Yankee Brew News Archive

Rail City Ale Hits the Tracks in Northwestern Vermont

Originally Published: 02/97

By: Tom Ayres

As 1997 dawned, a plethora of new microbreweries and brewpubs graced the Green Mountain State with a rich variety of new beers to savor. Near the Canadian border in northwestern Vermont, the Franklin County Brewery turned out its first batches of Rail City Ale in kegs and growlers just before Thanksgiving.

Described by its creator as "an extra special alt," Rail City Ale is available in select draught accounts and retail outlets from St. Albans to Stowe. Homebrew-supply-shop-owner-turned-microbrewer Bennett Dawson operates his diminutive brewery from the back room and basement of The Brew Lab in the heart of downtown St. Albans.

At the heart of rural Franklin County's first micro is a seven-barrel brewing system built by Criveller of Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Canadian firm provided the hot liquor tank, mash turn, and kettle. Twin fifteen-barrel fermenters, as well as the fourteen-barrel conditioning and bright tanks, were custom-built by a Green Bay, Wisconsin, fabricator. The natural-gas-powered, steam-fired brewery also features a nifty mash mixer that delights Dawson. "It allows me to build the wort any way I want. I love that flexibility," he enthuses.

Like many of its Vermont contemporaries, Rail City Ale is a difficult beer to peg, style-wise. Crafted by Head Brewer Stan Beauregard with highly modified British malt, it is doughed in at 110 to 120 degrees F., then ramped up to a conversion temperature of 152 to 154 degrees at approximately one degree per minute. After an hour, Beauregard removes one barrel of the first runnings, "boils the hell out of it," and adds it back to the mash to raise the temperature to 158 degrees. Mash-out is at 169 degrees.

Franklin County runs two batches per brewing session through a 90-minute boil. German kettle hops contribute to the hybrid, alt-like character of the brew.

Whirlpooled then force-cooled through a two-stage chiller, the twin batches are transferred to a glycol-jacketed, fifteen-barrel stainless steel fermenter. Primary fermentation takes four days at 55 degrees. Conditioning in a fourteen-barrel secondary takes 10 to 15 days at 40 degrees. Finally, Rail City Ale spends 24 to 36 hours in a bright tank before filtering and kegging in 15.5- and 5.2-gallon kegs or bottling in half-gallon growlers. The result is a bright, amber-colored "session" brew with hefty caramel notes, nicely balanced by spicy hops.

Rail City Ale is currently available in about 50 outlets, predominantly in the northwestern quadrant of Vermont. " I'm going to carve a niche, it will really start when I have a bottling line," Franklin County's Dawson says. He plans to install a Meheen bottler and turn ou t fifteen to twenty cases of twelve-ounce-bottled Rail City an hour by spring.

The packaged production goal is 100 cases a week to start. "We'll stick with the flagship beer until we get the bottling line up and running, then see where we go from there," Dawson offers when asked if he plans to introduce additional Franklin County brews.

Dawson expects his Franklin County Brewery to produce 1,300 barrels of beer in its first year. Visitors are welcome at the compact brewery, based in Dawson's three-year-old homebrew supply shop, adjacent to St. Albans City Hall at 94 Main Street. To arrange a visit and check out one of Vermont's smallest micros, call the brewery at (802) 524-2772.