Slightly Grittier
On Friday, I got to try a special batch of Gritty McDuff’s Best Bitter…only I didn’t have it at Gritty’s. A special cask of the beer was prepared for Novare Res. I don’t remember all of the tweaks made to the recipe, but the one cahnge worth noting is the half pound of willamette hops deposited directly into the cask. The folks at Novare have been sitting on the cask for a couple weeks to let the flavors mellow. They tapped the cask either late on Thursday or when they opened on Friday (it was not yet available when I left at 8pm on Thursday, and when I showed up at 3:30 Friday, it was on the menu), so it may not be available anymore. Hopefully this will be first of many special casks provided by some of the breweries who don’t otherwise have beers available at Novare. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing some Old Thumper or Jamaican Style Stout on tap there.
Above and beyond having a great cask beer, it was nice to be able to count this pint towards the Uprising. Each Uprising card includes two slots dedicated to cask beer—any cask beer! Of course, there isn’t a beer availble on cask very often, and up until now I’ve always missed my chance to order one (or have counted the beer as a non-cask entry on the card). In addition to the Best Bitter, there was also a cask of Allagash Interlude available on Friday, so I was able to have both cask beers required by the Uprising in one night. I’ve been keeping track of my progress (and a running list of all the beers I’ve had and movies I’ve watched this year) on the Movie + a Beer page.
