3rd annual Spring Real Ale Fest: Baltimore, Md.

This Saturday's Spring Real Ale Festival —at the Pratt Street Ale House in downtown Baltimore, Maryland— is the baby brother of the long-running Chesapeake Real Ale Festival held in the fall. Even so, $40 entitles a festival-goer to a plethora of cask ales. The count stands now at twenty-two, although organizer Steve Jones —brewer for host Oliver Ales— predicts more.

Some new and special additions to the roster include:

• Firestone Walker Velvet Merlin
• Heavy Seas Plank II, with added Yellow Poplar & Eucalyptus and dry hopped with Liberty.
• Weyerbacher Blanche
• Williams Brothers Brewery Scottish Heavy
• From host Oliver Ales, on hand-pulled beer engine:
  • Ape Must Never Kill Ape: Belgian inspired dark ale, 3.3%, with vanilla beans
  • Jacob's Winter Celebration, aged 4 months in oak barrel over juniper berries
  • James Brown Ale, aged over red oak.
• Full list of all casks: here.

So, for admittance from 1-6pm, one receives: "all the great cask ale" one can drink, a souvenir mug to bring home, live music from Table Top Poets, grilled and raw oysters, pit beef sandwiches on the patio. At festival's end, growlers can be filled for $5.

For an additional $20, one becomes a 'VIP,' gains early admittance —an hour earlier, at 12 noon— and samples from three additional casks:

• The Brewer's Art Tiny Tim
• Evolution Craft Brewing Rise Up Stout infused with oak chips, cinnamon, and coffee and vanilla beans.
• The third cask? Jones says it's "a bit hush hush."

UPDATE: Photos from the fest: here.

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The 3rd annual Spring Real Ale Festival
Saturday, 28 April 1-6pm.

• Pratt Street Ale House
  206 W. Pratt Street (at Sharp Street, across from the Convention Center)
  Baltimore, Maryland.
  
• $40 tickets: missiontix
  
• Twitter: @prattstalefest
  
• Facebook: Chesapeake Real Ale Festival
  
• Website: prattstreetalefest.com.