Get Real Cask Festival - New York City

Over the weekend Lobster and I attended the Get Real Cask Festival in New York City. We attended the early session on Sunday, and apparently because a lobster vendor didn't show up, everyone with a ticket to that session was allowed to also sample the VIP beers. This was great news for us, as we weren't even expecting a lobster vendor to be there in the first place. More importantly though, we hadn't realized that our ticket would not give us access to all the beers. We were under the understanding that the VIP ticket just allowed you to enter the session an hour early. More than disappointed, I would have been really furious that I paid $65.00 for a ticket and wasn't allowed to try everything, especially because there wasn't a clear list before-hand of the VIP only beers. Many of the beers I was most excited to try were in fact the VIP beers, and I would have been irate at not being able to sample them. (I know I could have bought a VIP ticket, but the only advantage a VIP appeared to have was just an extra tasting hour - but perhaps I just misunderstood.)

Onto the beer. Lobster and I had done some research beforehand and knew which beers we wanted to try out early. These included The Bruery's beers, Ommegang Zuur, Cigar City I.P.A., the Nebraska beers, and Pretty Things' beers.

First up for Lobster and I were The Bruery beers. Unfortunately their Mischief was already kicked, but we were able to get our hands on the Seven Grain Saison and the VIP offering Autumn Maple. The Seven Grain Saison was pale in color and very clean tasting. The Autumn Maple was orange-brown in color, tasted of many spices that blended well, and was overall delicious.

After moving on from The Bruery's beers, we sampled Cigar City Peach I.P.A. which we both found to be overwhelmingly - in a bad way- peachy. The aroma was strong peach and the taste was even stronger.

Ommegang Zuur

The overwhelming winner of the day was Ommegang Zuur, the brewery's sour offering in collaboration with Brouwerji Liefman. It's a flemish sour brown ale. Prior to this Lobster and I hadn't every tried a sour beer. This beer far surpassed our expectations. Our notes said, "dark in color, only slightly foamy, acidic, like sour apple cider, delicious. Unfortunately for us, Zuur is a limited release and almost entirely gone from NYC.

Our notes get even simpler from there for the most part, so here is what I jotted down in the notebook:
Pretty Things Hedgerow Bitter - ESB, orange in color, smelled like vomit, but the taste was fine, nothing special
Pretty Things St. Botolph - English Brown Ale, coffeeish
La Chouffe - Unfiltered Blonde, light, coriander, hoppy, a favorite of Lobster
Otter Creek 'Quercus Vitis Humulus' (VIP) - Barleywine, cloudy, much sweeter than expected
Troegs Pale Ale - golden, boring, very foamy
Firestone Walker Hemp Ale - American Brown Ale, dark amber in color, boring, tasted flat, like a mediocre homebrew, nothing distinct
Captain Lawrence 'Xtra Gold' (VIP) - Belgian Tripel, cloudy, pale, looks like a wheat, fruit tones, maybe coriander, slightly bitter, clearly a Belgian style - Alien liked this one a lot.
Two Brothers Cane and Ebel - Rye Beer, boring, amber, slighly bitter

Greenport Hopnami - Double/Imperial I.P.A., golden in color, not our taste

Even simpler notes:
Beers we noted in a positive way, but didn't write anything other than "good" about:
Captain Lawrence Birra DeCicco - Belgain Dubbel
Nebraska Cardinal Pale Ale - American Pale Ale
River Horse Hipp-O-Lantern Imperial Pumpkin Ale - Pumpkin
River Horse Oak Aged Bourbon Tripel Horse (VIP) - Belgian Tripel
Snuttynose Star Island Single - Belgian Pale Ale
Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans - Robust Porter
Stone I.P.A. - American IPA

In addition to these beers there were some other beers we sampled.

Wandering Star is a new brewery in Pittsfield, MA that is just waiting for their permits before they can sell their beers. They did bring their Raindrop, an American Pale Ale of 5.0% abv to the fest. Lobster said the beer was honey colored and didn't have any flavor, while I said it was golden with a slightly orange hue. It smelled like an old mill, I wrote Sturbridge Village (which the folks at Wandering Star probably know about). Like Lobster, I also found it to be lacking flavor.

Wandering Star Raindrop

Finally, there were some offerings from homebrewers.
Sea Jay ESB - light golden in color, possibly a hint of apple, I liked it a lot
Smokin Summer Ale - Smoked Mild, cloudy, pale, very foamy, tastes like nothing but is still delicious, smokiness was present in the aftertaste
Billingsgate B.S.B. - Belgian Specialty Ale, golden hinting towards red, taste kind of flat and like red wine