BARREL OF FUN
Festival showcases Albuquerque brewers’ cask ales
Take in the beauty of local cask ales during the Cask Ale Festival at La Cumbre Brewing Co. on March 4. The festival, which is limited to about 200 people, will feature cask ales from 12 local breweries. Participants are host La Cumbre Brewing Co. as well as Bosque Brewing Co., Boxing Bear Brewing Co., Canteen Brewhouse, Chama River Brewing Co., Marble Brewery, Nexus Brewery, Palmer Brewery and Cider House, Quarter Celtic Brew Pub, Steel Bender Brewyard, Tractor Brewing Co. and Turtle Mountain Brewing Co.
“We’ve done a cask ale festival before but it’s been five to six years,” La Cumbre marketing director Cory Campbell said. “We did one the first year we were open, I think, and haven’t done one since. Cask ales are a part of who we are. We usually have two on everyday, as well as we have one on the bar top every Friday. We thought: You know what? Let’s get some other breweries in the mix.”
La Cumbre will be tapping a cask of Gracias Por Fumar, which is its brandy barrel-aged smoked porter. The cask ales that the other participating breweries will be bringing are a mystery for now, but patrons will be pleasantly surprised, according to Campbell, who is a fan of cask ales.
“Cask ale is basically beer without carbonation or nitrogenation,” Campbell said. “To be considered cask ale, it has to be straight out of a firkin. When yeast eats the sugars to create alcohol, its byproduct is carbon dioxide, and that’s how people have been making beer forever. It’s a very, very English style. … It’s just naturally fermented, naturally carbonated beer as opposed to adding carbon dioxide, because all of the beers that we bottle and all of the beers on tap, we carbonate them after the fact. Cask ale is not carbonated as far as secondary carbonation. (Cask ales) just let the yeast do it’s thing.”
The $25 admission fee gets patrons a sample of all 12 of the casks, a pint of their favorite and a limited-edition sticker. There will be giveaways every hour, and two food trucks will be on site, including TFK Smokehouse, for hungry patrons. La Cumbre also will be giving out Lyft cards for a free ride home, while supplies last.
Get there on time, because the event is limited to 200 people.
“We have enough beer that we’re buying from all these different breweries for 200 people,” Campbell said. “That’s how it’s going to be. (It’s) one of those you kind of have to get here (early).