
Dotty never disappoints.
Hazy dark gold, creamy texture with a big foamy head and slightly sweet, slightly bitter and slightly perfumed taste.
Nominally a 5% pale ale, but is it an English Pale Ale or is it an APA?
It comes across as a hybrid, a delicious transatlantic hybrid, and each time, there is something different going on, subtly different.
It is a classic cask ale, and I am usually up for two to three pints of it, but it had been a long tiring day, and I had half an eye on the ferry schedule, so decided to finish as I had at Wild East with a couple of tasters, the Barb Wired rhubarb/blackberry sour (some of my favorite pie fillings), and a Of Rice & Zen rice lager brewed with white koji (a sort of beer/sake mash-up).
I finished my rounds with a footrace to the ferry, which I hear is going to be an Olympic sport at LA in 2028.
Overall I chalked up about six miles total walking; not quite the weekend exercise that I envisioned, but you have to start somewhere.
It was good to finally get off of my couch and will be trying again next weekend.
I sense a road trip coming up.
Scorecard w/e 08/13/24
In the past week, The Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Old Glenham Bobbin Red Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Wild East Radiance Golden Summer Ale @ Wild East
- Fifth Hammer Dotty Neverditty Pale Ale @ Fifth Hammer
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
9/7/2024: Noah Webster House Real Ale Harvest Festival, West Hartford CT
11/2/2024: 20th Annual Blue Point Cask Ale Festival, Patchogue NY (30% Early Bird Discounts until 8/23/24)
11/8/2024: Two Roads Cask Fest at Area 2, Stratford CT
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- Sadly, no erratics have been identified so far this week.
NYC Cask Venues
Known Operational/Active Beer Engines
- Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
- Fifth Hammer
- Wild East
- The Shakespeare (x3)
- Cask Bar & Kitchen
- Drop-off Service
Occasional Pins (worth a follow on Instagram)
- Strong Rope
- KCBC
- Tørst
- Blind Tiger Ale House
- Threes Brewing
- Brouwerij Lane
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Thanks for this great info!!!!