ATLANTA,None — Elvis is in the building!
Sweetwater Brewery hosted the company's annual Brew Your Cask Off event Saturday at its new facility on Ottley Drive in Midtown. Brew Your Cask Off brings together dozens of Atlanta area restaurants, retailers, charities and various other groups, each working with a Sweetwater brewer, to create a unique cask ale. Cask ale is the term for unfiltered beer that is conditioned and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure.
[ PHOTOS: Sweetwater's Brew Your Cask Off event ]
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Each group poured its secret ingredients into a cask a couple weeks ago. Those were allowed to sit, and Saturday night, the casks were tapped as thousands attended the big event.
Offerings included everything from Little Richard Simmons by the Square Pub to The Thin Mint Porter by Draft Magazine to Bar-B-Brew by Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Que to Tebow's Tears by Chops and Hops to The Elvis Peanut Butter Banana Porter by Cypress Street Pint and Plate.
"My beer was a tribute to the king of rock n' roll, the guy who redefined rock n' roll in 1956 when he went on the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' said Robert Merrick from Cypress Street Pint and Plate.
Merrick came to the event dressed as Elvis.
"They would only videotape him from the waste up for fear that he would offend people," Merrick continued. "Well, in 2012, the Cypress (Street Pint and Plate) team decided to brew a beer in tribute to guys who want to redefine and industry. So, I brewed the peanut butter banana porter."
The creation included toasted and roasted bananas, dehydrated peanut butter, banana chips and Munich malts.
Brew Your Cask Off included 89 guest brewer creations in addition to those brewed by Sweetwater's brewers. A full range of Sweetwater beers were available for consumption, too.
Several of the winning cask ales not only took home bragging rights, but those creations will be back for Sweetwater's next big event, too. That's Sweetwater 420 Fest at Candler Park April 20-22.