The vessel is a cask, and the beer, currently a subtly smoked porter called Smoke & Dagger, from Framingham’s Jack’s Abby, changes often. The setup is not proprietary. Bars around the city are serving cask-conditioned beer to a devoted group of patrons looking for something different.

Affixed to a wooden box the size of a toaster oven on top of the bar at Atwood’s Tavern, a Cambridge pub, is a sign that reads, “This is not a mystery box. There is a vessel in here with delicious beer.”

Cask-conditioned beer is served from a cask at cellar temperature (about 55 degrees), rather than flowing through lines spiked with CO2. When a cask is vented, oxygen activates yeast already in the beer, affecting its flavor. If you’ve been to a pub in England and tasted beer that seemed a little warmer and a little flatter than what you’re used to, you’ve probably had cask beer.

Stoddard’s Fine Food & Ale in Downtown Crossing, has been serving cask beer for three years. Bar manager Jamie Walsh typically has one cask on at a time, and swaps it out a couple times a week. Stouts, lagers, porters, and pale ales all make it through the rotation.


“Those pineapple and grapefruit flavors from a pale ale or an IPA really start to pop at this temperature,” says Walsh. “It’s definitely worth a taste, if only to wrap your head around it.”

Plenty of dedicated drinkers are sneaking a taste. Walsh sends out a social media blast every time he taps a new beer, and says the spike in customers asking for cask beer is noticeable. “It’s not like you lose street cred for not having cask beer, but it helps to balance out your program,” says Walsh.

Cask beer enthusiasts can be accurately described as “fanatics,” says Mark Bowers. Bowers is president of the New England Real Ale eXhibition. Founded in 1996, the festival is a celebration of cask beers, described as real ales because of the secondary fermentation they undergo in the vessel. Twice a year, once in Somerville and once in Haverhill, the club hosts a festival in which dozens of cask beers are tapped for the public. “It’s not as sharp on the tongue,” says Bowers. “I’ve had people say, ‘Most of the time I hate beer because it’s too fizzy!’ It’s amazing how many people don’t like beer because it’s too carbonated.”


Bowers says the beer’s perishablity works to its advantage. Casks typically last for three days before going bad. On the first day the cask is “good to very good,” says Bowers. The second day is the peak. By the third day, you can start telling it’s not quite as good. “The comparison I make between regular beer and cask beer is between fresh strawberries and frozen strawberries,” says Bowers. “Fresh ones don’t last more than a day or two, but they taste a lot better.”

Gary Dzen can be reached at gary.dzen@globe.com.