Not strictly UK, but I'm sure it's of interest to some here.
Since it's local for me, we went along to the first Manhattan Cask Ale
Festival yesterday, run by a guy called Alex Hall who used to work at the
Evening Star in Brighton, he said. Held in Chelsea Brewing Company, over
on
the far west side of the Island (Chelsea Piers). He told me they'd
ordered
some stuff from Dark Star, and a few others in the UK, but it hadn't
arrived
in time and he'll put it on at the next event they're having in May.
35 odd US brewed cask ales on gravity. While one, BruRm's Charlie Mopps
IPA - 4.0%, was the first thing resembling ordinary bitter that I've seen
in
the states (well, ignoring "Yuengling Lager", which isn't so very
different
to some UK keg bitters), the others basically left exposed the worst
excesses of American tendencies in brewing and would have had most of the
beers at even the National Winter Festival hiding behind the sofa (take a
look at the top rated beers on BA, if you're in any doubt this is what
they
expect here http://beeradvocate.com/top_beers).
I think there were maybe
5-6 in the 9%+ class, several 7.x and 8.x% and the norm ran from 5.0 - 6.9
%. So we kept our session fairly short - also because we missed the bus
we
wanted to take in, and got there a bit later than intended.
Nice selection all the same, had a delicious organic "All American Ale"
from
Otter Creek brewing in Vermont, one of my favourite US brewers already,
which weighed in at a relatively calm 6.0% and went down very easily. The
Mrs liked a Smoked Rye beer and one of the death by hops beers from
Weyerbacher. The barman gave us a free taster of the house brewed
1000Gyle
which runs about 10.6% and is a bit like drinking hopped extract.
Interestingly, I saw the festival advertised in Sheffield, when I was
there
in February. Both the Wellington (former Cask + Cutler) and the Kelham
Island Tavern were s****ting posters for the event.
No admission fee, but beer was selling at $5/6/7/8/9 a pint, which I
suppose
isn't the highest I've seen charged in NYC, but should cover their costs
anyway. Plenty were running out by the time we were done, and they were
running again this evening.
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