When I moved to Brooklyn in the summer of 2002, The Brazen Head was one of seven bars in all of NYC that served hand-drawn cask ales (i.e. unfiltered, non-artificially carbonated ales served at cellar temperature) on a regular basis. I would guess there are now at least seven bars in walking distance of Brazen Head serving cask ales as the total number of cask outlets in NYC has gotten closer to triple digits than single digits.
Two or three times a year, the Brazen Head hosts the “Cask Head” cask ale festival, one of a number of cask festivals in the city organized by Alex Hall of Gotham Imbiber. We try to make it to each one for a couple hours, if our schedules allow. Past trips have included gems like Shawnee Craft Brewing’s “V.S.O.P” and a rare NY appearance of Three Floyds.
This past Saturday, Martha and I met up with Martha’s friend Brooke for a few rounds of whatever happened to be pouring at the time. The Brazen Head offers full and half pint portions of everything, which opens the way for tasting a wider variety. We each picked up two of the half-pint glasses and and ample supply of tickets.
Back row: Duck-Rabbit stout, Barrier ESB, Speakeasy Prohibition.
Front row: Bear Republic Pete Brown Tribute, Brooklyn Detonation, Chelsea Pumpkin Pie
When I walked in, Martha had already picked up two beers. The first was the Bear Republic Pete Brown Tribute Ale, a 6.5% ABV American brown ale that was smooth drinking with some pleasant nutty flavor though a bit heavy on the hops in the finish. The second was the Duck-Rabbit Milk Chocolate Stout, which turned out to be our collective favorite of the festival. Duck-Rabbit is a brewery from North Carolina who describe themselves as “The Dark Beer Specialist”. They get no argument from me with this stout. Lovely milk-chocolate and roast malt aromas serve as an appetizing preview to a supersmooth drinking milk stout that is neither too sweet nor too bitter. It’s almost like someone found the perfect mix of chocolate milk and a good stout.
My first trip to the cask stand netted the Brooklyn Detonation Ale and Barrier Antagonist ESB. The Detonation is a double IPA from Brooklyn Brewery which I have had on tap a couple times before and thought was a decent double IPA, if a little on the sweet side. The cask version was remarkably different, mostly due to the HUGE fuck-off citrus hop aroma that greeted the drinker. I suspect this is due to dry-hopping in the cask, though I never confirmed this. Detonation is less sweet from the cask than on tap but it still has a great big malt character in between the apricot like hops and the earthy bitter finish. The Barrier Antagonist is an ESB dry-hopped with four varieties of hop that smells like fresh-cut grass and pine and has a super hoppy flavor for the style, likely as a result of the heavy dosing of dry-hopping. Once you get past the big hop presence, it’s relatively smooth drinking but too piney in the end.
Brooke’s first beer run brought the Speakeasy Prohibition Ale, a decent American amber ale that was pleasant, unremarkable drink despite a slightly soapy aroma, and the Chelsea Brewing Company Pumpkin Pie Spiced Ale. The guy pouring the beers claimed he liked this beer a lot even though he wasn’t usually a fan of pumpkin ales. The aroma held some promise, evoking a freshly baked pumpkin pie. A bit of sourness suggested the smell of a pie that had been sitting out a bit too long. Unfortunately, the aroma was the best part of this thin, watery, slightly sour beer that Brooke poured down the sink in the womens room after we each managed two mouthfuls.
Later on, I picked up the Chelsea Brewing Company NY State of Mind Hop Harvest Ale to sample their addition to the recent influx of fresh hop beers, and I was left thinking that CBC should be placed on my “AVOID” list at future cask fests. Something of a fresh-cut grass hop profile, but ultimately watery and washed out flavor that tastes like a run-of-the-mill ale you might find at a less reputable London bar.
The other winner from the event was the Blue Point 10th Anniversary Double IPA. Like the Brooklyn Detonation, this had a huge fresh citrus and pine aroma and flavor, yet was smooth drinking. Of course, it helped that Brooke and I are both big fans of hops.
Our afternoon was rounded out with two beers from Maryland: the Oliver Ironman Pale Ale and Heavy Seas Holy Sheet. The Ironman is a pleasant, slightly metallic sessionable ale with a biscuity aroma and nice malt undertones from Oliver’s Ales, a Baltimore brewer known for producing excellent interpretations of traditional English ales. The Holy Sheet is a well-balanced dubbel that has an unfortunate medicinal flavor appearing in the middle of the taste.
The crowd seemed a little smaller than previous Cask Head events. Combined with the lack of any exceptionally high-rated or rare ales on the list, this made for a slower turnover of open casks. So it goes.
(The full cask list is available here.)
((And on a music related sidenote, we were pleasantly jarred to hear What Do You Want Me To Say? by The Dismemberment Plan come on the stereo in the middle of our visit.))