Stone Ruination IPA dry-hopped Amarillo,
Evolution Lot 6 Double IPA & a pin (5-gallon cask) of a one-off Bacon Porter (!)
Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale dry hopped with Cascade
                   Mamas Little Yella Pils w/ rosehips
                   Old Chub w/ coconut 
Weyerbacher Blanche
Flying Fish Exit 4 w/ Centennial & Citra
                   Hopfish IPA dry hopped with centennial
Brewer’s Art Resurrection
Stillwater/Brewer’s Art Debutante
Stillwater Beaujolais cask Existent (only for VIP hour)
Troegs Javahead Stout (dry hopped with Columbus)
Great Divide Yeti
BrewDog Paradox Isle of Arran
Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Red, White & Birch (red oak/white oak/birch)
Stoudt’s Heifer-in-Wheat w/ kumquat
Yards Saison (dry hopped with Kent Goldings)
The Raven Lager
Flying Dog Gonzo on oak
                 Doggie Style Pale Ale double dry hopped with CTZ (Columbus, Tomahawk,Zeus) and Centennial
Breckenridge  Summer Bright with Simcoe Hops
                       471 IPA w/ glacier
White Marsh Daily Crisis IPA, A10-Warthog Ale
Brewer’s Alley Oatmeal Stout [a blend of 2/3 Oatmeal Stout aged in a Woodford Reserve Bourbon barrel for 3 weeks & 1/3 "virgin" Oatmeal Stout]
DuClaw 2010 Devil’s Milk aged in Jack Daniels Whiskey Barrel
Dog Brewing Java Stout with French oak, cacao nibs, espresso beans & vanilla
Oliver Hot Monkey Love batch #2  2010 drawn directly from oak barrel (aged 10 months)
           Pagan Porter with vanilla
           Draft Punk Beaujolais cask  w/ Juniper & honey (for VIP hour)
Oliver/Stillwater Channel Crossing #4 dry hopped w/ Tettnanger

I hope you’ll agree, this event is not to be missed.
There’ll be Designated Driver tix available at the door : $10 free soda with a 25% discount on food

Casks:
MP2: Le Revelateur w/ Vanilla & Cacao
Oliver / Stillwater Channel Crossing #3
Oliver Jacob’s Winter Celebration in Beaujolais Nouveau

Brewer’s Art Drafts:
Bière De Mars
Débutante (Collaboration w/ Stillwater)
Green Peppercorn Tripel
Ozzy
Resurrection
Sour Cherry Ale

Oliver Drafts:
18 Smoke Porter
Bière De Garde
Bishop’s Breakfast
Channel Crossing #3 (Collaboration w/ Stillwater)
Cherry Blossom Ale
Cream Ale
Hot Monkey Love
Le Revelateur
Strongman Sorachi Ace
Sweet & Sour Cherry (Collaboration w/ Brewer’s Art)

Stillwater Drafts:
25 to 1
Cellar Door
Existent

Quite an impressive line-up, I hope you’ll agree! Join us if you can.

OK, last week I asked what was first brewed in Britain in 1879? Some creative and amusing answers but the answer according to my source is that on the 19th April 1879, lager beer was first brewed in Britain by William Younger & Co. (Edinburgh). Rick Z. was first off the mark with lager but Jonathan chimed in with the brewery name so you both win a growler of Oliver Ale, congratulations gentlemen!

I hope by now that you are aware of the forthcoming Real Ale Festival to be held at The Ale House on May 14th. You can buy tickets at www.prattstreetalefest.com. There’s going to be a huge amount of wonderful beer there from your favorite local and national breweries and you know there’ll be some amazing rare treats that you’re not likely to see again. So this week I’m offering V.I.P. admission for two to the festival and all you have to do to participate is leave a comment via the option below and I’ll hold a draw next Friday to choose the winner. Sound good? Then get to it.

Cheers

Steve

Oliver Ales : Hot Monkey Love

Oliver Ales : Oak Aged 3 Lions

Oliver Ales : Mocha Java Porter

The Brewer’s Art : Resurrection Ale infused with blackberries

Flying Dog : Gonzo Imperial Porter

Pub Dog : Golden Belgian Ale

Stillwater Artisinal Ales : Stateside Saison

Arcadia : Angler’s Ale dry hopped with Goldings

Arcadia : I.P.A. dry hopped with Cascade

Weyerbacher : Hops Infusion

and providing the container is cleared by customs in time a cask from Craigmill (Scotland).

The festival runs from noon through 5 pm and as always sampling is unlimited (until the casks are empty).

Hope to see you all on Saturday.

Russian nesting dolls, cask style!

The hits just keep on coming. To add to the already busy cask festival friendly March our friends at Yards Brewery are also holding an event. Check out the details @ http://yardsbrewing.com/events_real-ale-invitational.asp . A good time guaranteed. We’ll also have some information regarding developments for our own festival on the 20th in the next couple of days. Also, as already posted by Tom @ http://www.yoursforgoodfermentables.com/2010/03/national-cask-ale-week-in-us.html March 29th sees the start of National Cask Ale Week in the U.K. Being a Brit and an advocate of cask ale I could not let this event pass without some celebration at The Pratt Street Ale House  so for the duration of cask ale week (March 29th – April 5th) all of our 3 cask ales will be offered at the special price of $3/pint between 5pm and close. Also on Friday 2nd April we will have the famous glass-head firkin on the bar serving $2 pints, oh yeah!

http://www.spbw.org/springraf/

Remember tickets are strictly limited to 110 so get ‘em quick, it’s going to be a blast!

Real Ale. From this ....

to this ....

to this! Fresh and delicious!

So, onto the Real Ale Festival …. preparation started in earnest several months ago when Alan Moore of the SPBW began the laborious task of contacting brewers, distributors and sales reps to gain commitments to supply casks to the festival. Over time a list grew and we knew that this was going to be a very special festival. The placement of the event as one of the closing highlights of the first ever Baltimore Beer Week helped push this celebration of cask ale to an unprecedented scale! Clearly we were going to need more casks than ever before. Fortunately people such as Erin Tyler of Legends Ltd exist and was on board early to help arrange for us to ship empty casks to the Boulder Brewery, Weyerbacher, The Bruery and Lagunitas so that we were able to offer the festival goer a more diverse range of cask ale than ever before. Of course this whole process is never as straightforward as it sounds and the possibility of some no shows sent us scrambling around for more casks (and a big shout out to Casey at Max’s and Clipper City for helping out here!) For whatever reasons casks we had hoped to get from Lagunitas, Magic Hat and Evolution did not happen but we still managed to present the best line-up of cask beer that I have seen for a very long time. Needless to say we had various other logistical issues to deal with from making sure that we had enough tapping equipment, planning where we would put all of these casks to ensure that everybody attending would have the best possible festival experience and so on. Obviously this is still a learning experience and some issues that we hadn’t foreseen will be addressed next year, most notably bathroom facilities to deal with the increased number of attendees. Set up of the actual festival is made easier by the army of volunteers supplied by the SPBW who hauled all of the casks from the basement and placed them all per our set-up plan. Assistant brewer Justin oversaw this part of the deal and I returned later that night (2.30am to be precise) to deal with the task of venting and tapping the 39 casks we had distributed throughout the Ale House.

Just finding storage space for all of the casks was a challenge

It turns out that venting and tapping that many casks is quite an undertaking and I didn’t leave the Ale House until 6.30am.  It felt like managed to get to bed just in time to get up and go back to work! I’ll have to plan this one a bit better next year. Of course, the proper stillaging, venting and tapping of the casks is of paramount importance to quality of the product. We wanted to ensure that all of the beer was presented in the correct way so that the beer had time for the yeast to settle and excess carbonation to vent. Tapping can sometime be hazardous as a few casks were excessively lively and in one case there was so much pressure that the tap was blown from my hand and I was left wearing a few pints of pale ale! Not fun.

the lounge area. Mmm .... Hot Monkey Love

side patio

side patio

upstairs bar area

upstairs bar

upstairs function room

Once the final beer line-up was in place Alan made laminated signs for each one and Sarah our events coordinator printed out a list of all of the beers with room for the discerning beer fan to make notes and we even provided pencils … that’s how much we love you guys! The event was staffed by volunteers who did a wonderful job, cheerful and enthusiastic one and all! The Ale House provided a special festival menu for the day, as the weather negated the possibility of using the outside grill that we have used in previous years. Speaking of the weather, the cold rain didn’t seem to dampen anybody’s spirits. The outside areas were well covered and I hardly even noticed the rain (but hey, I’m English so I’m used to it!)

Mr. Alan Hew, member of the SPBW or English Country Gentleman ... you decide?

Bad weather can't keep people away from good beer!

under the tent on the side patio

side patio

Current president of the SPBW Alan Moore (left) and former president Dominic Cantalupo without whom these events wouldn't take place

Erin of Legends Ltd (supplier of many of the great beers present) and some brewer guy!

Alexander D.Mitchell lV (Correspondent for The Mid Atlantic Brewing News)(left) and Justin Dvorkin (Co-owner, Pratt St. Ale House)

the aftermath

So that’s it. The Real Ale Festival has come and gone for the 6th year. Bigger and better than ever before with more beer from more breweries than ever. More people than I could possibly mention were involved in making this event such a success. You know who you are. Thank you. Here’s to next year!

Cheers

Steve

Got Firkins?

This really is going to be an incredible festival and testament to the popularity of cask conditioned beer. If you haven’t already got a ticket, get one NOW!

I spoke with Mike @ The Judge’s Bench earlier who informed me that the Dark Horse Ale is currently on tap and selling well and once that kicks it will be replaced by the 3 Lions Ale. Can’t wait to get over there for a pint! Look out for the Irish Red going on tap at NcNevin’s in Canton any day now. It’s a cool bar, well worth checking out. Our Vanilla Pagan Porter will be the featured cask @ The Metropolitan Coffee House soon, again if you’ve never been there, check it out! Cask nights are every Thursday from 6pm at the upstairs bar. Also check out Dego Dames in Little Italy and Sonoma’s in Columbia who will have Ironman Pale Ale on tap any time now.

Things are coming together for The Chesapeake Real Ale Festival (www.spbw.org/realale). We’ve shipped a number of firkins out west so (God willing that the breweries can turn them around in time for delivery to the festival) expect casks from Stone, The Bruery, Lagunitas, Weyerbacher and The Boulder Brewery. We will of course be featuring casks from all your favorite local (Brewer’s Art, Clipper City, DuClaw etc.) and regional (Troegs, Lancaster, Dogfish Head and more) breweries. This year’s festival will be bigger and better than ever and will likely feature 35+ casks throughout the whole of the Pratt Street Ale House including the upstairs bar and function room for the first time. Tickets are available now, $35 in advance/ $45 on the door through the spbw website and will be available for sale at the Ale House later this week. I’m particularly excited that we’ll be offering a very special pre-release of “Hot Monkey Love” and “My Monkey’s Got Wood” (an Oak aged version). Both casks have been aging since April and will weigh in around the 10% abv mark. Only 2 casks of each of these exist so get it while you can!

We’re likely to be experimenting with some bourbon barrel aged 3 Lions in the near future. It’s been a long time since I’ve used bourbon barrels, 2002 I think so it’s an exciting prospect. I’m going to put a batch of 3 Lions in 4 bourbon barrels, stick ‘em in a darkened corner of the basement and then release one every 3 months. Hopefully we can make a bit of an event for each release … should be an interesting experiment in barrel aging!

right, I’d better get back to kegging the Coventry Cream Ale….

Cheers

Steve