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America Is in the Midst of a Slow Beer Revolution
For much of the 20th century, American beer was weak and watery. By the mid-1970s, mass consolidation and industrialization of American beer made local and regional brews almost unheard of. Today, America is in the midst of a craft beer renaissance. More than 500 breweries exist nationwide, many of which create well-crafted, eccentrically-named ales, porters, stouts, pilsners, and hefeweizens. (Anyone care for a Wasatch Polygamy Porter or a Dogfish Head Golden Shower?*)
In the past two decades, many small brewers placed emphasis on extreme beer, offering very strong and hoppy beers as a sort of reaction to the relatively tasteless and watery stuff churned out by the Budweisers and Coors of the world. Yet these brewers are only now becoming more sophisticated, incorporating long-established European tastes and methods to make more nuanced and flavorful beers. Enter cask beer.
Cask beer is unfiltered, unpasteurized and poured from an unpressurized wood or wood-lined “cask” rather than a pressurized metal keg. It is usually very lightly carbonated and is often served at about 55 degrees. Although warm, flat beer may not seem like the obvious result of using more traditional brewing techniques, one must remember that cold, pressurized, carbon dioxide-injected kegs haven’t been around long. Until the ’40s or ’50s, most beer was cask beer although cask beer never really left English pubs. Even some Belgian beers have always been lightly carbonated and served at room temperature.
Nearly 500 bars in the United States serve cask beer and New York City is a mecca for cask beer lovers: about 50 bars pour the stuff. But is it a beer quirk, something for Anglophiles, food nerds or heavily-bearded Revolutionary War re-creationists or is cask beer better than the regular thing?
Cask beer is not a style of beer but a method of storage and pouring, so quality and styles vary. Most beers are filtered and pasteurized, which kills yeast. The yeast in cask beer remains alive, changing its complexion and flavor while in the cask. In some ways, cask beer is the vinification of beer. The relatively warm serving temperature and lack of carbonation forces the beer’s taste to stand on its own. When stored in a cask, great beer becomes better, while bad beer becomes worse. As it is with wine, good and bad cask beers are utterly incomparable, and every nuance in flavor finds itself on the palate. Cask beer is in no danger of replacing the stuff that sits in plastic cups on beer pong tables (although that does often end up being warm and flat) or that which is sipped from bottles at tailgate parties, but cask beer should become a mainstay for discerning beer drinkers who are looking for a great-tasting pint or two.
Because beer stored in casks doesn’t last long, most bars that serve it change their cask offerings every week or two. According to Alex Hall, a transplanted Englishman who has had a large role in New York City's cask scene, cask offerings to watch for this spring include Pretty Things Fluffy White Rabbits, Troegs Nugget Nectar, Blue Point Spring Fling and Flying Dog Raging Bitch.
Here are a few worthwhile cask-pouring bars in New York City, along with some of the better cask pours that they have had on tap recently. (Several cask-pouring bars in other U.S. cities are listed below).
Beer Table
Located in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Beer Table is a beer bar that looks like a wine bar. It’s more intimate than boisterous, with communal tables and a small space in back for more private conversation. In addition to one cask and a few conventional taps, Beer Table offers a list of bottled beers of varying size (about 300ml-800ml). You’ll find little-known small-batch Belgians, challenging Germans, and even sweet, Muscadet-like South African Meads. The beers on draft and cask are usually made in America, and each offering is carefully selected by proprietor Justin Philips. Beer Table recently offered Otter Creek's Quercus Vitis Humulus on cask. This is a strong American-made ale that is something of a beer/wine hybrid as it contains barleywine ale, French grape juice, and champagne yeast. As a cask pint, it comes out tasting very similar to an excellent strong Belgian-style ale, with soft grape and fruit undertones. Some who have had the Q.V.H. from a bottle have complained about its overpowering flavor, and it’s a perfect example of how a strongly-flavored beer can go from overwhelming to pleasant when it’s less carbonated.
The Breslin
Attached to the hip Ace Hotel, this bar cum restaurant looks like a cozy English country pub but don’t let that fool you: fashionable New Yorkers flock to The Breslin to see and be seen and to pretend not to care about such pedestrian things. The Breslin has the same ownership as the Spotted Pig, and although the former doesn’t have quite the same Toad Hall decor as the latter, it definitely follows the same theme. On cask, The Breslin serves two brews that have been specially made for its restaurant: Breslin Aberdeen Ale, by Sixpoint Craft Ales, and Spotted Pig Bitter Ale, by Brooklyn Brewery. The Breslin Aberdeen is a slightly sweet, Scottish-style amber, and the Spotted Pig Bitter is a dead ringer for many of the local cask bitters than one runs into in England—rather flavorful, slightly hoppy, and completely quaffable. Both of these ales are meant to enhance the feeling of being in a comfy pub, rather than to evoke extremely complex and nuanced flavors. Fortunately, both pair very well with good pub food.
Breslin at Ace Hotel
The Gingerman
While most American bars serious about beer veer toward a pub-style atmosphere, The Gingerman offers more of a Germanic ambiance, and is probably the most elegant beer bar in New York City. Due to its Midtown location, the bar is a veritable crush after work, but it’s large enough to offer a little elbow room. A Williams Brothers Joker IPA from Scotland was fairly hoppy and flavorful, and recognizable as an IPA even as a cask. Don't be afraid of particularly flavorful or hoppy cask beers. Carbonation can add to the bitterness of hops, making them overpowering. But without that carbonation, strong hops can be more of a flavor than a mouth-wide sensation. Another recent cask offer, Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale (NY state), offered a nice, balanced mix of hops and malt, with some flavorful orange undertones.
Jimmy’s No. 43
This popular, sub-level East Village restaurant and bar has been noted for its tasty and affordable seasonal and local menu. It also happens to have a well-considered beer menu, including a regular cask pour.
Rattle ’N Hum
Similar in style to brewpubs found in the Pacific Northwest, Rattle ’N Hum exudes a comfortable atmosphere with long wooden tables, an extensive beer list, and a near-religious devotion to that beer. Because of its Midtown location, the atmosphere can change from night to night, depending on what happens at Madison Square Garden, and what major sporting event is on TV. Two to four casks are always offered, and they are usually of good quality. Many stouts say that they have hints of chocolate, which are never tasted when they are served cold and carbonated. As a cask, the chocolate in Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter becomes a noticeable, wonderful addition.
If you’re still hesitant to try a cask beer, opt for a Belgian abbey ale, such as a Chimay Red or Blue, and make sure it’s served at the proper temperature, 55 to 65 degrees.
*Dogfish Head briefly changed the name of this imperial pilsner from Golden Shower to Golden Era, before discontinuing it altogether.
Beer Table
427 B. 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
718/965-1196
www.beertable.com
The Breslin
16 West 29th Street
New York, N.Y. 10001
212/679-1939
www.thebreslin.com
The Gingerman
11 East 36th Street
New York, N.Y. 10016
212/532-3740
www.gingerman-ny.com
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 East 7th Street
New York, N.Y. 10003
212/982-3006
www.jimmysno43.com
Rattle ’N Hum
14 East 33rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10016
212/481-1586
Outside of New York City
Birch & Barley/Churchkey
1337 14th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
202/567-2576
www.birchandbarley.com
Hopcat Beer Bar
25 Iona SW
Grand Rapids, M.I. 49503
616/451-HOPS
www.hopcatgr.com
Horse Brass Pub
4534 SE Belmont Street
Portland, O.R. 97215
503/232-2202
www.horsebrass.com
James E. McNellie's Public House
409 East 1st Street
Tulsa, O.K. 74120
918/382-7468
www.mcnellies.com/site/sections/1
Redlight Redlight
745 Bennett Road
Orlando, F.L. 32803
407/893-9832