Beer Review: Vader (Mispillion River Brewing Company)
Dun Dun Di Dun… Dun Di Dun….
Thats my attempt at writing out the Imperial Theme anyway. (The above should work, its my first attempt at adding music to the blog, so hopefully I did it all right.) (After testing it – it looks to be good to go from my home.)
I figured this would be an appropriate first beer to review for our new Star Wars Fridays series. Previously we did Star Wars Wednesdays to coincide with The Book of Boba Fett episodes being released. Well this time, with the Obi-Wan Kenobi show being on Fridays, we switched it up to be Star Wars Fridays. Enjoy!
During The Book of Boba Fett season – seven episodes – we covered seven Star Wars beers. They were:
- BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
- The Meadalorian (Space Time Mead and Cider Works)
- Let the Haze Flow Through You (Black Flag Brewing)
- (Out of Order) Tatooine Tart (RAR Brewing)
- (Out of Order) RAWRGWAWGGR (RAR Brewing)
- (Out of Order) Droid Juice (RAR Brewing)
- Wookies and Cream (Tall Tales Brewing)
We also covered another beer review hidden in my analysis of The Book of Boba Fett show after it finished, wrapped up here:
- The Book of Boba Fett (Analysis)
As for this beer, you can find me drinking it in the YouTube video me and my buddies made over on the Knights of Nostalgia page. Fair warning – there is a lot of swearing, dirty talking, drunken shenanigans, and flat out tomfoolery involved. You can find the video here: “The Book of Boba Fett – Discussion Piece.” You can find the YouTube channel here: Knights of Nostalgia (YouTube).
Obi-Wan Kenobi
So first, before jumping into the beer review, lets discuss why we’re here. And thats because its “Star Wars Fridays” here on The Beer Thrillers, and thats due to the new Obi-Wan Kenobi show.
As part of Star Wars Celebration, they announced they would be dropping the first two episodes at midnight (eastern time) rather than the usual 3AM. (Announced as being released at 9PM PT; which is where Star Wars Celebration was being held.) So that was a bonus fun treat, getting to watch Episode 1 and Episode 2 at midnight. (Ended up staying up til 3AM hyped from the show.)
This beer review is to coincide with the first episode. I will be posting later today, the second beer review to go along with the second episode. (I know, quite a few blog post drops in the past few days, between the various news related posts, and these beer reviews.)
That way I can keep each beer review / blog post detailing each episode and discuss that particular episode at the end of the the review. (The spoilers section.)
Ok, now that we’ve watched the trailer, and gotten adequately hyped on Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Star Wars, lets get on to the beer review.
Beer Review: Vader
First, let’s take a look at Mispillion River Brewing Company on Untappd.
Mispillion River Brewing Company is listed as a micro brewery from Milford, Delaware. It has 507 unique beers and as total number of 128,908 ratings, with a global average of 3.68 (as of 5.27.22). Their Untappd bio reads: “Mispillion River Brewing was born from the love of craft brewing, art in its purest form! We at Mispillion River Brewing desire to continue this art form by brewing the finest craft beer. In 2011, Co-Founder, Eric Williams, told his wife and Co-Founder, “Megan, I am going to open a craft brewery in Milford!” After 2 years of planning, brewing (and tasting!!), traveling the country, and assembling a team of partners, we are set to open in the late Fall of 2013. We not only want to open a craft brewery but desire to open the best craft brewery. We will do this by combining the highest quality ingredients of barley, hops, water and yeast. We are targeting the entry level craft drinker, beer connoisseur, craft beer drinker, and the craft brewery enthusiast-that is our focus. Our mission statement sums it all up: Mispillion River Brewing aims to be recognized by its customers and the brewing industry for producing the highest quality craft beer. We honor craft brewing by using the highest quality ingredients, and strive for the best customer service in the industry. Craft brewing is a passion and exemplifies the love of life possessed by the MRB crew and the great community it serves.”
Beer: Vader
Brewery: Mispillion River Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double Black
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: 55
Untappd Description: From the darkness comes a beer that only the force will rival. This double black IPA is rich with hops and balanced with the dark side. If you are tempted by one, you will surely succumb to two!
As we normally do here on The Beer Thrillers, we start with appearance, then aroma, and then taste. And looking at this beer after its been poured, its downright dark and black. Black like Darth Vader’s suit itself (had to switch it up from my former used line of – black like Razor Ramone’s hair – RIP). It has a beautiful foamy head, and it looks downright delicious. Nice varied bubbles, good black hue for a black IPA, and a nice pour. Carbonation was on point.
Aroma has that nice dark IPA aroma to it; the malty notes come out first and foremost. You get some chocolate, earthy, bready malty notes, which then dives into the hops themselves – mainly from the mosaic you get a dankness and then citrus, almost even a sweet citrus hop note. There is a lot going on with the aroma to this in kind of a complex manner that leaves the nose hopeful for the beer itself.
This tastes like a very finely put together black IPA. One of my favorite ‘underrated’ styles. I don’t think Black IPAs get the press they deserve, let alone even actually receive, and I feel like the press they do get tends to be negative. Obviously their not the “in” beer style, like Hazy / Juicy New England IPAs are, and so right off the bat their not going to get the attention that those beers get. But having said my piece, I’m now going to focus on the beer at hand. Out of the gate, sipping this, you get notes of the roast malted, some chocolate overtones in the maltyness, and bready and earthy notes from a combination of the malts and hops I believe. This kind of segues itself into the middle of the beer which gets into the bitter, more roasted, almost porter like tastes, but never completely leans on that as its not a porter but an IPA. Which is where it finishes up at – all IPA baby. I would certainly say this is above average for most beers, and above average for its style. Its a nice surprise coming from Mispillion River Brewing Company, a brewery thats been on my list to hit next time we get into Delaware. I’ve mostly only gotten to sample from them at different brewfests and such and not had a whole lot of their stuff on tap or from the can, so this was a nice change of pace with them. And they certainly wow’ed me with it too. Its a good beer and a good piece of work from them, and the namesake for the beer works with its style and appearance perfectly.
My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Average Untappd rating: 3.84 (as of 5.27.22)
The Obi-Wan Kenobi Show
Ok, here’s where the spoilers are going to come in everyone. So if you don’t want to be spoiled, you can stop reading here, or you can zoom down to the bottom of the post where I wrap things up. Your choice on that. If you’ve seen Episode 1 (or Part I) of Obi-Wan Kenobi, then you may gladly stick around for the next few paragraphs of discussion.
Firstly, just to give some space for the spoilers, I’ll offer a few links for further discussion, if you find you want to read more about people’s thoughts on the show, you can check these out:
- Obi-Wan Kenobi Series: Part I (TheForce.Net)
- Obi-Wan Show (GameFAQs Star Wars Board)
- Obi-Wan Kenobi Series (SW:CCG PC Forums)
- Obi-Wan Kenobi Episodes 1 and 2 Discussion (Reddit – Star Wars)
And here’s a fun little video to watch:
This was from last night at the Star Wars Celebration, involving Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. Speaking of Celebration, they announced a new show called “Skeleton Crew” which will start Jude Law, and they gave a definitive date to the Andor show and showed a trailer for that as well. (I’ll probably cover that more in the next beer review, because otherwise that’ll just be too much here.) They also announced some more Star Wars books and showed some covers for existing already announced titles.
So anyway, onto my thoughts about the Obi-Wan Kenobi show – Part I.
Firstly – I absolutely loved it. This show is everything that The Book of Boba Fett wasn’t (but was supposed to be). A well thought out, a well paced, and a well written show. Ewan McGregor is such a phenomenal actor and you can tell he absolutely loves the character of Obi-Wan, that he downright feels him to the bone. The story of Part I makes good sense and I have no complaints about how they went about writing things. The opening of the Jedi Temple being attacked was strong and poignant (especially given recent USA events) but there’s no point really discussing it as its not much similarity and its still needed and necessary for the overall plot of the show (and Star Wars in general).
I enjoyed the idea of Leia being captured and that being the thrust to get Obi-Wan off planet. It makes sense that that would be the only thing that could get him to leave Luke and go off of Tatooine. Nothing outright contradicts anything previously established in the (new) canon, so far so good on that. It does border some things though that gets into a bit of a murkier territory. (Like how Anakin and Dooku dueled about 30 times in between Episode II and Episode III on The Clone Wars.) But nothing that blatant (yet).
The actress for Leia nails it and gives you that spunky attitude you expect out of Leia, and seems like a young Carrie Fisher. (Her running is weird though, but what kid doesn’t run weird.) They should have just had her immediately captured instead of having the weird awkward “kid eludes adults” while running bit. But hey, at least we got Flea in Star Wars now!
Its a much more grittier, somber, and darker story. Which is kind of what The Book of Boba Fett should have been. Tatooine is also shot better in this show, versus that of Fett too, which is a bit weird. Book of Boba Fett has kind of a glossier look to it, where as here, Tatooine is clearly grittier, dirtier, more real and lived in.
Costumes and set pieces and stuff look very impressive. Though there’s not too many “Star Wars” aliens. The aliens they do show look Star Warsy enough, but their not particular / specific aliens that we know and love from past movies and shows. (Think Twi’leks, Trandoshans, Wookies, Abyssins, Ithorians, Ishi Tibs, Chadra-Fans, Grans, Dugs, Gungans, Klatoonians, etc, etc, etc.)
But all in all, I loved it, and it left me wanting more. So I can’t wait. Later today I will be posting another beer review (Green Milk) and doing Part II discussion. Also tonight, I will be on the Knights of Nostalgia Twitch page. You can find us here: Knights of Nostalgia (Twitch).
Pop and Nerd Culture Articles
As always, here’s the segment where I showcase and list off all the nerdy articles we’ve covered here on The Beer Thrillers. Pick and choose through and find your favorites and let us know what pop culture and nerdy shows, movies, or books you like. I’d love to find more nerd beers to review, or books, etc.
Star Wars:
- Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
- Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: Tatooine Tart (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: RAWRGWAWGGR (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: Droid Juice (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Wookies and Cream (Tall Tales Brewing)
- Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
- May the Fourth Be With You
- Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
- Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
- Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
- Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)
- Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
- Beer Review: BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
- Mead Review: The Meadalorian (Space Time Mead and Cider Works)
- Beer Review: Let the Haze Flow Through You (Black Flag Brewing Co)
- Book Review: The Jedi Path and The Book of the Sith (Daniel Wallace)
- Book Review: Guardians of the Whills (Greg Rucka)
- May the Fourth Be With You (2022)
- RAR Out of Order Star Wars Drop!
- Beer Review: Vader (Mispillion River Brewing Company)
Lord of the Rings:
- Book Review: An Atlas of Tolkien (David Day)
- Book Review: The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Rick and Morty:
Space Balls:
Game of Thrones:
- Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)
- Book Review: The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister (George R.R. Martin)
The Simpsons:
- Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)
Back to the Future:
Scrooged:
Groundhog Day:
- Beer Review: Prognosticator Pils (Logyard Brewing Company)
- Logyard Brewing’s Prognosticator Pils is the Official Beer of Groundhog Day (2022)
A Christmas Story:
- Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)
Pro Wrestling:
- Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)
- Beer Review: Royal Rumble (Funk Brewing)
- Stone Cold Steve Austin and the WWE Are Celebrating 3:16 Day
Phillies:
Matrix:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Seinfeld:
- Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)
Other:
- Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
- Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
- Beer Review: Intergalactic Deals (Levante Brewing)
- Beer Review: Galactic Space Circus (Creature Comforts Brewing Co)
Thanks For Reading
Once again, I’d like to say thank you to all my readers. As I said above, tonight I’ll be posting the beer review for Green Milk by RAR Brewing, which will coincide with Episode 2 of Obi-Wan Kenobi show. Also, I will be on Twitch with Drew Scott and Josh Hoover playing PSO (Phantasy Star Online) and drinking beer. So check us out on that. And then tomorrow, me and Miss Amy will be traveling to RAR for the Star Wars drop. Check that out as well if you can.
Cheers!
-B. Kline
As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com
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