March 24-27 are the dates and tickets are on sale now.  If you know you plan to go, getting advanced sale tickets is an obvious choice to avoid the lines.

www.nerax.org

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NERAX Classic is Coming!

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!

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Cask Ale At Sebago Brewing

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…

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NERAX North Is In Full Swing

The cask fun goes on. Tomorrow, 2 November Sebago Brewing is launching their Cask Ale program with a mini-festival at their Old Port pub. There will be five cask ales in Pins on the bar. I’ll be there!

Finally, NERAX North opens up next Thursday in Haverhill Mass. All the beers are there, we set them up yesterday. 30 cask ales, 15 Brit and 15 American. Who could ask for more?

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A Great Time For Cask Ale!

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!

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Cask Ale In Portland

The first news is they are blowing out Winter beers. $7.99 for twelve packs of Geary’s Winter or Shipyard Brewers Choice Brown Ale. These are respectable beers.  The prices are unbeatable. I hauled off several cases.

I also came away with three beers to try, the Guiness 250 Anniversary, the Sierra Nevada Harvest 2009, and the Geary Imperial IPA, which I’ve never had in bottle.

The Guiness was a big downer. Apparently it’s a special brew to celebrate their anniversary,  so I was expecting a blow-out stout. This beer is very, very smooth, with a warm mouthfeel. There is not much finish, and not much roasted burn. It is very smooth, very soft.  It’s actually a very pleasant dark beer.

The Sierra Nevada Harvest 2009 also surprised me, but quite pleasantly.  They advertise their use of New Zealand hops, which reminded me of a pleasant drive through the hop growing region of Tasmania. Having said that, I have no idea whether the terroir matters in Hop viticulture.

The Harvest 2009 is a very pleasing drink, soft and  flavorful. Yes it’s hoppy, but this is another comfy beer.

Finally, the Geary’s Imperial IPA. I’ve had this before, but not in bottle.  This is a good beer.  It’s smooth up front and quite malty.  It’s 8.2%, another of those beers that pat you on the head while you’re drinking them,  then come back and whack you on the head with a cask mallet.

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A Pleasant Shopping Trip

The Great Lost Bear featured Marshall Wharf in the weekly Microbrew Showcase.  On offer were the Cant Dog IPA, the Brown Ale, Illegal Ale-ien, and the Hefeweizen, all at the usual bargain prices. This was a wonderful line-up of beers – on this evening I thought the Hefeweizen got the special nod.  Kudos to The Great Lost Bear… after all these years The Bear remains the place to be on Thursday night.

At the close of festivities a small party adjourned to Novare Res where Eric Michaud tapped a keg of the Marshall Wharf Barley Wine, T2R9. The beer is named after a territory near Belfast…  There is a reason for that, but after drinking Marshall Wharf beers all night, who remembers?

The T2R9 is a very special beer. At 11.5% one expects a monster; it is anything but that. Like all of the Marshall Wharf beers this one is beautifully balanced, and drinks well below the alcohol level. The malt and hops are present for sure, but there is no aggressive flavor attack, no awkwardness at all.The impact is huge, smooth mouth feel and soft, luscious flavors. There are no elbows to this beer, it’s all curved and rounded.

There won’t be much of this beer around, so try it any chance you get. I doubt there is any left at Novare Res, but it’s worth inquiring after. This beer alone would justify a trip to Three Tides Inn in Belfast.

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Marshall Wharf T2R9!

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?

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Cask Ale At The Craft Brewers’ Conference

Last Sunday, April 26, Novare Res offered an opportunity to try four of the “100″ beers on draught in Portland. In addition, Eric had both the brewers and the importer on hand all day Sunday to chat about the beers. It was a truly notable event…

Cantillon was represented by head brewer JeanVan Roy. Of the “100″ Eric offered the Iris, the Framboise, and the Vigneronne. He threw in the Kriek and the St Lamvinus for good measure. My favorite in this group was the Iris, an incredibly subtle and complex lambic beer. The Framboise was a stunner: bold, brash, massive nose, tart, and truly an impact beer.

The Brasserie de la Senne was represented by owners Yvan de Baets and Bernard LeBoucq. Their “100″ beer was of course the Taras Boulba. Eric also poured the Equinox, a delicious Winter beer. The Taras is an incredibly tasty and complex beer at about 4.5%.

Also present were Jean and Nassim from Moeder Lambic, one of the more interesting beer bars in Brussels.

On hand as Guide and Den Mother for this crew were Dan and Tessa Shelton, importers and zealous proponents of Belgian beer. One tends to remember conversations with both of these wonderful people.

Many thanks go to Eric Michaud for putting this day together.

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100 Belgians To Try…. 4 In Portland, Maine!

Tonight we tried the Lips of Faith from New Belgium Brewing, purveyors of Fat Tire and other wonderful Belgian-inspired brews.

Lips of Faith is called a dark kriek, an 8% beer, advertised as 65% ale brewed with cherry juice, 35% ale aged in wood barrels.

This was a delighful experience; I wish we had brought back a case. The mouthfeel is warm, round and smooth, very pleasant, not a bit of hops, with just the softest taste of cherries.

Delightful!

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Lips of Faith from New Belgium Brewing