Speaker 1: This episode of the Cascadia beer podcast has been made
Speaker 1: possible by the BC Ale Trail. Arrive thirsty Leave inspired
Speaker 1: at BCAleTrail.CA
Speaker 1: We move forward with our creative goals, but most of
Speaker 1: the time with a reference to the past.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cascadian Beer Podcast. My name's Aaron and
Speaker 1: I'm Cascadian.
Speaker 1: In this podcast series I profile the unique breweries of
Speaker 1: Cascadia. A region that has a strong presence on the international beer scene.
Speaker 1: Cascadia is a bio region in the Pacific Northwest on
Speaker 1: the North American continent. It's made up of the U.
Speaker 1: S states of Washington, Oregon, as well as the Canadian
Speaker 1: province of British Columbia.
Speaker 1: If this is your first time here or you've been
Speaker 1: enjoying this podcast series for awhile, I sure hope that
Speaker 1: your subscribed in your favorite podcast app it doesn't cost
Speaker 1: you anything. And you'LL never miss an episode.
Speaker 1: I'm in the neighborhood of Vancouver BC known as Yeast Van,
Speaker 1: just celebrating their fourth birthday Off the rail is a
Speaker 1: brewery that has been sticking to traditional recipes. Yet they're
Speaker 1: not afraid to experiment from time to time to create
Speaker 1: some do classics.
Speaker 1: My name is Steve Forsyth, and I suppose I'm the
Speaker 1: owner operator of Off The Rail.
Speaker 2: My name is Mike Evan, I'm brewer and operations for production
Speaker 1: Sweet and we're at off the rail. Where does that name
Speaker 1: come from?
Speaker 1: Now the name comes from our stint or my stint.
Speaker 1: I guess at the railway club for many years in
Speaker 1: my past history.
Speaker 1: So when we were looking for a name for the brewery,
Speaker 1: I sat down and had a a round table discussion
Speaker 1: with a few people. And someone just said, Well, where's
Speaker 1: your history? And obviously twenty years at the railway club
Speaker 1: was a history, and he just came on set off
Speaker 1: the rails, you know, in which we, of course, shortened
Speaker 1: toe off the rail company.
Speaker 1: And it kind of makes sense because where we located
Speaker 1: in Vancouver at the moment, But we're kind of close
Speaker 1: to the port to write is the kind of a
Speaker 1: tie right here, E, I suppose that year there could
Speaker 1: be it was always a tie if you want there
Speaker 1: to be one. But, you know, realistically, we're close to downtown.
Speaker 1: We're close to tracks. Either side, all sides. Pretty much so. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say there's a tie.
Speaker 1: Okay,
Speaker 1: So when did you open your doors, then?
Speaker 2: Well, we opened it. It was a temporary fifty
Speaker 2: in
Speaker 2: two thousand fifteen. So coming
Speaker 1: up was that four years, Four years? Four years. This
Speaker 1: weekend in that time, then, like what was it? What
Speaker 1: was it like when you opened your doors on day
Speaker 1: one like it was was the community's response.
Speaker 2: When we opened for the public, it was we'd already
Speaker 2: sort of
Speaker 2: hashed out. How things were going to work is Stephen.
Speaker 2: I started assembly the August Prior right, so we started
Speaker 2: bringing that January
Speaker 2: and there's some problem solving some bug fixing and
Speaker 2: but the time that will be in February, we had
Speaker 2: a full line of taps, but it was a little
Speaker 2: bit
Speaker 2: easier to go in that way. No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was beautiful of four years in
Speaker 1: a row, three years in a row. We've had beautiful
Speaker 1: weather for our anniversary, so we've been unfortunate that way.
Speaker 1: I think it went pretty smooth. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people were looking forward to it. You know, we
Speaker 1: were obviously just down the street from Bomber to who's
Speaker 1: got their fifth anniversary at the same time,
Speaker 1: eso is starting to create a bit of an area
Speaker 1: already for people to come and try and you beer.
Speaker 1: So we're in the right right spot. It's so like
Speaker 1: off the top, you had to you know what brewery
Speaker 1: number you are to open in Vancouver at that time.
Speaker 2: No idea. And I think that we've fallen to what
Speaker 2: Blair refers to as a third wave, probably because the
Speaker 2: first wave was parallel right for people bringing equipment from overseas.
Speaker 2: So parallel started and then
Speaker 2: they had lots of problems. But their first round of
Speaker 2: gear and then bomber
Speaker 2: got fromthe same then that's a little better than then.
Speaker 2: We were the third wave and ours was pretty good
Speaker 2: because they keep on improving every every time.
Speaker 2: But since then there's been probably four or five more
Speaker 2: like they're opening a monthly
Speaker 1: and there's and there's definitely some waiting in the wings
Speaker 1: of cinema seems to be a
Speaker 1: So what's the size of the big house down there?
Speaker 1: Two thousand litres. Alright, cool. And that's obviously expanded since
Speaker 1: day one to something in the room. Stay the same. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the capacity for the tax for fermentation wearing
Speaker 1: capacity we've got We've got two new six, not new anymore,
Speaker 1: but we had to had to six thousand leader tanks
Speaker 1: in fermentation tanks to Teo kind of up up the
Speaker 1: level of it. All right, go. And then my favorite
Speaker 1: question Mike is. How did beer find you?
Speaker 2: It Ah, long time ago meant it was.
Speaker 2: We started a za cleanup kid and a little berry
Speaker 2: in London when I was, like, seventeen
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 2: stuck.
Speaker 2: It's one of only jobs you get that would allow
Speaker 2: you take a lot of time off because I was
Speaker 2: doing other things at the time, But And when I
Speaker 2: moved here in the early nineties, I just started. I
Speaker 2: was running a burning cats full time, and then
Speaker 2: that place closed down because the rent. And then I
Speaker 2: ran another one for twelve something years. And then Steve
Speaker 2: approached me. And I've been here since then,
Speaker 1: right? And then have to be refined you, Steve.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose it I I've I've found beer as
Speaker 1: a very young man. Ah. Then throughout the years, I
Speaker 1: guess the railway club kind of helped me to sculpt
Speaker 1: a taste for certain types of year. So, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: It's been long in my history, I guess you could say.
Speaker 1: And so then what was the driving force than toe
Speaker 1: open your own bird? I think the main thing. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the main things I mean, when I When
Speaker 1: we stopped the railway club where we sold the railway club,
Speaker 1: I started Ah hot farm went from a hot farm,
Speaker 1: started making beer excited extra hops. Turned out that I
Speaker 1: thought the beer was good. Andi, I have two of you.
Speaker 1: You know, you always have to trust your own judgement
Speaker 1: with beer. Everybody's different on DH So I started. Once out,
Speaker 1: point reached. Then I decided I would put together a
Speaker 1: business plan to start a brewery, and my wife gave
Speaker 1: me my blessings. And here we are,
Speaker 1: right. I'm in conversation with off the rail. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to take a moment to thank the BC Ale
Speaker 1: Trail for making this episode possible. Because Vancouver's craft beer
Speaker 1: scene has exploded in recent years, and with thirty breweries
Speaker 1: within the city limit, it could be pretty daunting to
Speaker 1: even know where to begin to explore. Thankfully, the BCL
Speaker 1: trail has he covered with the Vancouver Ale Trail on
Speaker 1: the website of BCL Trail dossier. You'LL find recommended itineraries
Speaker 1: for each region of the province, a comprehensive list of
Speaker 1: every craft brewery, NBC, a calendar with beer events and
Speaker 1: a blogger with lots of great stories. The regional ale
Speaker 1: trails include local breweries, pubs and restaurants, along with other
Speaker 1: activities the area has to offer. So whether you're planning
Speaker 1: a weekend trip or being a tourist in your own backyard,
Speaker 1: let the BC able trail guide you to your next
Speaker 1: big adventure. Arrive thirsty. Leave inspired the BCL trail dot
Speaker 1: c a. All right, let's jump back into the conversation
Speaker 1: with off the rail. So what? What are the typical
Speaker 1: styles that you tend to focus on?
Speaker 2: Steve and I both agree that we like toe do things. Traditionally,
Speaker 2: Azad remain sort of set up for beers like the
Speaker 2: parallel the EPA in Pilger Logar.
Speaker 2: They're very true to style faras like this classic English
Speaker 2: style pal, and it's made, you know, it's not like
Speaker 2: a lot of you find it's it's true to its style.
Speaker 2: Outside of that, we
Speaker 2: we do all the different things, like we've done everything from,
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's what we won't do. It sours.
Speaker 2: Everything else is on the table so
Speaker 1: way. Yeah, you know, I think I think Mike's right.
Speaker 1: We do traditional style beer. We obviously are doing a
Speaker 1: pretty good job at our English style Ayles committing brewing
Speaker 1: words tell us that if we, you know, loved Pipe's
Speaker 1: too obviously love American I Pa's different types coming out
Speaker 1: now You know more these days, and we just you know, really, it's,
Speaker 1: I think both might have a passion. I really passing
Speaker 1: for brewing what we consider a good beer. You know,
Speaker 1: that's always subjective, but but the beer's always important thing Here.
Speaker 1: It's we're not about anywhere about our own beer culture
Speaker 1: and sharing that with people. I don't consider us trendy
Speaker 1: considers traditional. That's kind of what we do. I mean,
Speaker 1: one beer off the top of my head. For me,
Speaker 1: that kind of stands out. That I'm quite familiar with
Speaker 1: is the one with lemon grass and the rocks. Yeah, Iraj.
Speaker 1: How did that? How did that come about?
Speaker 2: Well, Raj is through Ah, on this the space behind us.
Speaker 2: The other side of the alley
Speaker 1: Rogers a man,
Speaker 1: any stadium man who became a good friend of ours.
Speaker 2: Hey, was when we were building the place. He was
Speaker 2: always there to help with the forklift or just let
Speaker 2: him put stuff in his warehouse or good neighbor. Campy,
Speaker 2: A really, really good guy and way ask him we
Speaker 2: could do it in the forum and he just kind
Speaker 2: of made a joke about, I don't know, just name
Speaker 2: of beer after me, and then Steve went are indeed
Speaker 2: up the the rush match with, like, lemongrass and lime
Speaker 2: leaf in it,
Speaker 2: and it didn't take a lot of extra tweaking. So
Speaker 2: we put a big scale, put a label together in
Speaker 2: the whole back story, then
Speaker 2: got his is okay with it, you know, super happy
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: And I want a gold medal with it.
Speaker 2: And it won a gold medal.
Speaker 2: And he he kept an empty and his delivery van
Speaker 2: for like a year, showing all his friends and his
Speaker 2: clients and stuff this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Remember at one point he had relatives here
Speaker 1: from from India and he says, Steve bought me a
Speaker 1: bottle of that. So I pulled out a couple of
Speaker 1: bottles of the Raj and he shows it to his
Speaker 1: relatives and they all start laughing and he points to
Speaker 1: the picture on, and he says, Hey, that's me very,
Speaker 1: very proud. Very proud of his beer. Then are there
Speaker 1: any other neighborhood beers that you've made?
Speaker 2: We do that? Use Finn collaborators. That's we've done two
Speaker 2: of them. Now,
Speaker 2: this year I was hosted by By Bomber and the
Speaker 2: year prior that it was hosted by a coal harbour.
Speaker 2: We've done those.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be a collab with mom or just
Speaker 1: the two of us. But we haven't. We haven't done
Speaker 1: it yet. We're just right crossing. Right. And just just
Speaker 1: right across the street and, uh, yeah, yeah, it will
Speaker 1: work out at some point.
Speaker 2: We will get it done. It's just it's timing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is there a beer pipeline between your very houses
Speaker 1: to make this collaboration and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: We can't tell you where it is. Like across the street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eso in terms of where we're going from here. Are
Speaker 1: you guys kind of happy with size in the moment?
Speaker 1: I mean, you do have some bombers, are you Canning
Speaker 1: is their growth and the packaging line. I thought I
Speaker 1: think I'll feel this this one because I think that
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're four years in now. Obviously, we
Speaker 1: love to see
Speaker 1: you see ourselves at capacity. We're not a capacity we
Speaker 1: can still broom, or we don't have to move anywhere
Speaker 1: We don't have to expand.
Speaker 1: I like some other breweries, are doing where I think
Speaker 1: we'll be fine once we hit that capacity and we'Ll
Speaker 1: just keep putting out the beer we're putting out on
Speaker 1: a larger scale. We do can we've got a
Speaker 1: accounting line, a portable canning line from cask that's perfect
Speaker 1: for our size bombers were keeping, and we're actually getting
Speaker 1: on with the three fifty five mil bottle business. Okay,
Speaker 2: they're keeping tall bottles six fifty's we're keeping talk hands
Speaker 2: and then threw thirty five mil cans is going to
Speaker 2: be the formats were going to use
Speaker 1: and then, like distribution is Ah, we're pretty wide across
Speaker 1: the city in terms of you on tap and, you know, establishment. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, we would also like love
Speaker 1: to have more listings with the BC Liquor Control Board,
Speaker 1: and we're working on that all the time. But we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of really great faithful clients, which is great.
Speaker 1: It's just you're happy at this level and just it's
Speaker 1: it's comfortable and it's sustainable right for you guys,
Speaker 1: you pretty much pretty much. Is it sustainable in terms
Speaker 1: of what we can do with the equipment we have
Speaker 1: in terms of product volume. We still have room to
Speaker 1: improve when we still have room to get bigger within
Speaker 1: our own facility. All right. Yeah. I think we could
Speaker 2: stand about twenty five percent girls without hitting without putting
Speaker 2: ourselves in a position where were frazzled,
Speaker 2: which I suspect we'LL see by March. But everything I've
Speaker 2: been here and I
Speaker 1: want to be friends. Well, I like frazzled. I don't
Speaker 1: Trouble's already fragile.
Speaker 1: So fear has really taken off your NBC. And, like,
Speaker 1: we were kind of, you know, I was kind of
Speaker 1: saying before him, like, I'm like, I went up north and, like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff up there now, like, just
Speaker 1: from your perspective of just seeing stuff in Vancouver. Like,
Speaker 1: how much is beer changed in the four years that
Speaker 1: you've been open? You think BC wise just just the
Speaker 1: four years? Yeah. Yeah, before that, I mean, we had
Speaker 1: a long we had a long way to go with
Speaker 1: just Teo, open a lot of doors, I think. You know,
Speaker 1: I compared to watching the state and in Oregon State,
Speaker 1: where
Speaker 1: we always had to go to get great beer. Things
Speaker 1: started to turn around here a bit, I think. And
Speaker 1: once the government opened up the doors for micro breweries
Speaker 1: and tasting rooms, it really took off. Now you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of restaurant tour is getting into the business
Speaker 1: because they can.
Speaker 1: I think it's a awesome time to be in our climate.
Speaker 1: If you will be a lover, I just There's so
Speaker 1: much to choose from a lot of great brewers in
Speaker 1: our community. Yeah,
Speaker 2: B She's definitely still kind of leading the pack. I
Speaker 2: think we represent. They go Last year at the cleaning
Speaker 2: Bring awards. It was in Halifax on all the awards
Speaker 2: handed out. I think that BC was home to over
Speaker 2: fifty percent of them, no, whereas the rest of problems
Speaker 2: was the other or the country was the other fifty percent.
Speaker 2: So we're still doing a pretty good job,
Speaker 1: and I mean, just not to get too political. But
Speaker 1: we need to get beer across the provincial lines. Teo
Speaker 1: other places, too. Don't be so.
Speaker 2: I thought that was up the levees in the surcharge
Speaker 1: and yeah, don't be nice. You know that me? That
Speaker 1: may happen. It has happened for somebody's already no eso
Speaker 1: in terms of, ah, going down this path of opening
Speaker 1: up your own Marie. What would be some advice you'd
Speaker 1: give somebody just getting into the planning stages on?
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 2: hope hindsight's awesome. I would suggest if anyone was considering
Speaker 2: to start one to talk to his many operators as
Speaker 2: they can, about what they would have done differently when
Speaker 2: they set up. Save yourself a lot of headache that way.
Speaker 2: I would also say that there's no point in going
Speaker 2: in on a brew house. It's anything smaller than seven.
Speaker 2: Barrels are eight. Hack
Speaker 2: was the same amount of time to make that much
Speaker 2: as it is to make two thousand years.
Speaker 2: So
Speaker 1: my advice, my advice would be
Speaker 1: get more money.
Speaker 1: Get bigger storage. So you have your coolers and speaking
Speaker 1: off the handle so you don't have to go off
Speaker 1: site with your storage and know you're no your production.
Speaker 1: Know what you're going to do Whether you're going to
Speaker 1: package whether you're just going to be a lounge where
Speaker 1: they're gonna be a brewpub, Know how you're gonna package
Speaker 1: and how you're going to sell your beer, Maybe take
Speaker 1: a part time job at City Hall.
Speaker 1: And ah, and whose inspiring you in the beer scene
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have to be in Vancouver. But,
Speaker 1: like who inspires you guys tow kind of
Speaker 1: stick out what you're doing or, you know, are different
Speaker 1: ideas that come
Speaker 2: up.
Speaker 2: There's so many great prayers now. I mean, there's, ah,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of thinking about the just across the border
Speaker 2: in the U. S. And
Speaker 2: there's such like this high quality happening down there, like, really,
Speaker 2: really exceptional.
Speaker 2: So I
Speaker 1: made my hometown of Bellingham there and across the line
Speaker 1: that they alone, they got, like, fifteen fantastic way have
Speaker 1: foreign fourteen berries there and
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's a couple
Speaker 2: everything I've ever had from, say, Pelican on Pacific City
Speaker 2: in Oregon has been that just
Speaker 2: a notch better than everything else. A ce faras, the
Speaker 2: smaller bruise. I can't think of any of top I have,
Speaker 2: but I've been to a whole bunch down there like
Speaker 2: it's that the names I don't remember, but,
Speaker 1: well, Fremont comes to mind. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean, some of them have been around a while.
Speaker 2: We found your bay and all that, but there's so
Speaker 2: much happening,
Speaker 2: and the people like pillage kind of changing the dynamics
Speaker 2: on the lake green Flash was it was one that
Speaker 2: comes to mind is faras When they first put out
Speaker 2: there the green flash up here, they kind of changed
Speaker 2: how we thought of a Pacific Western
Speaker 2: oppa. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So guys like that they're still changing, like to still
Speaker 2: cutting edge.
Speaker 1: I think they're way more experimentation going on now. I
Speaker 1: think some is terrific. Sum is, is not is terrific
Speaker 1: and, you know, kind of ti me. I liken beer
Speaker 1: to two food there or Brewer to a chef said,
Speaker 1: You know, you can do some things and you can
Speaker 1: mix and you can you can match. You can use
Speaker 1: new hops mixture grains, but it's gotta work. It's gotta work,
Speaker 1: you know, You make it once, and if it's not good,
Speaker 1: you don't make it again. So you really got you know,
Speaker 1: the experiment notation is fun again. We go back to
Speaker 1: what we do with traditional flavors
Speaker 1: that was in Czech Republic last year and just have
Speaker 1: the best bills and recall of my life.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, gentlemen. And a happy birthday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Big. Thanks to the guys at off the rail again.
Speaker 1: And happy birthday. Well, belated birthday now, it was just
Speaker 1: before their birthday weekend when I recorded this episode. So
Speaker 1: it's there. It's been their birthday now. So Happy birthday.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this episode of the cascading and your podcast.
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Speaker 1: cascadian beer. I'm on Twitter at Cascadian Beer and on
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Speaker 1: you can go to the website cascadian dot beer. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much again for listening. I really do appreciate it.
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