It’s early March in Austin, Texas, just days into the city’s flagship visitor-driven event, the South By South West (SXSW) cultural festival. The sun is shining as it should be, and in a busy downtown beer garden, tables of Stetson-clad, Western-booted drinkers are passing on the festival to line up in front of racks of cask beer, filling their branded miniature English pint glasses with an array of pin, firkin and gravity cask pulls from across Texas and the US.
Photos by Justin Brummer
Pinvitational is the first cask festival in Texas – hosted by local breweries Acopon Brewing and Hold Out Brewing, on whose site the event is taking place, and New Yorkers Dutchess Ales, whose founder Michael Messenie has recently relocated to Austin. The event features over thirty Texan and national breweries of all sizes, from the mighty Sierra Nevada to local celebrities Jester King, cask specialists Hogshead out of Denver and North Carolina superstars Fonta FloraBrewing. The turnout is enormous and excitement is high. Austin drinkers are nothing if not adventurous and for many this is their first cask experience, yet not a word is uttered about the beer being warm or flat, despite the balmy weather. This is also an educated urbanaudience, keen to participate in the next big beer trend. And in the US right now, cask is big news.
Many British readers might not think of Texas as being at the forefront of forging US beer trends, and in this instance, that perception is correct. The current cask boom started, unsurprisingly, on the East Coast, where, for the best part of the last decade, breweries like New York’s Strong Rope, Fifth Hammer and Wild East and DC’s Blue Jacket have been steadily growing their local cask-drinking demographics and cask festivals and events are growing in number and popularity. Strong Rope founder Jason Sahler points out that there had previously been aburst of cask popularity in the mid 2000s – and the NERAX New England Real Ale eXhibition (which operates in conjunction with CAMRA) has been going for 25 years – but as craft beer hit its peak, US cask fizzled away until a newer generation of brewery and bar owners with experience of drinking cask in the UK and an interest in cask from a flavour and quality perspective began to quietly take the reins.
Become a CAMRA member today for unlimited free access plus many other membership benefits. Find out more
