I couldn’t write this blog for long without going back to my roots.  Tonight I’m having a taste of home, Railbender Ale from the Erie Brewing Company.  presque isle

The brewery lies 3.4 miles from the house that I grew up in on the west side of Erie, Pennsylvania. They started brewing the year that I started high school, so in a way we grew up together.  (No Mom, I wasn’t drinking that young)

I got to thinking of this beer during a chat with The Beer Wench on the topic of Beerpiphany.  (A great term, I’ve no clue who coined it, but I like it’s use.  So to whomever she stole it from, be happy it’s going to good use ’cause it’s an awesome word.)

The Beerpifany is that moment when two things colide, you have a Beer (+) Epiphany = Beerpiphany.  You know what I speak of, the first time you taste a sour-wild-jumps-in-your-mouth Gueuze, or maybe a silk smooth oatmeal stout  or a crazily super-hopped IPA, really any beer that opens up a whole new world of beer to you. I’ll get into other Beerpiphanies in later posts, but for now you get the ‘bender. This beer is not one of the rock stars of the craft beer world, but Railbender Ale gave my tongue something to think about before I even knew what the term “craft beer” meant.

This was the first craft beer that I ever tasted.  At first we bought it because the beer weighed in a few alcohol percentage points higher than the other options that we had available.  I remember tasting flavors in beer where previously there had been fizzy blandness in the other beers that I had drank.  After a few the nearly 7% hit my not yet seasoned head and the night passed into a hazy memory of my youth.  When cleaning up the bottles the next day, I held on to one of the Railbender bottles.  It got me interested into craft beers, microbrews, and eventually into homebrewing.  As you can tell, I haven’t stopped yet.

The bad news is that the tasty and generally strong beer from Erie Brewing  is not yet available Erie Distro Mapin Louisiana, and I’m am not aware of plans to do so.  As far as I know the only bottles of it in the state are part of my wall of beer.  The orange states are where they distribute currently. The good news is that they will be at a few regional fests and at the Great American Beer Fest where Railbender took a Bronze in the Scottish Ale category last year.  Here are a few of the PA dates for my PA readers.

For more dates check here.

On to the review…

  • Brewery: Erie Brewing CompanyErie Railbender
  • Beer: Railbender Ale
  • Style: Scottish style ale
  • ABV: 6.8%
  • Enjoyed from: Pint Glass
  • Cost: $ by the case
  • Score: 4 of 5 (part of this score might very well be nostalgia based, but I think it is a solid Erieite Scottish Ale)

Railbender is an old faithful for me.  I can slide a bar stool up to a pint of it and I know that it isn’t going to do me wrong. No, it’s not going to rock your world if you are used to craft beer (unless you drink too many of them), but it is a very easy drinking brew that subtly helps you to forget that it packs a kick. They go down easy, and honestly, when is that a bad thing.

Note on drinking Railbender: Be careful not to drink them too cold or you will lose all the complexity in the taste. (Most craft beer should be treated the same way, ICE cold is only for crappy beer that you don’t want to have to taste)

After an easy pour the Railbender shows it’s nice deep copper tones under a finger or two of white head that fades down relatively quickly. Not much lacing trails this lightly carbonated beer.

Railbender keeps a low aroma profile, I barely get a whiff of the floral, just a bit of roasty malts even when sniffing at it a little too hard.

As I mentioned earlier, this goes down smooth, maybe a little too smooth for the 6.8% abv to not catch up to you. Railbender keeps it simple in the mouth on the way down but leaves a lot with its aftertaste.

This is a very malt forward recipe keeping with the style of the Scottish ale tradition. It is still a touch sweet due to some left over unfermentable sugar, but this beer packs a bite at first. The malt fights with the bitterness and the temperature of the beer usually dictates the winner. The warmer it is, the more the malts come out. This beer kicks around in your mouth after you swallow it down. The aftertaste is quite pleasant and complex. I always taste a bit of chocolate in with the roasted malt, but maybe that’s just me. It’s not a hop beast, but it has that sharp, playfully tart swagger that I love of a well formed Scottish Ale.