Recipes
Chefs Tipsy Elephant
This specialty IPA features the African marula fruit — yellow stone fruits about the size of golf balls that are high in sugar, sweet, syrupy in texture, and with an almost citrus-like flavor. Marula was said to accentuate the hop character. Brewed by the 1000 Hills Chef School, it took first place in the IPA category at the 2024 Intervarsitybrew competition.
University of Cape Town’s Wit Restraint
This low-ABV witbier was the Best of Show winner from the 2024 Intervarsitybrew competition brewed by students at the University of Cape Town and features the unique South African hop Southern Passion in addition to the coriander and orange zest witbiers are known for.
Funky Blondy Mixed Fermentation Sour
Brewed by students from the University of Limpopo, this blonde sour beer was awarded bronze in the Intervarsitybrew competition’s sour beer category. The recipe uses a blonde ale base to express light to moderate malty aroma, possibly with a light bread or caramel note, and it also expresses low to moderate fruitiness, with medium hop aroma. Such low characters will not interfere with the sourness, acidity and funky character contributed by fermenting yeast and bacteria.
Working Draft Beer Co.’s Keep ‘Em Honest clone
A German-style helles from Working Draft Beer Co., in Madison, Wisconsin.
Gordon Strong’s Märzen
This is a competition beer. It is a bit bigger, sweeter, and maltier than many modern German Märzen examples, which judges often prefer.
Viking Blood (Cherry Melomel)
This is a cherry melomel named after the seafaring Nordic legends — the Vikings — from where it originated. So, if not for anything, make this mead simply for the lore. The honey, sourced from hives kissed by Nordic breezes lends its essence, while the cherries impart a tartness that balances its sweetness with a tantalizing acidity.
Peach Melomel
There are many ways of making a stone fruit mead, and they range from using fresh fruit to buying canned fruit, to juicing your fruit or buying the juice itself. This peach melomel recipe, which will be using canned peaches and Tupelo honey, is just one of the many ways to make a peach mead. It’s a good introductory recipe that is relatively easy and results in tasty mead. Feel free to substitute fresh peaches if they are in season.
Boulton’s Stout
This is the first homebrew recipe presented in the Maltose Falcons newsletter archive from January 1978 and it was an award-winning recipe from Dr. John Boulton of the San Andreas Malts. The quote from longtime beer author and owner of The Beverage People in Santa Rosa, Byron Burch: “An excellent, very rich stout made by Dr. John Boulton of the Malts. After sufficient lip-smacking on my part, he was good enough to send me his recipe and allow me to make it public. This is a true stout lovers (sic) stout.”
Dougweiser
You cannot tell the story of the Falcons without having Doug King in the middle of it. In Doug’s years in the club, the legend of Dougweiser and his habit of throwing anything into the mash tun (with consideration) became the stuff of legends. This is the last batch of Doug’s eponymous beer he brewed before his death driving to the Northern California Homebrewers Fest. It was brewed on July 4, 1999 and was kegged on August 10. (For readers obsessed with gear in pursuit of perfection, Doug brewed world class lagers on his kitchen stove and used a ZapPap bucket setup for lautering.)
Maltose Falcons 20th Anniversary Old Survivor Old Ale
20th Anniversary Old Survivor Old Ale by Bruce Brode, Brian Vessa, Jerry Macala, Dave Janss (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)OG = 1.070 FG = 1.015IBU = 25 SRM = 28 ABV = 7.2%
The Maltose Falcons 50th Anniversary Festbier
The Falcons and Sierra Nevada have had a long history and close relationship over the years. Something about members of the Grossman clan and others learning how to brew while in high school here in Los Angeles with supplies from John Daume. (Things are foggy and who knows about statute of limitations!) But seriously, both the Falcons and Sierra Nevada have been around since the start of this crazy “good beer” thing we all enjoy, so it’s only right that we joined forces with them for our 50th anniversary beer. Also, this brew session came about after a number of discussions and one really big kick in the pants by Marty Velas, “youngest President in club history” and Owner/Brewer of Fanatic Brewing Company in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Marty convinced Sierra Nevada to brew a festbier because we’re celebrating 50 years, it’s our Oktoberfest, and the club really was founded with a deep and abiding love of lagers as demonstrated by Merlin Elhardt and Cal Moeller’s obsession with them.
Browniewine
Volume-wise, booze-wise, and holy crap-wise, this still remains our “biggest” collaboration to date (only Sierra Nevada brews more beer per year in terms of our collabs). This one all happened on a whim as Allen Tracy, a member with family in the Paso Robles area, stopped in at the brewery and had a palaver with Brewmaster Matt Brynildson about brewing a special beer. Matt said, “whatever you want to make” and this crazy thing came about from two suggestions “a really big brown ale” and “rum barrels.” The recipe design was created by Steve Cook and then brewed by a large crowd of Falcons. (We say brewed, but really the whole place is computer-controlled so they mostly ran around like barely trained monkeys after eating partially fermented bananas.)
This beer went on to be a surprising hit with the beer ticket crowd who would clamber for a chance to get a taste whenever Firestone rolled it out for things like their Firestone Walker Invitational.
