New England Real Ale eXhibition (NERAX)
Photo: Michael Piazza
UPDATE from March 21, 2022:
Organizers for the New England Real Ale eXhibition (NERAX) announced this week that delays in getting cask ale from the UK have forced them to postpone the festival. The new dates for NERAX will be April 19 through April 22; session times will remain the same, and ticket holders will have their entry moved to the corresponding dates in April. Refunds are available if requested.
Organizers expected around 50 cask ales—donated from breweries around the UK—to arrive the week of the festival, originally set for March 29 through April 1, but supply chain issues pushed their delivery date back a week. “We apologize and are incredibly disappointed to have to do this. We understand this may impact your plans and inconvenience many of you, but without the UK beer we will not have enough beer for everyone so we have no choice,” they said in an email. “We hope you can still make it and look forward to seeing everyone (finally) for the first time in years to share a pint of fresh cask beer/cider!”
Visit NERAX.org to buy tickets and volunteer for the new dates.
The volunteers of New England’s Cask-conditioned Ale Support Campaign (CASC) know planning a festival around the warm bread of beer puts them at odds with the trends and whims of the craft beer industry.
Today, extreme flavors dominate craft. But these cask-ale lovers seek balance: a pint of draught beer that has only just reached peak freshness and won’t stay that way for long.
On March 29, CASC is bringing the New England Real Ale eXhibition (NERAX) to Boston for the first time since 2019. For four days, South Boston will be a hub for the finest cask-conditioned ales, lagers and ciders in the country.
About 50 firkins (10.8-gallon steel barrels) of ale sent by breweries in the United Kingdom are expected to arrive in Boston soon, representing half of the roughly 100 casks expected at the festival; brewers from across New England have pledged to donate the other 50 or so casks to support the cause.
Cask ale represents beer in its optimal state: Shipped nearly unfinished from the brewer, the ale—unfiltered and unpasteurized—rests in a temperature-controlled cellar to condition and develop its depth of flavor. The ale is to be enjoyed slightly warmer; it’s less carbonated than beer from a keg and lasts for a shorter time, a few days to a week before losing its essence. But when at top form, that ale will carry a richness and complexity that belies its relative simplicity and low alcohol content.
Still mostly the heartbeat of the British beer industry, cask ale has never quite taken off in the U.S., owing in part to the lack of restaurants and bars with the capability to properly store and maintain it. Few local brewers offer cask ale, and part of CASC’s mission has been spotlighting the breweries that regularly do, such as Hudson’s Medusa Brewing Company or Beverly’s Backbeat Brewing Company.
“In the U.S., it’s more about trying to reestablish cask ale or help it gain a foothold in the industry,” said NERAX organizer Tony Mitchelhill, who brews cask-conditioned beers at his home in Fitchburg and serves them in his basement pub.
Since 1998, NERAX has been the region’s biggest showcase of cask ale. Recently, though, some of its most devoted fans feared the festival would not come back to Boston after the pandemic forced CASC to cancel in 2020. Volunteers had already received the shipment of casks, and, refusing to let the beer go to waste, they held small, socially-distanced gatherings and drained as many as they could. Mitchelhill even filled bag-in-boxes with ale to dole out.
The festival wasn’t held in 2021 and 2022 because of timing constraints. Both were close calls.
Considered somewhat obscure, NERAX has always been a more intimate gathering compared to other beer festivals. “It’s just like going to a pub, not like going to a big festival,” said CASC member Gary Chopurian, who’s helping run his third NERAX.
NERAX is a crucial fundraiser for CASC, allowing them to sponsor initiatives like cellarmanship training to teach the art of caring for and serving cask-conditioned beer.
“We’re kind of different (from other beer festivals) in one big way: We’re not for profit,” Chopourian said. “I appreciate what the Great American Beer Festival and other festivals have to do to hold their events, but we do it because we love it. We don’t have a profit loss. We just want to make a little money so we can keep doing it. We try to make it so people can afford to come. We’re doing it out of passion, not for money.”
Tickets for NERAX, which runs March 29 through April 1 at the South Boston Lithuanian Club, 368 West Broadway, are available at nerax.org.
This story appeared as an Online Exclusive in March, 2023.
