Manhattan Cask Ale Festival at Chelsea Piers: March 28-30

Friday, March 28 - Sunday, March 30
Chelsea Brewing Company & The Gotham Imbiber present...
1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival at Chelsea Brewing Company


Our friend Alex Hall, publisher of The Gotham Imbiber, is presenting a cask ale festival this weekend at Chelsea Piers, in conjunction with Chelsea Brewing Company.

At least 35 cask conditioned ales will be available: Six from Chelsea Brewing Co. and about 30 from other craft brewers - including a number of rare cask beers not usually seen in NY.

What is cask ale, you might ask?
Here is a definition from Alex' website:
"Unfiltered, unpasteurized beer brewed only from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide. Cask Ale is also known as 'Cask-Conditioned Beer', and 'Real Ale'."

Even though Alex hails from Brighton, England, there will be no British beers at this festival.
But its not because they didn't want them. No, unfortunately a failed and stranded ship in the Mid-Atlantic was the one with the container of casks on board.
However, there is still a great line-up of American cask ales. Breweries expected to be sending casks include:
Chelsea, Arcadia, Blue Point, Brooklyn, BruRm @ Bar, Butternuts, Captain Lawrence, Dark Horse, Defiant, Empire, Flying Bison, Ithaca, Jolly Pumpkin, Kelso, The Livery, New England
Otter Creek & Wolaver's, Sixpoint, Sly Fox, Smuttynose, Southampton, Sprecher, Three Floyds,
Troegs, Two Brothers and Weyerbacher.

Beers will be available while stocks last, first come first served. Note that all casks will be tapped and available from the start, except for any that are deemed to need additional settling and conditioning time.

Featuring at least 25 rare ales and lagers, all cask-conditioned.
5 or 6 will be brewed in-house by Chelsea Brewing Company with the rest brewed by other small, artisanal craft breweries.

Free admission (pay as you go for beer, served in 8oz and 16oz containers.

It's on all weekend and on a pay-as-you-go basis, so there's no need to hastily chug them back to get your money's worth! The festival is open noon to midnight each day
at:
Chelsea Brewing Company
Pier 59, Chelsea Piers
New York, NY
(212) 336-6440

Links:
Gotham Imbiber
Gotham Imbiber (myspace)
Chelsea Brewing Company
MurphGuide Page for Beer Lovers