Brother Brews: Dragon's Milk Clone

We went up to visit my brother and his family in Rhode Island a couple of weeks ago for vacation. The cousins had a lot of fun playing together and we did all sorts of fun activities like going into Boston, going to the beach, and playing around in the backyard. Jeff and I also got to do a bunch of fun beer-related activities (much to our wives' chagrin), such as stopping at some of his local bottle shops, trying a bunch of his homebrew, and doing a comparison of the Lost Abbey Devotion clone we had brewed together with the actual commercial beer. Jeff is lucky enough to get Lost Abbey beer in his area. It was really a lot of fun to compare the two beers. As I recall, our homebrewed version was more grainy, rough, and had more Belgian character than the commercial version, which was smooth, velvety with just a hint of spice. We were also able to get a brew session in together, which was a highlight of the trip for me.

Jeff and I had previously decided to try and brew a clone version of New Belgian's Dragon's Milk, which is a wonderfully rich bourbon-aged old ale. I had previously tried Dragon's Milk at The Timberwood Grill, which is near my house, and fell in love with the beer. We decided on it because it was a rich and interesting beer and would age well, as it would be some time before we would see each other again and be able to exchange bottles. The clone recipe was published in the January 2008 edition of Brew Your Own magazine.

I had a lot of fun seeing how Jeff brews beer, as every homebrewer develops their own process with their own equipment. Jeff also brews at night, which is very different than my weekend daily brewing. He also batch sparges, while I use a homebrew-sized fly sparging setup. As an added bonus, one of our best friends from when we were growing up, Craig, came down from Boston and stayed the night to hang out. It was really fun to show him the process and chat with him over a couple of pints of Jeff's great homebrew.

The Dragon's Milk Clone is now aging on bourbon-soaked oak chips in secondary and I can't wait to try it out. I had a great time, Jeff, and I hope we can do it again soon.