Cask Ale At Sebago Brewing

Archive for the ‘Beer Festivals’

Published February 10th, 2010 in Beer Events, Beer Festivals, Beer Reviews | No Comments »

Last week I returned from the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester, England (I’ll comment on that trip in coming posts) and found to my pleasure that it was time for another Cask Night at Sebago Brewing Company.

Kai Adams has developed a pretty reliable and effective formula for this series, and it seems to be working. The house has been packed every time I attended. Sebago simply chocks up five Pins (about 5 gallons) behind the bar and serves with a gravity tap in each. They put one of their own beers on the hand pump. With about 30 gallons of beer in play the beer generally sells out in the one night, so spoilage is not a problem.

The concept is to run a Cask Night every month, on the night of the full moon. That’s easy enough to remember!

January’s event featured New Hampshire brewers. The lineup included an IPA from Smuttynose (6.9%) and another from Portsmouth Brewing (6.5%), a stout from Red Hook 5.6%), a German Rauchfest from Moat Mountain (6.2%), and from Sebago the Full Throttle Double IPA (8.2%)and the Runabout Red Ale (5.0%).

All the beers were in great shape and showed well, with just a bit of cloudiness here and there. My favorite was the Bottle Rocket IPA from Portsmouth, a real treat in the cask version.

Watch for Cask at Sebago!

NERAX North Is In Full Swing

Published November 6th, 2009 in Beer Festivals, Beer Reviews | No Comments »

For those looking for an alternative to the Maine Brewers Festival, NERAX North is just down the road in Haverhill, Ma.

Our opening last night was a great success, with attendance up 50% over the same night last year. More important, the beers are terrific – just two of the 30 cask ales on the stillage needed another day to settle, and we expect them to be ready today.

We have fifteen British beers presenting the range of traditional cask ale styles, and we have fifteen American interpretations of the same styles. Comparisons are fascinating. One cool trend to watch is the way British brewers are picking up American hopping styles and adapting them to their own beers.

I’ll get back tomorrow with some tasting notes…

NERAX at Novare Res Update

Published October 21st, 2009 in Beer Festivals, Beer News | 1 Comment »

The traditional question at every NERAX festival is, “Where is the imported beer?”. Well, the imported beer for NERAX at Novare Res, both German and British, is in Portland.

Weather of course will play a part this weekend, but everything looks great for the festival. Part of my job is to worry about what might go wrong, but to be honest I’m down to worrying about details. HAH, this could be famous last words…

We have no idea how popular this event will be. We know the cask ales will be great, but how will Portland respond? We’ll see. Novare Res is ready…

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Cask Ale In Portland

Published October 18th, 2009 in Beer Festivals, Beer News, Beer Reviews, Maine | 1 Comment »

This is a very good time for Cask Ale lovers in Portland. Next weekend, beginning on Friday, Oct 23, Novare Res in conjunction with NERAX is presenting a cask ale festival in the Old Port.

This is the first NERAX festival in Maine, and quite possibly the first cask ale festival ever in Maine. We will have 30 cask ales, 10 British, 10 German, and 10 American. Well, maybe a few more American…

We’ve been a long time putting this together, not without challenges, but we think this will be a spectacular experience and perhaps the beginning of a long term relationship between cask ale and beer lovers in Maine. Sorry for the pomposity, but we’re really excited about this event.

Novare Res opens at 3:00pm on Friday. Entry is $10 which buys a festival pint glass and your first pint.

The bounty of cask ale doesn’t end there. Sebago Brewing is launching a cask program at their Portland pub on November 2. They plan to offer 5 cask ales. Their intent is to offer cask ale on an ongoing basis at their pubs. This is good news indeed!

Marshall Wharf Mussel Fest

Published October 18th, 2009 in Beer Events, Beer Festivals, General | No Comments »

It’s been a while, but let’s get right into what’s happening in beer around here.

Yesterday, Saturday night, October 17 was the time to be in Belfast, Maine. On offer was the second annual Marshall Wharf Beer and Pemaquid Mussel Festival. They served Mussels prepared four different ways, Morse’s of Maine’s sausage and sauerkraut, and 22 Marshall Wharf beers on tap. It might get different, but it can’t get better.

Of special interest were the three bourbon barrel aged beers… MacFindlay Scotch, Old #55, and Cant Dog IPA. In my opinion these beers saw too much whisky barrel, and the beer characteristics faded from the picture. This was a first try, and I have no doubt the next will be well worth considering.

The regular range of Marshall Wharf beers was superb as always. It’s very special, but also very dangerous, to be able to enjoy all of them in the same night. It was fun to taste 40 Cream Ale again, but the old favorites were spectacular as always.

Cask Ale At The Craft Brewers’ Conference

Published May 4th, 2009 in Beer Events, Beer Festivals, Beer Reviews, Breweries | 1 Comment »

In April, Boston experienced a delightful one-night echo of NERAX 2009.

The Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA) held their national Craft Brewers Conference in Boston during the last week in April. On Thursday evening, April 23, Harpoon Brewery hosted a cask ale night open only to conference attendees and guests. This was organized by the District New England chapter of MBAA and was staffed by folks from NERAX.

The Craft Brewers Conference is a meeting of brewers from across America. The objectives of Cask Night were to promote cask ale, and to give New England brewers a chance to strut their stuff. Using the NERAX festival equipment, the District New England offered 62 cask ales from brewers in every state of New England.

The beers were superb, in great shape, and the event was an enormous success. Many attending brewers had never seen so many cask ales in one place, and there was a lot of photographing of the bar and stillage. We ended up serving about 1200 brewers and guests from across the country. It was a triumph for New England brewers!

The NERAX guys were pleased with how easily this event went together, and then how easily it broke down. The event was in the (big) tent Harpoon uses for events, in their parking lot. Set-up of the beers took about four hours. We’re getting better at set-up, but our equipment is also getting better after years of investment and volunteer work to construct lines and related gear. The cooling system now goes together quickly and requires a lot less de-bugging. Breakdown the morning after took about two hours, a new record. Put that down to having a lot of volunteer labor on hand.

Tending bar at this event was easy. Everything was free, so there was no money to handle. At that price no-one was too fussed about exact measures, so pouring was easy. We moved a lot of beer very fast!

Maine was very well represented by Sebago Brewing, Gritty’s Portland and Freeport, Allagash, Shipyard and Kennebunk Brewing. Maine beers remain something we can be proud of in any gathering or context.

My favorite of the night was an IPA from Cambridge House Brewpub in Torrington, Ct. Who are these guys, anyway?

NERAX Night At Redbones

Published March 16th, 2009 in Beer Festivals, Beer Reviews | No Comments »

If you’re in the Boston area next Monday, you might consider dropping in on a special event at Redbones, in Somerville, Massachusetts.

We’re presenting a plaque to Redbones commemorating the first NERAX festival, held in Redbones on June 28, 1997. Redbones is offering free appetizers to all comers. We are offering two free pints to all volunteers at NERAX 2009. This should be a fun event.

Redbones will have two cask ales on offer: Spring Training IPA from CBC, and Golden Ale from Mayflower Brewing. Of course their legendary beer list will also be available.

NERAX opens on Wednesday night. Our real work begins Monday morning, when we set up the scaffolding to support the casks, and begin taking delivery of beer. Monday evening will be a fun break.

Unfortunately, I may not be there. It looks like I and a colleague may need to travel to NJ on Monday to collect some British firkins. Perhaps we’ll return in time.

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Archive for the ‘Beer Festivals’