One of the great American beer festivals just got even better! We at CASC are bringing a little bit of NERAX to the American Craft Beer Festival. We will have a booth for all sessions, with a great line-up of cask-conditioned beers.
Deep Ellum is no doubt familiar to many of you as a delightful place to hang out and enjoy a few casks. How about three firkins of cask-conditioned beers? Loddon Brewery Hocus Pocus Dark Ale; RCH Steam Lovers Golden Ale, and Inveralmond Lia Fail Scottish Dark Ale. As spring warms and summer approaches, come spend a pleasant evening on the deck!
Cheers!
We have served lagers on cask at NERAX, as well as the occasional kellerbier, but a whole cask festival of lagers? Why not!
For the second year running, Jack's Abby is presenting an all lager cask festival at the Tavern in Framingham. We at CASC/NERAX are providing cellaring services to support this special event. We expect to pour about 24 cask lagers over the course of three sessions.
Beers and brewers include: Jack’s Abby (of course!), Mahr’s Bock and Ungespundet-Hefetrüb, Pretty Things American Darling, Berkshire Brewing Czech Pilsner, Left Hand Brewing Polestar Pilsner, Notch Brewing Session Pils, Watch City Bitchloden Wheat Lager, John Harvard’s Brewery Mayfair Maybock, The Tap Brewing Company, Blue Point Brewing, Martha’s Exchange, Thomas Hooker, Cape Cod Beer, and Harpoon.
Tickets are $10 ahead of time or $15 at the door and includes a souvenir glass. Beers will be $5 for a pint and $2.50 for a 6oz pour.
100% of proceeds go to One Mission. One Mission is a childhood cancer foundation dedicated to enhancing the lives of pediatric cancer patients and their families.
Cheers!
We're looking forward an exciting Friday tonight. As more beers become ready to serve every day, we'll probably open with about 60 beers and 4 ciders. Saturday afternoon, we could open with 50-60 beers and ciders.
If you're looking for news of beers you have been asking about: It's not clear (pun unavoidable) whether the Banner Beer American Ale will be ready tonight or on Saturday. We hope to tap the Hill Farmstead Edward on Saturday morning. The Mahrs Ungespundet we expect to tap on Saturday evening to celebrate the most epic NERAX ever.
Several casks have kicked already, and we'll see the Reaper more and more. Don't worry: Since we started out with around 110 firkins in the hall, we expect to have lots of amazing cask-conditioned beers and ciders pouring until the very end of the festival Saturday evening.
Life is short! Drink Real Ale!
Every year, the Cask-conditioned Ale Support Campaign (CASC), presenters of NERAX, sponsors two scholarships for cellarmanship training. Cellarmanship is the art of caring for and presenting cask-conditioned beers. The training consists of an overview of cask-conditioned beers including the history, benefits, and artisan nature of Real Ale. It will also teach the trainee how Real Ale is made and placed into the cask. The trainee will learn how to properly cellar it, set it up, vent it, tap it and finally serve it. Along the way the trainee will be taught the skills needed to know when the cask ale is ready to serve as well as if it is fit to serve.
We are accepting applications for 2014. For details, see below.
Real ale is a top-fermented beer that completes its secondary fermentation in the container from which it is served. Cask-conditioned beers are real ales served from the brewer's cask.
CASC (the Cask-conditioned Ale Support Campaign) was formed in the spring of 1997 to promote real ale festivals in the Boston area. It was established to promote and educate brewers, publicans, and the public about the brewing, distribution, and pleasures of real ale. We are dedicated to the sensible enjoyment of top-fermented, traditionally brewed ales that undergo a secondary fermentation in the vessel from which they are served. CASC is a group of like-minded individuals who seek to expand the awareness of producers, distributors, and consumers about the use of traditional ingredients in, and dispensing of, real ales.
