The Ambleside Pub is opening in Mount Kisco, New York this week with a house cask Bitter as its star. Normally, I would say that sounds like a very risky venture, but in this case, there’s good reason to suggest it may actually work.

First, people crave authentic experiences lately and pub owner Drew Hodgson has done everything he can to ensure this space is like the traditional pubs of his native England. In addition to the cask ale, the attention to detail covers everything from the interior design of the space down to the Scampi Fries (look ‘em up) you can snack on at the bar.

Second, there has been a slight uptick in the sales of traditional English styles like Dark Mild, and several breweries are even installing handpumps in their taprooms. Drew is aware of these trends, but he’s got more than that going for him.

A few years back, Drew and his wife, Leigh, opened The Hamlet, a British goods store just down the street from The Ambleside. Due to this, he knows he already has a sizable customer base, particularly British expats, craving British goods and an authentic British experience in their home away from home. With these folks alone, there’s a level of comfort that they will regularly turnover firkin-sized casks.  

The primary beverage that will be pulled from the handpumps is their very own Ambleside Best Bitter, a 4.3-percent ABV ale brewed for them by Old Glenham Brewery. The inspiration for the beer goes back to Drew’s youth. He grew up within walking distance from The Boddington Arms in Wilmslow, England, and drank the classic British ale, Boddington’s, on a regular basis.

It’s true that Boddington’s is a shadow of its former self, or so I’m told, but Drew sought out something akin to the Boddington’s from his youth. Something with a bit more character than what the beer presents today.

Working with Ian Hatton at Old Glenham (another British expat), they created a flavorful, and of course sessionable bitter, brewed with a malt base of Maris Otter, and a little Munich and wheat on top of that. It’s hopped with Fuggles, East Kent Golding and Bramling Cross hops.

If you know your British geography, you know that Ambleside is a picturesque village in the Lake District, close to where Drew was born, and Wilmslow is also in the north. So, it goes without saying that the swan necks on the handpumps include sparklers.

When I brought up the question of whether to sparkle or not when speaking to Drew and Ian, they both immediately replied as if there was no other possibility. Sparkler it is.

The beer is the focus of the pub. Drew emphatically tells me, “we care about beer more than anything else.” But they’ve got a perfectly streamlined menu with all the classics if you need a bite. Shepherd's Pie, Bangers and Mash, Fish and Chips and Cornish Pasties, along with the Scampi Fries and other crisps.

It’s more than the beer though, of course. It’s about creating a warm, welcoming place to gather. This will be particularly true when Premier League football matches are happening. The pub will be opening early on game days and Drew believes the pub will also be a destination to watch the matchups.

The pub is a welcome addition to the region, which hasn’t had a space with reliable cask beer in quite some time (The Lazy Boy used to pull cask pints, but that is now a faded memory). In addition to those thirsting for subtle cask beer, given the evolving beer market, The Ambleside may be able to generate some new fans of cask beer. And if cask beer isn’t your thing, they have a bevy of other beverages including a properly served Guinness. Pull up and let them pull you a pint.

It’s highly unlikely that anyone thinks 2023 is going to be the year cask beer makes a comeback. That said, I continue clutching to any signs of hope. And there are some. Before getting to the glass half full, lets get the bad news out of the way.

In October of last year, Seattle’s Machine House Brewery announced its future was up in the air. With their lease up in June of ’23, their new landlord is using the opportunity to jack up the rent. The unaffordable increase is forcing the brewery to look elsewhere or consider closing up shop.

Machine House Brewery, Seattle.

I’m grateful I was able to make it there last year. The beer was great, and Seattle has been incredibly lucky to have them. The bad news is making me very anxious to see what their next move is.   

Speaking of closures, the last few months have been grim for breweries in cask beer’s homeland. It seems we don’t go more than a few days without hearing another UK brewery is closing.

And cask beer continues to struggle there. This was stressed in a September 2022 blog post on the subject by Pete Brown where he said, “it’s time to cauterise the wound that’s bleeding out.”   

A key point he makes is that there are too many pints being served that are in bad form. This is in many ways due to a lack of turnover, which is crucial for a beer style that only has a few days after the cask is tapped before starting to go bad. Greedy or uneducated pubs will ignore or overlook this issue.

This is problematic because the bad beer will send cask enthusiasts away from a pub. Likely not to return. At least not for cask beer. They’re also likely to spread the word to other customers. And for those new to cask, well, there’s never a second chance to make a first impression.

Brown suggests the pubs with low turnover should stop selling cask. Take out the hand pumps. He says, “once you’ve stopped the rot, you can start the recovery. Once you can be sure that curious, younger drinkers will be served a pint that won’t put them off for life, you can feel safe giving them good reasons to try it.” It’s too soon to tell whether these words have resonated in an enduring way.

Now to the optimistic bit. Despite all the bad news, there continues to be great brewers making cask beer and great pubs that serve them in the UK. Older breweries including Fuller’s, Timothy Taylor’s, Greene King, and Harvey’s continue to crank out well-received casks. Others like Black Sheep, Titanic, Abbeydale, Marble, and Coniston do as well. But what is perhaps most promising is that a younger generation of brewers are carrying on the tradition, putting their spin on cask beer and breathing life into this traditional format. This includes breweries like Thornbridge, Five Points, Fyne Ales, and RedWillow.

Further, there are still iconic pubs that have the knowledge to properly care for and serve these beers. Places like The Southampton Arms, The Marble Arch, and The Rutland Arms.

Full disclosure, I say all this as someone who has never set foot on the island (if anyone wants to sponsor a trip there for me to find out what’s happening firsthand, my DMs are open.)

Speaking of Black Sheep, they’re holding their ‘Drink Cask Beer’ festival in late April. It’s being held in support of their broader campaign launched last year with the same name as the festival. Find out more info about the fest here, and the campaign here. Watch the video. It’s great.

Bulls Head Public House, Lititz, Pennsylvania

Stateside, there has been no noticeable shift in cask beer consumption. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s not getting better, but it's also not getting worse.

Bulls Head Public House in Lititz, Pennsylvania is still pulling cask pints in tip-top shape. In addition to having casks from brewers in the region that excel in making cask beer, they’re fortunate to get casks from overseas as well. On my recent pass through there, they had Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh 12 Year Special Reserve Imperial Porter and Forest and Main’s pub ale called ‘Stone Flower’. The latter is a British-style beer but brewed with Munich malt.

Not too far away from Bulls Head, Bethlehem’s Bonn Place Brewing Company is also holding steady with its mix of traditional ales and contemporary beers. Bonn has a good approach to their cask program. They tap just one cask each week on Wednesday or Thursday, and it usually goes within two to three days. Perfect timing for cask beer. Not perfect for me as I stopped by recently on a Saturday night and their pub ale called ‘Mooey’ had just kicked from the hand pull. They still had it on nitro though, which was lovely.  

Bonn Place Brewing Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Though not the cask version, this nitro draft of their Bitter ‘Mooey’ was tasting good.

Dutchess Ales recently tapped a cask of ‘Mizmaze’, their ESB, at The Grand Delancey in New York City. This is one of my favorites from them, so I stopped in for a couple. Owner Mike Messenie was around for the event and promptly asked the staff to remove the sparklers from the hand pull. Though I don’t have strong feelings on this issue, I get a kick out of those that do. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this article by Lily Waite.

I’m really happy to see that Dutchess is still in the cask game, still incredibly passionate about their beer, and still ensuring the places that serve them are doing so in a way that meets their standards. This is critical to the success of cask sales.

‘Mizmaze’, and ESB by Dutchess Ales.

On the other side of the East River, Brooklyn, New York’s Strong Rope Brewery held its 7th Caskiversary on February 4th.  The event featured local breweries, and this year’s lineup seemed to have less messing around with styles than last year. To me, that’s a great thing. I get the urge to want to do something unique, a one-off, but honestly, a pint of cask Bitter is unique. It’s a rare opportunity to simply have traditional, or contemporary style beer, from a cask. No need to add gummy bears, or whatever. I tasted a couple of very good Bitters, a Stout, a Dubbel, and even a couple of good lagers.

There were some carbonation and clarity issues here and there, but overall, the beer was good. Two standouts for me that I hadn’t had before were KCBC’s ESB and Kills Boro’s Vienna Lager.

Looking ahead, this year brings great news for cask fans in the Northeast. In March, the New England Real Ale Exhibition returns after a Covid hiatus. The event will take place March 29-April 1 in Boston and will include over 100 cask-conditioned beers and ciders from the US and the UK. I highly doubt I will be able to make it, but I’m going to try my best.  

Also in the Northeast, on March 26th Connecticut’s Nod Hill will hold ‘An Afternoon of Casks’ and in New Hampshire, there will be ‘Cask.On’. Connecticut’s Two Roads Brewing will host the ‘Two Roads Cask Festival: Now Streaming’ on March 31st. Down in Jersey, River Horse Brewing Company is having its ‘Cask Fest 2023’ on February 25th.  

You may have noticed that I’ve been referring to “cask beer” instead of “cask ale”. That is intentional because there are several folks making delicious cask lager. I think there’s something to this, and I’m working on something that you will hopefully see later this year. Stay tuned.

After getting the attention from some reputable beer bars in New York City with their English-style cask ales, Michael Messenie and Tim Lee took their homebrew project to the next level and formally established Dutchess Ales in 2016 as a cask-only brewery. The project began as a means for the two to have the type of beer they had while in the UK, but couldn’t readily find at home.

There are few breweries in the United States with a genuine commitment to traditional English-style ales, and fewer putting their beer in casks (Machine House, Yorkshire Square, Hogshead, Forest and Main and Bonn Place come to mind). Dutchess popped on my radar a couple of years ago through social media, and I was immediately intrigued, especially since their home base of Wassaic, NY (located in Dutchess County) is a little over an hour from where I live.

Cask ale is nearly impossible to find, and these days when it is available, it is often an experimental beer. I’m not against people doing that, but I personally don’t have much interest in it. So when cask beer enthusiasts like myself find a brewery making traditional beer to be served from a hand pump, not too far from where they live, they get excited.

However, I’m sure like many other fans of traditional cask ale, this excitement usually comes with a bit of trepidation as many US breweries have struggled to successfully execute these varying styles. Further, the bars that serve them, often don’t have the expertise on how to properly handle cask ale.

Not surprisingly, it’s tough to turn a profit being a cask-only operation, and Messenie and Lee knew the end was in sight if they continued to be “overly idealistic”, as Messenie put it. Indeed, with just a handful of accounts, limited output, and no public taproom, profits were severely limited.

Accordingly, Dutchess ramped up production in 2019 by brewing their own beer at Great South Bay in Bay Shore, Long Island, and distributing in cans. They went from having just a handful of accounts, to being distributed all over the metro New York market in a short amount of time, and I was finally able to get my hands on some of their beer.

With my first pint, their Pale Ale called GB (previously, Ghost Beer), I was pleased to find that they nail it, making subtle, English-style ale, delicately incorporating modern American tastes. Sure, this concept is not new, and Dutchess doesn’t hide the fact that their beer is really a hybrid of American and English influences. Countless breweries have tried to do it since the craft beer revolution began several decades ago, but few do it well.

It makes sense that Messenie cites inspiration from UK breweries Adnams and Thornbridge. Adnams being a well-established brewery that makes excellent ales, and Thornbridge, a younger brewery that is based on tradition, but has not shied away from modern trends. Dutchess is successful with intentions that don’t stray far from their inspiration, and they completely maintain the spirit of the styles they brew.

While can sales have taken off, cask production continues to do well (at least until Covid-19 hit. The brewery has halted cask production for the time being.) The brewers are strict about accounts they will provide their casks, only supplying those they know are able to properly handle and serve the beer. The names will come as no surprise to cask fans in New York City, including Spuyten Duyvil and Blind Tiger. You can also find them at The Grand Delancey, a recent addition to the city’s craft beer scene that regularly has cask ale. This was where I first had GB from a hand pump. I was there for a special event featuring other breweries, but I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to have a proper cask ale. Or two.

In addition to the GB, I’ve also had Mizmaze, which they call an Extra Special Bitter (ESB), and Augur, which is a Porter. The latter is the most traditional of the three with an aroma, flavor profile and mouthfeel that fits with what many older American beer aficionados would call a “Porter”. Of the three, it’s the only one with an English hop. It includes East Kent Goldings, among others. The base malt for this and GB is Maris Otter from Thomas Fawcett. It’s a very enjoyable beer.

Of those that I tasted, Mizmaze is the beer that I would most like to have from a hand pump. The “Bitter” style, and its subcategories can be a bit fuzzy, but a unifying theme is that they are all quite drinkable, with low carbonation, a good balance between malt and hops, though with a bitter presence. Everything about Mizmaze fits the bill, including its 4.4-percent ABV, and 34 IBU’s. The base malt for this beer is Golden Promise. Perhaps more than any other, this style demonstrates how magnificent traditional cask ale can be.

This is in contrast to what some inexperienced and experimental brewers are putting in cask. Commenting on those that are making weird cask one-offs, Messenie says, “brewers (in my opinion) should maybe consider the fact that not every beer is right for a cask - I think it is a vehicle to show the beauty and subtlety of the best ingredients, not a wow factor.”

I think Dutchess, particularly it’s GB, the Pale Ale, could serve as a gateway for modern craft beer drinkers, bringing some much needed interest to these classic, under-appreciated styles. Messenie, discussing the prospects for cask ale in the United States, optimistically notes, “if brewers and bars can find a nice meeting place and the quality is continuously improving, when consumers are directed to the cask option, I think they will keep coming back for more.”