Homebrew: The Waffler

The Brewski Brothers are proud to present to you one of our latest brews. Bored with simply brewing according to guidelines, we decided to see what would happen if we hopped the hell out of Belgian-style Trippel. Patience will be a virtue when it comes to this brew, but when our finished product was finally bottled we were left with quite a tasty delight. We were left with a very fruity, citrusy, and dry Belgian-style trippel. The beer turned out to be delightfully bitter, dry, and citrusy. The only thing we might add to this brew is more finishing hops and more dry hopping. Once again, feel free to add or take away anything from this recipe to suit your liking.

1.) Steep 1 lb 20 L crystal malt, 3 oz Belgian Munich malt, 3 oz carapils malt, and 8 oz marris otter malt at 155 degrees F for 30 minutes with 1 tsp gypsum.

2.) Add 8 lbs light DME, 3 lbs extra light DME, 1 lb light Belgian candy sugar and then bring to a boil.

3.) Add 1 oz Nugget hops (13.7%), 1 oz Magnum (14.4%), 1 oz Warrior (15.8%) and start a 60 minute boil.

4.) At 30 minutes, add 1 oz Chinook hops (11.4%), 1 oz Willamette (4.6%), and 1 oz Simcoe (11.9%).

5. At 15 minutes, add 1 tsp Irish moss and 1/2 oz sweet orange peel.

6.) At 5 minutes, add 1 oz Cascade (6.3%), 1 oz Chinook (11.4%), and 1 oz Amarillo (8.6%).

7.) Shut off heat and cool wort to below 70 degrees F. Pitch Trappist Ale yeast from White Labs WLP 500

8.) Ferment at 68-70 degrees F for 2 weeks and then rack to secondary and dry hop with 1 oz Amarillo (8.6%).

9.) 9 days later, dry hop with 1 oz sterling hops (6.0%)

10.) 5 days later, dry hp with 1/2 oz Willamette (4.6%) and 1 oz Chinook (11.4%).

11.) Leave in secondary for another month. Then, bottle with 6 oz of priming sugar and a hop tea created with 1 oz Mt. Hood (5.2%) filtered with 1 cup of water.

12.) The beer will be ready in two weeks, but will get much better with age.

Dogfish Head Sah'Tea

Dogfish Head is esoteric to say the least. "Off centered ales for off centered people." And they aren't kidding. Dogfish Head offers everything from chocolate beers, to the world's strongest fruit beer, to exotic wood aging, to the most imperial of all imperial IPAs, etc, etc, etc. Aside from the novelty of the beers they brew, they're also really, really good.



That being said. Dogfish Head has got me hooked. I will buy anything that they put on the market. They could put out a beer called "Dogshit Head... brewed with real dog shit", and I would most certainly still buy it. Here enters a new brew from Dogfish called Sah'Tea. According to Dogfish's website this is a beer that is brewed with rye, caramelized with hot river rocks, and fermented with a German Weizen yeast. On top of this, the beer has juniper berries added to it as well as a "tea" of black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper.



Out of the champagne bottle, the beer pours a slightly hazy golden color with a small, very fizzy head that disappeared as soon as it had appeared. As complex as the recipe for this beer sounds, the aroma this beer offers is just as complex. I picked up a lot of cinnamon and ginger as well as some tea notes, spice, fruit, and clove-like notes. The flavor is very similar, but is also has a slight sweetness to it with a citrusy quality that is most likely due to the juniper berries. The finish on the beer is very long and is a lot of tea as well as cloves that is due to the German Weizen yeast. With all the flavors this beer offers, it's still really drinkable. I don't know how it's 9% ABV.



I liked this beer. I'm also glad I shared it with a friend. A full 750 mL of this beer would be a bit much. I probably won't buy it again because of the price tag of $11.99, but it is surely worth trying. While it is not my favorite from Dogfish Head, it is still one that satisfied. I say buy it for the sake of trying it and broadening your beer experience.

Ivan Drago Russian Imperial Stout Recipe

Here at BB headquarters we do our fair share of beer drinking. We also do more than our fair share of brewing. Way back in August we brewed this monster of a beer (check the post). We knew we had a winner on our hands with this one... and we were right. We entered Ivan Drago in Elevator's homebrew contest in January and came away with 3rd prize. Ivan Drago is a mammoth beer with a strong coffee and malt aroma and a very thick, robust coffee flavor with a hint of maple syrup, molasses, and roasted malt. Being the generous souls that we are, we can't keep this beer to ourselves. So, here is the recipe courtesy of the Brewski Brothers. The beer turns out great as is, but feel free to add or take away anything at your discretion... and be sure how to let us know how it turns out!

1.) Steep 1lb 60L crystal malt, 1/2 lb roasted barely, and 1lb black patent malt at 160 degrees F for 20 minutes in 4 gallons of water

2.) Remove grain bag and bring water to a boil. Shut off the heat and add 9.9lbs of plain dark liquid malt extract and 3lbs plain dark DME.

3.) Stir while adding extract and bring back to a boil. Once boiling, add 1oz Columbus hops (12.2%) and start 80 minute boil.

4.) With 57 minutes left, add 5oz of corn sugar. With 34 minutes left in boil, add 1oz of cluster hops (7.9%).

5.) At the end of the boil, shut off the heat and stir the contents to create a whirlpool. Cool wort to below 80 degrees F, transfer to carboy, aerate, and pitch White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP 001.

6.) Ferment at 68-72 degrees F for 2 weeks.

7.) Rack beer to a secondary and add 1oz of french oak chips soaked in bourbon, 1oz plain, sanitized french oak chips, and one cup of organic grade B maple syrup (boiled in 1 cup of water for 5 minutes).

8.) Keep in secondary for 4 weeks. During final week, add two packs of hydrated ale yeast and 1/2 pound of fresh ground coffee beans cold pressed in 2 cups of water for 24 hours.

9.) Bottle with 1 1/4 cups of DME. The beer will be ready to drink in two weeks, but will get better with more time.

Columbus Brewing Company Summerteeth

This post is a bit out of place, but I felt the need to acknowledge a great local beer.

By the time we Brewski Brothers had returned from our world trek, summer time was in full swing and I felt like nothing more than sitting down and relaxing with a great local brew.

I stopped by my local carryout and grabbed a sixer of Columbus Brewing Company's Summer Teeth, which is an excellent Kellerbier. A kellerbier is basically a hoppier version of a helles style lager.

Columbus does an exceptional job with the hops on this one. The aroma offers a slight, herbal hoppiness and a tad of malty sweetness. The flavor is very dry, grassy, and crisp.

I sat around all day and enjoyed the greatness that this six pack had to offer. As I drank this, I began to ponder the great adventures that are in store for us Brewski-Bros here in the near future.

I realized that I am content and love the beer I drink. That being said... complacency is never a good thing. More is to come from our journeys around the world. We will not rest 'til we have scoured every corner possible that offers the bounties of beer.

Sterkens Dubbel

Good God is Belgium awesome! The beers are fantastic! Visting Trappist breweries cannot be done in one day. We spent one day for each Trappist brewery... and man did we love it!

Well, now that that has been said... here we have Sterkens Dubbel. What crap. All this beer represents is a Belgian macro-style beer.

We were just about to head out of Belgium, when i stumbled across this beer at a tiny food mart. The aroma is just a simple malt profile with a tiny bit of yeast and fruit. The flavor is incredibly thin. I am overwhelmed with plastic and a sense that I am drinking a watered down beer. There is even a slight metallic sting... oxidation due to the lack of bottle conditioning. What a waste of a beer.

It saddens me that this beer is out of Belgium. Belgian beers are like no other beers you can have. However... skip this one.

Harpoon Summer Beer

Time to do a 180!

Once we had finished our journey along the west coast, we made our way to the east and enjoyed the offerings from Harpoon.

I must admit, I haven't had too many beers from Harpoon that I thought were above par or worth noting. Call it the fever of summer time, call it my German ancestry, or simply call it the fact that this is a great beer... but, man, did I love the Harpoon Summer Beer!

Harpoon Summer Beer is a German style Kolsch and it's nice to have an American brewery nail the style down like this!

The beer pours a very pale, straw color with an aroma or grass and slight malt. The beer is very well balanced.. offering a slight bready malt with a teensy bit of grassy hops.

This beer is great for the summer time and I could have stuck around forever and had this beer, but the work of the Brewski Brothers is never done, and thus we move on...

Anchor Summer Beer

Sticking with our venture along the west coast, here we have Anchor Summer Beer out of San Francisco. Anchor is more well known for their Steam Beer, but what a delight is their Summer Beer! After Rob and I had had our fill of exploring the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, we decided to crash along the coast with this refreshing beer.

The beer pours a very pale yellow, but has a huge, gorgeous creamy head that stuck around forever. Normally a wheat beer that has this much clarity turns me off, but this one hit the spot. The aroma and flavor kind of lack.. the aroma is slightly grassy, malty, and has a hint of fruit and the flavor is mostly dry and crisp.

Anchor charges on the higher side for this beer ($10.99 for a six pack), but I could not think of a more enjoyable night than drinking this beer for hours on end along the San Fran coast. This is a true summer beer... it's easy to drink, thirst quenching, and delightfully dry. We'll be going on more road trips here very shortly... and this beer will surely be one that will be in my suitcase for the journey. Cheers, Anchor!

Carlsberg Elephant

In a bicycle shop in Cairo, Egypt, I came across Carlsberg Elephant malt liquor. Rather than going into the details of why this skunky brew was bad, I thought I would use a visual aid of what it tastes like. My tongue hasn't forgiven me as of yet. Maybe someday...It had the flavors and aroma of elephant shit. Surprise!

Bell's Hopslam

Bell's Hopslam is probably one of the most sought-after Imperial IPAs in the United States. Bell's Brewing Company started up interestingly enough, as a homebrew supply store in 1983. By 1985, they were brewing their own beer for sale. Bell's has a limited distribution territory, so demand is very high for their products, especially their seasonal beers. Hopslam is a seasonal, unfortunately, that is released in mid-Winter each year. As an Ohio State fan, it is hard to be supportive of anything from That State Up North (Michigan), so that is why I put an OSU football helmet on the bottle. It is fitting because Ohio State owns Michigan.

Hopslam pours a rich, vivid orange color with a medium off-white colored head. The head disappears within a minute or so, allowing the beer to reveal its decadant aroma. I detected notes of honey, orange, grass, grapefruit, mango and cantaloupe. The flavor started out sweet with piney hop notes and eventually turns into a cavalcade of sweet citrus fruit and orange blossom honey. It claims to be 10% abv, but I believe that is a modest estimate. The IBUs are around 70, which is balanced lovingly by the honey that is used to make it. The Simcoe and Cascade hops bring the flavors and aroma together, creating a smooth, satisfying extreme brew.

If Hopslam isn't one of the best DIPAs around, I am hard-pressed to think of another. I don't believe I could ever get tired of this beer. It is divine and deserved to be labelled as "The Nectar of the Gods" even if it is from that sinkhole, backwater state called Michigan. A+!!!

Stone Old Guardian

We are glad to announce our return from our self-imposed hiatus. After Ohio State's crushing defeat at the hands of USC, we went totally 'Kung Fu' by deciding to scour the Earth to search for the meaning of life. What we found was a lot more beer and a lot more meaningful beer. Now that we are back in North America and have managed to acclimate ourselves back into society after almost 9 months of roaming from wilderness to wilderness, it's time to write about some of the beers from our travels.




First up is Stone Old Guardian, a big boy barleywine from a craft brewery in lovely San Diego (which is German for a whale's vagina.) We sure loved San Diego. Balboa Park. The Zoo. The beaches. La Jolla. Most importantly, we loved the beer, particularly the offerings from Stone and AleSmith. Stone is headquartered in Escondido (Spanish for "hidden"), however, they certainly don't hide the flavors in their extreme brews.


Old Guardian pours a hazy light orange with aromas of peaches, pine needles, apricots, caramel and alcohol. The predominant flavors are peaches, raisins, white pepper and slightly burnt caramel. The hops give the beer a nice spicy herb and lemon/grapefruit finish. At nearly 11.3% abv, this certainly is a large beer. It will cellar for at least a few years in optimal conditions, but it sure is enjoyable now. Best enjoyed with a Pacific sunset at one of San Diego's countless beautiful vistas...But that's just how we enjoyed it.