Spring beers: Howe Sound "Rail Ale" Nut Brown

Spring has sprung, although in Vancouver it doesn't spring so much as gently creep along uphill, with the occasional 20-degree sunny day followed by a week of rain and hailstones. (Apologies to my friends and family in Ontario, who had a blizzard the other day.) Still, the season is here, and as seasons change I find my beer tastes change right along with them.

Spring is a time of transition between winter and summer, and for me, spring beers play that same role. A good spring beer should help drinkers transition between the big, malty flavours of winter (stouts, porters, etc.) and the lighter, more refreshing beers of summer (hefeweizens, light lagers, witbiers, pale ales). So as if by instinct I've lost interest in imperial stouts and spicy pumpkin ales, and find myself loading up my fridge with brown ales, doppelbocks, and flavourful Belgian treats.

I'm trying to acquaint myself with the beers produced in my new home, so I've been making selections from an assortment of regional breweries. And I'll be sharing here anything I particularly like. So, today's selection, from Howe Sound Brewing, is their Rail Ale Nut Brown.

Perspective hides the fact that this bottle
is friggin' enormous.

Introduction to Homebrewing (Recommended Reading)

I started homebrewing back in 2009, when I was entering a high-priced Master's program at U of T and couldn't get a student loan. I realized that I wanted beer, but had no budget for it. Getting 60+ bottles with a $20 beer kit and a bit of effort seemed like a better deal than a 24 of crap for nearly $40. So I recruited my cousin, my sister, and my dad's winemaking equipment for an experiment in getting cheaper, better beer.

We had a lot of trouble with the siphon.

Just couldn't get it working.

 Our first try turned out surprisingly well, and I was hooked. Not long later I met my future wife, Darrell, who really sent me down the homebrewer's path by buying me my first set of brewing equipment for Christmas and has not yet told me she regrets it. (It's almost incredible how well she tolerates my beer obsession.)

Once I got more into serious craft beer (for which I partly thank a trip to Chicago's Half Acre brewery and my first taste of a seriously good IPA, Daisy Cutter), I knew that kits wouldn't cut it any longer. I wanted to make beer as good as the stuff I had drunk in the States, and the stuff I was now discovering coming out of Ontario. Dogfish Head, Flying Monkeys, Great Lakes, Avery, Goose Island, and all the rest. So I did what comes naturally to me as a librarian... Research.