Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewery)

The Holidays are a time for fun, merriment, joy, mirth, family, friends, and…. to the Beer Thrillers; just as importantly – beer. So starting right off, on this day in between days – Christmas Eve – let us here at The Beer Thrillers say Happy Holidays. December 23rd kicks off one of my favorite holidays – Festivus. Just type Festivus into Google and find yourself fully immersed in it, with the pole running up the left hand side, a bevy of Seinfeld quotes, and all the wonders therein lies.

For those not in the know, or not fans of Seinfeld (which coincidentally celebrated its 30th anniversary of its season 1 this year…. shows how old I am now!), Festivus was a holiday made up by George Castanza’s dad. The original Festivus aired on The Strike episode back in 1997, and was immediately one of the most beloved episodes, and ever since it has gone on to become practically its own cult following, even by those who aren’t fans of Seinfeld or even watched it.

Its a holiday that eludes commercialism, instead of a Christmas tree you have a Festivus pole, just a bland aluminum pole with no glitz or glitter or glamour.

The biggest traditions of Festivus is the “Airing of Grievances” and the “Feats of Strength” followed by a Festivus dinner and possibly Festivus miracles! The Airing of Grievances is when you get to tell those, all of those, around you all of your grievances against them… that you’ve kept bottled up since last Festivus. And now you can finally tell them whats what and let them know how you truly feel. Following this is the Feats of Strength, where people get to call out other people and wrestle to see who is victorious. It is often a chance for fathers to compete against their sons.

So my Festivus miracle for you is a new beer review on Christmas Eve! Having done my due duty of work (and even some overtime) come home to write this blog about one of the beers I had the following night at Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant in downtown Hershey.

A perfectly apropos name for this time of year – Scrooged IPA was one of the several beers I tried at the brewery / restaurant.

Beer: Scrooged IPA
Brewery: Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant (Hershey, Pennsylvania)
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 60
Untappd Write-Up: American-style IPA brewed with a generous amount of hops for a pronounced hop flavor and bitterness that matches the beer’s namesake.

What a good beer name for Festivus and Christmas Eve. We all know some scrooges in our lives; bitter, angry, upset at the world folks, not unlike a very bitter and piney IPA – am-I-right?

What a wonderful segue into the beer review huh? Ahh, this is how writers write. I feel like Hemmingway would be so proud. So to keep him proud, lets keep it quick and to the point and discuss this bitter IPA.

Appearance is light yellow, clear, normal IPA beer coloring. This foam head, nothing crazy there, and not a whole lot of lacing from this either. This is what exactly its supposed to – a beer, specifically an IPA. Can never fault a beer when it looks exactly like what its supposed to.

Aroma is piney and earthy hops. You can smell that this is a full on old school, West Coast style IPA. It has a pine and bit of citrus smell, it has an earthy undertone, that you can just tell is going to be bitter and nothing like New England IPAs with their lactose and everything.

From first sip you definitely get that – all of that hop and West Coast IPA style – right upfront. You get west coast IPA beer taste immediately, old school IPA, with the bitter hops and the full flavor of pine, citrus, and bitterness. This does its namesake proud with the bittering but not to the point of being a hop bomb or too much and taking away from the beer. You still get notes of citrus, orange rinds, coriander a bit, but lots of pine notes and an earth undertone to it. There is no doubt as you drink this that its anything but an IPA and especially a west coast style. It fits the style perfectly. Its ABV is low, at 6.2% so its not going to hit you too strong, and the IBU is a good solid 60 so you certainly feel those hops at work on this one.

Now, I don’t know if anyone cares about Untappd ratings or not…

Oh… ok, since you care, let me tell you.

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.68 (as of 12.24.19)

For those of you unfamiliar with the GIFs they come from the movie Scrooged (1988) starring Bill Murray. A retelling of A Christmas Carol. Its certainly a classic, and one of the many movies that Drew and Esteban and co discuss on their Christmas movies podcast. Which you can listen here: WTF Did I Just Watch: Christmas Movies.

Hopefully you enjoyed this ‘interesting’ beer review, filled with pictures of Festivus and gifs of Scrooged. Given the name of the beer when I was out at Iron Hill I knew I had to do a beer review on the blog here of it, and knew I had to incorporate the elements of the Holidays. Perhaps in the future this will become a regular feature where at the various holidays I review holiday themed beer and give some thoughts and reviews on it. Who knows, hopefully they’ll be many (many, many, many, many, many) more Christmas’s here at The Beer Thrillers blog for many reviews to come. Fingers crossed. As long as you all keep liking and reading the blog, I’ll keep posting to it.

You can expect a slew of Tree House beer reviews in the coming days. First up will be Sap which I’ll be having at Christmas dinner. After that, I have Doppleganger, Haze, Julius, and Autumn to enjoy and review. These all come courtesy of Dan Arndt who along with his fiance was up north and brought them back down to me. So major kudos and thank you’s go his way.

As always, if you enjoyed this beer review, make sure to check out some of our other recent reviews: The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works, My Watch Has Ended by Brewery Ommegang, Ice Dreamz by Pizza Boy, and a beer flight of scratches by Troegs Brewing; also check out J. Doncevic’s reviews of Colonization by Adroit Theory, and Envie by Parish Brewing, and check out our contributor Let Us Drink Beer’s review of Koki Bunni.

At this time of the year, we here at The Beer Thrillers wish all of our readers a very Happy and Hoppy Holidays. Be it Festivus, Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, The Festival of Lights, or any other way you enjoy celebrating with friends and family, we wish you the very best. May your 2019 end happily and your 2020 begin even better!

Cheers!

-B. Kline