United Nations of Beer

Steel Rail EPA

by Ashley Cotter-Cairns
(UNOB HQ)

Steel Rail EPA (5.3% ABV)
Berkshire Brewing, MA, USA
Visit the UNOB's Massachusetts beer guide

I've always had a collecting instinct. My beer cellar is starting to get frightening to enter. And before long, we're going to be moving house... I see hardship (and a massive beer reviewing party or two) on the horizon.



One of the hardest parts about maintaining a beer collection is ensuring that everything gets drunk before it goes off. In an ideal world, beer will stay perfectly stored and some will continue to ferment in the bottle, when it's on lees (with yeast at the bottom), but this doesn't work all the time in practise, no matter how careful you are.

All this to say that Berkshire Brewing's promise of "Local/Fresh" on the label is always going to be relative. For one thing, it's not local to me, given that I'm in Montreal. And for another, I bought it in Vermont and had to brush dust off the bottle neck in the shop.

None of this is Berkshire's fault and I'm happy to report that it had no impact on my enjoyment of Steel Rail extra pale ale. The smell is very promising, with tons of fruit. It has something of a Christmas beer about it, with hints of orange peel and other citrussy, spiced perfumes coming through.

Steel Rail EPA begins quite sweet, with those fruity tones dominating this 5.3% ABV beer.

All good so far. However, unlike the company's website claim of bitter hoppiness and malt, I found an aftertaste lacking in bite and far from the profile it promised.

This isn't all bad news, though. Repeated exposure to Steel Rail EPA allows you to enjoy this apparent dichotomy between expectation and reality. I, for one, enjoy a bitter hoppiness as found in IPAs. But I also enjoy a light, fruity finish. It depends on my mood.

The soft, almost harmless profile of this beer makes it a perfect choice to introduce a beer-hater to the joys of REAL beer. Most of the world's non-beer drinkers have been put off by macro fizzy piss filth and so never graduate to bigger and better tastes.

I want to try Steel Rail extra pale ale again, though, because I am well aware of how a beer can change when it's aged for a while. Although I drank this beer within a week of buying it, I suspect it was far from the fresh beer Berkshire wants us to enjoy.

It's a good beer, as I tried it, even if it wasn't quite what I was expecting.