USA, OH: Loose Rail Brewing preparing for spring opening in Canal Winchester

A Canal Winchester restaurant and coffee shop is brewing up a new venture, but it won’t be making coffee, Columbus Business First reported on December 8.

Loose Rail Brewing is set to join the ever-expanding Central Ohio craft beer scene at 37 Waterloo St. next spring.

The venture is owned by husband and wife Nathan Doerfler and Kelley Doerfler, owners of Harvest Moon Craft Kitchen and the Garden Herb Shop, Jonathan Woodruff, who runs Harvest Moon’s bar, and friend Dennis Smalley.

Nathan Doerfler said they spent the last year or so hunting for sites to open a second Harvest Moon, including coming close to taking over a space in Lancaster, but nothing quite fit. It was their friend Smalley who suggested taking those plans for a new restaurant and doing a brewery instead.

“We thought it would be better to do that here than to move out into a new community,” Kelley Doerfler said.

What clinched the plans was buying the more than 3,000-square-foot building in downtown Canal Winchester for $80,000. It's a former power substation for an electric rail line that ran until the 1930s. That railway history inspired its name.

The building’s most-recent use was for a historic-restoration business. The Loose Rail team in January will take possession of the building, which is less than a five-minute walk from Harvest Moon. Doerfler said equipment is ordered, including a seven-barrel brewhouse, and the opening is targeted for mid-May.

“We’re aiming for five beers to start with,” Woodruff said.

They’re far enough out that the specifics haven’t been nailed down, but they’re shooting for offerings along the full light-to-dark beer spectrum, including an IPA and a session IPA.

Landing in downtown Canal Winchester is going to have another benefit as well. Loose Rail will be the closest brewery to BrewDog, the Scotland-based craft beer company that is building a $30 million U.S. headquarters, brewery and restaurant in the suburb. The Loose Rail team said they’ve studied up on their incoming beer neighbors and its reputation for helping and collaborating with smaller brewers.

11 December, 2015