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A coaster showing the logo, designed by Chris Rahn.
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A view of the biergarten, a covered space right on Main Street. Enter the brewery proper through the biergarten.
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Children and babies are welcome at the taproom with their parents. Baby’s first visit to the taproom.
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Barrel staves also clad the bottom of the bar. As the room grew dimmer, the blue light glow showed up stronger.
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The beer menu
Pull out the lederhosen and the dirndls. Cue up the oom-pah-pah bands. The Stubborn German Brewing Company is open for business in Waterloo, Illinois. You won’t want to miss the beer or the fun.
So, how stubborn are these two Germans, brewmaster Chris Rahn and his wife and partner Tammy Rahn?
Beer rules at Stubborn German
Chris Rahn began brewing in the brewhouse on Main Street on January 29 of this year to make sure he’d have beer at opening. He made it. Look for seven German-style beers, mostly sessionable, available year-round, and three limited-release brewer’s choice offerings, according to whim or seasonality.
Here’s the rundown on the seven house suds:
Old Ledger Lager (pre-Prohibition style): brewed from an 1899 recipe, copied straight from brewmaster Leonard Schoppe’s ledger from the Old Columbia Brewery in Columbia, Illinois. Crisp, clean, light and easy to drink. 4.7% ABV
- Fountain Creek Kolsch: Crisp and smooth, brewed with local honey from The Picky Bee in Waterloo. 4.9% ABV
- Waterloo Wheat: a heady wheat hefeweizen with balanced flavors of banana and clove. 5.0% ABV
- Stubbornfest (Octoberfest): Crisp, malty and delicious. 5.3% ABV
- Altbier (Dusseldorf altbier): Made with German Munich malt for a rich and slightly bitter flavor. 4.8% ABV
- Shittzengiggles (Munich dunkel): Dark lager with flavors of bread crusts and toast. 5.5% ABV
- Blitzkrieg IPA (American IPA): An IPA hopped with crazy amounts of Nugget, Bravo and Citra. Dry hopped with Citra twice. 6.7% ABV
- Limited releases change at the brewer’s discretion.
Beer rules, but glassware follows the rules, no exceptions
Those two stubborn Germans chose German-made Spielgelau glassware. They insist each brew be served in its proper glass, in 8- or 16-ounce pours. “We want every detail to be right,” Tammy Rahn says. “The different glasses help accentuate each beer’s aroma flavor, foam and appearance. Spiegelau glasses also designed to roll the beer into your mouth differently to hit your entire palate.”
BYOF: Bring you own food
The Rahns invite you to explore foods from Waterloo restaurants delivered to the taproom or to bring your own. For now, they are concentrating on the first order of business – beer.
Family comes first and friends help friends
The Rahns built the brewery themselves, with help from family and friends. Not only did they accomplish a Herculean task in less than a year, they consistently acknowledged and thanked the people who helped them all throughout the year on their Facebook pages. A small sampling of folks who contributed:
- Marty Rahn, Chris’s dad, put his professional welding talents to good use making the hot liquor tank they brew with today and welding the large circular sign that hangs outside the brewery.
The brewhouse, visible from the taproom. The fence was repurposed from another business in Waterloo.
- Don Landgraf, Tammy’s dad, used his carpentry and building skills to clad the walls with wood, help tile the brewery and bathrooms and much more. He created the custom tables with the help of Steve McFarland, a family friend.
- The moms helped, too. Sue Rahn and Barb Landgraf put in hours of babysitting for their two young grandsons. They cleaned and painted over and again.
- The recycled barrel staves used in the cool custom light panels (above) and to clad the bar came from a cooperage Don Landgraf discovered in Kentucky. Friends Scott Davis and Scott Wheatly sanded and stained each stave and the effect is quite fine.
- “I know this is a small detail, but we are so excited by our His/Her signs for the bathrooms,” Tammy Rahn says. “Brad Keim designed them and Pat Ahrens at Full Throttle printing produced them.” No detail too small for a stubborn German.
- A crew of seven friends stained the wood pieces used on the wall, which came from a 180-year old pine tree that was planed to size at the East Perry, Missouri sawmill. Kudos to beer lovers Scott Davis, Don Laidley, Sue Rahn, Robert Verheggen, Scott Wheatley, Stephen Agnew, Josh Scherle, Kris Iglehart, Angela Davis, and Nancy Heinle.
The above-mentioned folks are just a fraction of those friends and family members who helped with the brewery. Check out their Facebook page to catch the whole story on the build-out.
History repeats itself
Until the Stubborn German Brewing Company opened on April 25, there hadn’t been a brewery in thoroughly German Waterloo for 83 years. The wait is now over. One of two planned breweries in town is open. Look for the second, Hopskeller Brewery, to open in early summer.
Read an earlier story last year by Mike Sweeney about Stubborn German Brewing Company here.
Stubborn German Brewing Company
119 N. Main, Waterloo, IL
618-939-2277
Hours:
Wed – Thurs: 4:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Fri: 3:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Sat: 12 p.m. - 12 a.m.
Sun: 12 p.m. - 6 p.m.
The Stubborn German Brewing Company sits on Main Street in a solid brick building. Gallagher’s restaurant, known for its chicken dinners, is just around the corner.
