Ghost Train Switchman’s Stash — The India Pale Lager Nobody Saw Coming

The Review

India Pale Lager is a style that makes a certain kind of craft beer person instinctively suspicious, because it sounds like a gimmick and often is one. Switchman’s Stash is Ghost Train’s argument that it doesn’t have to be.

Named for the railroad workers who managed the switching yards — the unsung operators who kept trains from colliding with each other — Switchman’s Stash uses cool fermentation temperatures and bottom-fermenting lager yeast to produce a beer that finishes clean and crystal-clear. The lagering period strips away anything murky, leaving the dankest American hop character front and center without the yeast esters of an ale getting in the way.

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It pours brilliantly clear golden with a fine white head. The nose is all American hops — dank, resiny, citrus-forward — without the warmth you’d expect from an IPA. The palate is clean and crisp, hop-forward but without bitterness edge, finishing dry and refreshing. It’s an IPA that lager yeast made more elegant, and that’s not a sentence you expect to type.

Ghost Train is better than their profile in the Birmingham beer conversation suggests. Switchman’s Stash is exhibit A.

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