This week, Two Brothers Brewing Company will launch the first new beer in its regular lineup in eight years. Wobble India Pale Ale is having its preview tapping Tuesday at The Bar on Buena (910 W. Buena Ave, Chicago). The official release celebration kicks off a month-long celebration at the Two Brothers Tap House in Warrenville, starting October 1. Wobble it hits grocery and liquor stores the week of September 29 in 12-ounce bottles.
“We’re very excited about our new beer,” Two Brothers co-owner Jason Ebel told me about their first year-round IPA. “Normally, when we do a new beer, we just formulate the recipe and rarely do test batches. But we went through three full production news to get this just right.”
Ebel explains that the inspiration for the name “Wobble,” and the philosophy behind it, came from Two Brothers’ sales crew. “One of my sales people said ‘Everything Two Brothers creates is really balanced.’—And it’s true, we make beers with the right combination of flavors to create a balanced drinking experience.—’But perhaps you should come up with something a bit more hoppy.’ And I thought of the set of ‘Weebles’ toys I had as a kid; you know, ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.’”
“It is harder to make a nuanced hoppy beer than it is to just throw a bunch of hops in the kettle. We wanted Wobble to have a full range of character on top of the hop notes. We were shooting for more complexity,” Ebel said, which led them to use American hop varieties like Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Simcoe and Citra. The beer weighs in at 6.3% alcohol by volume and 69 IBU’s of hop bitterness.
If you have been to any Two Brothers tappings over the summer, you may have tried one of the test batches of Wobble, going under the nom de bière of “Two Brothers R&D.”
“We worked the recipe over and over again to get it right,” Jason said, “and we sampled it out in public and in our restaurants (in Warrenville and at the Roundhouse in Aurora). We met with industry people and certified Cicerones to get their feedback. We arrived at using Vienna and Crystal malts on top of the base malt bill, which adds a tiny bit of toastiness to the balance.”
Wobble will replace Two Brothers’ pale ale, Bitter End, in the retail lineup. “Bitter End is retired from six-packs, but we will still make it for draft accounts,” Ebel noted. “Wobble will be available both on tap and in six-packs.”
The rollout for Wobble will also herald a redesign in labeling for all of Two Brothers’ bottled beers, the fourth redesign in the brewery’s 17-year history.
