AJ Brechbiel - The Beer Thrillers

Old Soul Brewing Starting up in Waynesboro Pennsylvania

B. Kline — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 01:08:00 +0000

Old Soul Brewing – Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

And the Brewery Count Goes Up

So good to start off the new year with good news. And few things are better than announcing a new brewery is in the works.

The Waynesboro brewing scene is picking up. Announcing today on Facebook that they have secured a building is Old Soul Brewing. They will be located at: 2 South Mulberry Street, Waynesboro, PA, United States, Pennsylvania. The building is currently the Nu – Way Cleaners (a former dry cleaner business in Waynesboro).

Obviously not much is known at this time of their announcement, but we are definitely keeping them on the radar.

Announcement

Old Soul Brewing announces that they have secured a location

Old Soul Brewing made the following announcement via their social media pages earlier today:

Happy new year! The new year brings exciting news for us! Big thanks to Mike and Sharon from Iron Valley Real Estate of Central PA Carlisle Office for finding a home for our project!

Clean out is well underway! Working on drawings and permits to start the buildout. We’re looking to open mid summer this year if all goes well.
Old Soul Brewing – Facebook Post

To go along with their announcement, Lindgren Craft Brewery also made an announcement:

Remember when we told you about our 2-bbl system getting a new home in Waynesboro? Be sure to follow Old Soul Brewing to follow their adventures as they work on getting their brewery open!
Lindgren Craft Brewery – Facebook Post

Its so awesome to see a brewery getting to reuse a local brewery’s supplies and tanks. Good to see Lindgren Craft Brewery’s 2-BBL system going to a good home.

This is what’s so great about the craft beer industry. How teams and breweries work together. Lindgren Craft Brewery gets to upgrade their system, recoup some of the money from their old system, and in the process their old system finds a new home with a starting brewery and helps them out.

You can read more about Lindgren Craft Brewery and how they are moving into a bank in Duncannon Pennsylvania here: Lindgren Craft Brewery – Back the Bank. And – Lindgren Craft Brewing – Duncannon’s Newest Brewery: Inside a Bank.

The Facebook summary for Old Soul Brewing reads:

We are a 2bbl brew house with a six tap tasting room. All styles from clear to thicc will be offered.
Old Soul Brewing – Facebook

AJ Brechbiel

Longtime readers of the blog here will recognize the name of AJ Brechbiel. He has written a few articles for us, and been longtime friends of the blog. We first met AJ a long time ago at various home brewing events and other craft beer related events in the area and got to know him and reached out to him to write a bit for us.

He has been an assistant brewer for both Rough Edges Brewing Company in Waynesboro Pennsylvania and for Gearhouse Brewing Company in Chambersburg Pennsylvania.

You can read about our one trip here: Hiking Pen Mar Overlook and Park and Visiting Rough Edges Brewing.

AJ has been a big help here at the blog and great supporter as well. You can read his articles here:

We have reached out to AJ and hope to get more word on the upcoming brewery. You here at The Beer Thrillers will certainly get all the news when we get it!

Brewery News

Interested in finding out about many other brewery openings, new locations, closings, movings, and in general brewery news? You can check out our links below:

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading everyone, and I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s. Hopefully you didn’t tie one on too much last night at your New Years Eve parties… maybe didn’t go straight for all the barleywines or 14% pastry stouts? Maybe chilled and settled for a few pilsners and lagers? Here at The Beer Thrillers HQ we had a a pretty slow day. I had to do some housework, getting a room finished painting, and had to do some computer training for my work. I finished two books to hit my 2022 Book Challenge goal of 110 books.

Scarlet, Amy and I, just stayed inside for New Years Eve, and today – New Years Day – I worked. But its so good to come home to this great news. And fills me with much hope for the 2023 year! I can’t wait to get at it!

Cheers All! And a very Happy New Years!

-B. Kline

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The Best of 2019

BKline — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 12:35:00 +0000

This is the second part of my end of the year series. You can read the first part here: “The End of 2019“. Which was essentially a recap of the year 2019 for The Beer Thrillers. I discussed when / why the blog was started back on May 17th, 2019, and how its grown since then to where we are now. I discussed how we have grown exponentially since we first started, from just me writing a few beer blogs, to adding J. Doncevic, to adding Default Brewing, to doing contributing work with Breweries in PA and Let Us Drink Beer blog as well as numerous other things, like how we’ve done brewery reviews, beer event reviews, book reviews, and gotten asked to write up brewery openings, etc.

2019 has certainly been a big year. For the brewing industry, for myself, for this blog (well… primarily because its been the only year the blog’s been around…), for the country, and for the world as a whole. It was certainly a pivotal year. (Though at the end of each year, it feels like we say this every year.)

I wanted to do a bit of a recap and “best” of series all wrapped up in one. This second part will recap some of 2019; in the sense I’ll talk about my personal favorite beers I had in 2019 for the first time, my favorite new brewery stops, the blog’s top viewed articles, and I’ll show the results of fans top beers / breweries. I asked here in the blog, on my personal Facebook, our Twitter, and in several Facebook beer groups what people’s favorite beers / breweries of 2019 were, and I’ll share the results of that.

First off, I’ll start with the blog, and then work towards my personal, then to our fans.

The Top Ten Viewed Articles Here on The Beer Thrillers:

Working our way up to the #1 most viewed:

10. We actually have a 3-way tie to start off the list, so this really becomes a Top 12 rather than Top 10. The first of the three way tie is:

Caucus-Race 6.0 by Boneshire Brew Works

Looking through the glass at Boneshire Brew Works, used for the article – Breweries Around Harrisburg PA

Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg – an article about the various breweries in the Harrisburg / Hershey area

And the third tie for #10 is – A Beer Flight from Ever Grain, reviewed. Their 3rd Anniversary, Cinn-a-bon, etc.

Ever Grain Brewing Co.

Number 9 on the list is Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour by Newfangled Brew Works

Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour by Newfangled Brew Works

AuZealand 2.0 by Boneshire Brew Works

Number 8 on the list is AuZealand 2.0 by Boneshire Brew Works

Number 7 is the Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart beer review by J. Doncevic, brewed by Rotunda Brewing Company

Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart by Rotunda Brewing Company

The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works

Number 6 is The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works, a recent article, but one that climbed fast and got a ton of views quickly.

Numbers 5 and 4 are actually tied and are both recap / listicles: November Recap and Some Old Posts.

Number 3 is yet another Boneshire Brew Works beer – Harrishire

Harrishire by Boneshire Brew Works

Dillston by Boneshire Brew Works

And number 2, and the last individual page that got the most views was Dillston by Boneshire Brew Works.

Because number one overall, is our main page – The Beer Thrillers homepage. Which I suppose should come as no surprise. But the Boneshire Brew Works beers definitely cleaned up, with several in our top 10 – Dillston, Harrishire, The Hog, AuZealand, and Caucus-Race.

I love seeing the statistics and analytics of what posts get the most views, where the people are coming from or how they find the site through different search engine results and things. So its neat to see some of the local beer reviews we’ve done – for Boneshire and for Rotunda – making the top 10.

Now, onto the personal. I got to check out 17 new breweries or brewpubs this year:

Columbia Kettle Works (2nd Gear) – Lancaster, PA
Twisted Bine – Mount Joy, PA
Tun Tavern and Brewpub – Atlantic City, NJ
Battlefield Brew Works – Gettysburg, PA
Straub Visitor Center, Tap Room, and Brewery – St. Mary’s, PA
Logyard Brewing – Kane, PA
Twisted Vine – Kane, PA
ShuBrew Brewery – Zelionople, PA
Cinderlands Beer Co. Warehouse – Pittsburgh, PA
The Church Brew Works – Pittsburgh, PA
Yellow Bridge Brewing – Delmont, PA
Stone Bridge Brewery – Johnstown, PA
Olde Bedford Brewery – Bedford, PA
Cushwa Brewery – Williamsport, MD
Mad Chef Brewing Company – East Petersburg, PA
Rotunda Brew Pub – Hershey, PA (formerly Irv’s Pub, I’m counting this as “new” since its now rebranded as a brewpub)
Official BBQs and Burgers, Pizza Boy’s Second Location – Rutherford, PA

Out of these 17 places, I’m going to have to say my favorite was Logyard. Stopped there, during my three day vacation trip with my daughters, and they loved the brewery, loved the food, loved the atmosphere, and the beer was phenomenal. It was also small, out of the way, not even really on the map. So I think it was super cool for that. A runner-up would definitely be Cushwa. Which had fantastic beer, a great bartender, didn’t get any food, and didn’t get to stay long, so I can’t really speak of the atmosphere. Third place would have to go to The Church Brew Works, which is a must-visit just for the aesthetics of seeing an old church turned into a brewery. A visually stunning location and brewery and worth a trip to see when in the Pittsburgh area.

Top beers is going to be much harder to narrow down and pick and choose. I have so many I could pick. From local breweries, I loved this year’s version of Double Blizzard, by Troegs Brewery, I also loved several of the sWheat Tarts I got to try this year, notably the Juicy Fruit one by Rotunda Brewing. Boneshire Brew Works also pumped out some amazing beers, like the s’Mores Lazaris, The Hog, the 2019 Holiday Reserve, several of their one offs, Caucus-Race 6.0, AuZealand 2.0, Sunburst, almost too many to list. And Tattered Flag really pumped out some great beers this year. The Peach Rings of Fire beer, Inexplicably Juicy, the Should Have Put Him Custardy, the Imperial Churro collaboration, basically any collaboration they made was phenomenal. I loved the beers I had at Yellow Bridge, Cinderlands, Mad Chef, Cushwa, and especially Logyard. I got some great beers from trades that I really liked, like There’s Nuttin Butter Than a Nice Pair of Camo Pants, and Azathoth, I also got gifted Sap and Autumn from Tree House, which were fantastic. So many good beers, so hard to narrow them all down. Had some really great ones at the various brewfests I went to like Lititz, Mount Hope, Atlantic City’s, etc. I’m going to just have to cop out here and say I can’t name just one.

I will provide a link here to my “Your Year in Beer” by Untappd. Ben’s 2019 Year in Beer.

It was certainly a great year with 1,000+ unique beer checkins from a ton of breweries.

Now lets switch again and go to some reader responses.

On my personal Facebook page, Tyler Budwash said his favorite was Should Have Put Him in Custard by Tattered Flag.

On the Central PA Whalerz Facebook group, the answers were varied. Some were:

Collin Short said Trillium’s Max Headroom, Monk’s Western and Del Amo, Solo Hike, Bloom Blossom, Super Fluffy; Veil’s Buried Alive 3, We Ded Mon 3, Good Morning Anxiety; and Aslin’s Castle Hill and Sperryville.

James Nicastro said 3 sons and Voodoo’s Summagick, Aslin’s Luling, Sperryville, Alexandria, and Gang Gets a Barrel; Other Half’s BA Snowbirds; Monkish Space Churro; Hudson Valley’s Amorphia, Other Half’s 5th Anniversary, Tilted Barn’s Space Cactus, Equilibrium’s Dream Wave Distortion, and Dream Wave Fluctuation.

Chris Scott said New Trail’s Red Line.

Greg Brunner liked The Veil’s Patient Man and White Bugatti.

When posed the question to the Breweries in PA Facebook group, I got a large range of answers as well:

Douglas Allen – MissileToad by Ever Grain
Anthony Ferraro – New Trail Backast Double IPA and Victory’s Cloudwalker IPA.
Kaela Williams – anything by Imprint
Michael Dunmore – Special Cookie by Free Will Brewing
Michael Keener – North County Brewing White Tea, Abjuration Brewing WCPM v1.0
Shawn Bryne – Broken Goblet Brewing – Hazenberg IPA
Dean Horning – Yuengling’s Hershey Porter
John Welsh – Ralphius – Free Will (and variants)
David Villafane – Lollihop – Troegs
James Frank – Wild Berry Pineapple Puffsicle
Tim Kilian – A Nap in the Pollen – Forest and Main
Nevile Mehta – Schmoojee beers – Imprint
Scott Bombeck – Shallow and Pointless – New Trail
Wilson Myers – Frost – Robin Hood Brewing
Chris Ciccarone – Raspberry Heliocentric – New Trail
Teri Smith – Morning Blonde – Hop Hill Brewing
Matthew David Prince – Double Guava Milkshake IPA – Tired Hands
Andie Bicho – Stratophonic – Levante
Siobhan Royack – Lost in Suspension, Apricot – Lost Tavern
Thomas Slovik – Chaka – Schaylor Brewing and Sunny Side Up by Pizza Boy

So this kind of wraps up 2019. Sums it up to some degree. Between this and the “End of the Year – 2019” article, I think I wrapped up the year of 2019; for the blog, for myself personally, and for some of our readers. Hopefully you enjoyed what we’ve done in 2019, and even more importantly, hopefully you are looking forward to what we have in store for 2020. I know I am.

I just want to say thank you for reading, for myself, Josh, AJ, Default Brewing, Let Us Drink Beer, and everyone else who has worked to help me with this blog behind the scenes, we all want to thank you – the readers – for checking us out, and reading. Thank you!

Happy New Year. Happy start to 2020, and lets make it a fantastic year!

Cheers, toast, and prost!

-B. Kline

End of the Year – 2019

BKline — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 14:46:39 +0000

(Just a quick note, late addition on this, this is going to be a two-part article. First part a look-back at The Beer Thrillers articles of 2019, and the second part about our top beers, top breweries, and other happenings of 2019 for myself personally and the blog, and some of our friends in general. So make sure to check out both parts.)

So its the end of the year… end of decade even…. and thus its time to reflect back on where we came from, how we got to where we are, and where we are going. Humanity, since the inception of time, and creating of calendars and years and New Years Eves and New Years Days have always taken the last few days of each year to look back on their year, their life, and reflected, and thought about how they could better themselves, come up with “resolutions” for the upcoming year, and join in with friends and families as they ring in the new year. “New Year New You.”

We here at The Beer Thrillers are going to do something …. similar. Not fully introspective though, because we don’t take ourselves that seriously. But just a fun look back at the year that was 2019. I can’t speak for my co-writers, but I can say for me, personally, 2019 had its fair share of ups, downs, in-betweens, lefts, rights, diagonals, crosses, bounces, turns, jukes, and jives. But I’m still here and better for it all. But I’m not going to go on and on too much about myself personally.

Rather, I’m going to write about how the blog has done, where we started from, where we’re headed, etc. And yea, I’ll probably get a little personal. But nothing deep or philosophical or introspective. More along the lines of what were some of the best beers, breweries, or events I’ve done of the year. So don’t worry, the blog will uphold the Seinfeld idea of “Nobody learns, nobody grows, nobody hugs”.

Scratch 375 – CocoNator by Troegs Independent Craft Brewery

I started this blog back on May 17th, 2019. (This year!) It was a Thursday, my girls (my daughters) were at school, I was bored, and trying to figure out what I’m doing / was doing. I needed something for my days off while the kids were at school, something that was fun, something I was passionate about, something that let me feel like I was being creative, using my talents, and something I knew about. I’ve been reading blogs, and news sites, and all kinds of things about beer for so long, and I have a lot of experience drinking… …and writing… that I figured why not combine the two? I was feeling like I was in a rut, my job is the same its been for the past seven years, I wasn’t doing anything outright ‘creative’ and needed an outlet for it, and we are in a review culture. I do all kinds of reviews all the time, in small nondescript and unimportant ways. Like reading books when I’m finished, I write up a review of them when I check them off on GoodReads. Same with Untappd, when I drink a beer, I write up a small (Tweet size) review of it. I also felt, I was in a unique spot to start this up. I was getting to a spot where I knew enough people “on the inside” or “in the business”, and I was also doing stuff beyond just being a consumer; like home brewing, growing hops, helping can at Tattered Flag, being engaged in conversations with home brewers and professional brewers a lot, that I felt like I could provide some interesting conversations and articles to the world.

Mainly…. I was looking to not be bored, and to do something I love doing – writing and drinking beer.

So I started the blog up on May 17th, 2019. Basically having no clue what I was doing. I started up using WordPress and here we are. Its still WordPress, albeit the ‘weaker’ version (fingers crossed come sometime the new year, I switch over to the more advanced version, where I have more control over the site and the appearance). I did a little bit of research, chose a name – which to be frankly speaking – the name “The Beer Thrillers” just popped up to me. Nothing too deep or crazy or interesting behind it. I was honestly conjuring up the idea that it would be me, and a few of my friends writing, thus the “Thrillers” and not “Thriller”. I thought me, Drew, Dan maybe, and a few others would all writing all kinds of blog posts and contributing. Maybe some of the insiders in the business I know too… …while this hasn’t happened exactly; I have enlisted friends and other writers over the year to help out. (More on that as I get to their participation.)

Outside of creating the home page and starting up the site, my very first article on the blog was a beer review of Troegs’ Scratch 375 – The CocoNator. As far as first time articles go, I have no problems with it. Counting the writing of my colleagues and fellow contributors and cowriters to the blog, we’re now up to 130 blog posts (this being #131). I definitely think I’ve come a long way from that first blog. But I also like to think I laid the foundation there. I set up a system for how the beer reviews (I do) are written, presented, and I hope they are written in a fun, interesting, educational, and most importantly entertaining way.

Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro by Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co.

When I started this in May, I had just gotten a couple of cans from my shift manager at work – Jordan and used them a the base for my first few beer reviews. The CocoNator was quickly followed by two South County beer reviews – Painting with Light (May 19th) and Sundrifter (May 30th). Also during this time, from my recent volunteer work helping can at Tattered Flag I worked with and gotten quite a few of their cans (hard work and sweat at their brewery resulted in many cans of whatever beer was being canned that day, as well as lots of other cans they still had from past canning runs). Two of these resulted in the beer reviews of Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro (May 22nd) which was a collaboration between Derek Wolf of Wolf Brewing Co. and Tattered Flag and You Hoppin’ On Me? (May 24th).

Canning Day at Tattered Flag

I was trying to write fast, furiously, and get some articles out there as a starting blog, I knew content was going to be the main driving force (and still is). Quality content even better. Hopefully I provided the quality content. I guess thats all up to you guys to decide, but I like to think I did (or at least, like I said, hope I did). As you can see from my picture of the Imperial Churro; often times in the background or foreground or beside the beers you’ll see some of the recent books I’m reading, as well as my dog Leela – especially if I’m drinking at home where she typically has to get her nose into the business of all involved. On May 27th, I conducted a bit of a science experiment when I found an old (over a year old) Black and Blue Tastee from The Veil. I had gotten a four pack from one of my favorite bartenders – Chris – who had traveled down and muled some back up. I wrapped up May, my first month of writing for the blog, with my first beer review from a bar – Warwick Hotel – on May 31st with a beer review of Cinnamon Toast Crunch by Collusion Tap Works.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch by Collusion Tap Works

May finished, and my first month done; even if I had only started late in the month on the 17th, I felt accomplished with the blog. I published 9 total blog pages; which included the home-page, the author-bio page, the contact page, and other necessary background pages. Word was slowly trickling out about the blog, I was up to 59 visitors and 121 views. Not a bad first month – especially considering it was basically just two weeks (the 17th through the 31st). Lets say I was “pleased as punch” with the start of the blog. June was looking bright!

June started with a beer review from the Bissell Brothers Brewing Company – Baby Genius on June 3rd. Followed up by a bottle of LazerSnake by Three Floyds on June 9th.

Baby Genius by Bissell Brothers

On June 13th, I did my first multiple beer review, and my first beer flight review – from Troegs Independent Craft Brewing – of course. What other place would I do my first beer flight review? Troegs was basically my initiation into the craft beer scene when I was ….cough turning 21…. and was the start of my craft beer love. Troegs is still a wonderful brewery, a fantastic venue there in Hershey, and overall holds a definite soft spot in my craft beer loving heart.

A flight of beers from Troegs Brewery

June 14th ended up being my first “double blog post” day. Earlier in the day I had stopped in at Tattered Flag to pick up a four-pack, had a beer, and when home, wrote a review, and later that night, with my daughters, I stopped in at Boneshire Brew Works, had a beer, and did a review before bed. At Tattered Flag I had the Abra Collabra beer, and at Boneshire I had the Sunburst beer. A week later I did my first brewery review, when I took my oldest daughter to Gettysburg for the day to visit the battlefields and monuments. Before visiting the sites, we stopped for lunch at the Battlefield Brew Works. A day later I was back at Warwick for another beer and review – Manayunk’s King Crunch.

An interior picture of the Battlefield Brew Works brewery.

Around this time, looking to expand, I enlisted the help of a buddy and fellow craft beer aficionado and enthusiast, and Boneshire lover – Josh Doncevic. We had a few talks at Boneshire Brew Works, and we chatted on the Central PA Whalerz group, and discussed this and that and everything beer related, and I thought he’d be a perfect fit for the blog – and he is and still has been. And on June 27th, he took his plunge into the world of blogging with his first beer review Northmont by Yellow Bridge.

Northmont by Yellow Bridge, J. Doncevic’s first beer review here on The Beer Thrillers.

A flurry of beer reviews followed – Should Have Put Him in Custardy, a beer flight from Hershey Biergarten, helped close out June and start July with Josh’s review of Ectogasm. June saw the blog grow by massive leaps and bounds, we went from 59 visitors in May to 848 visitors in June with 1100 some views. July was looking to be a great month for The Beer Thrillers, and it certainly delivered some amazing beer reviews! Pink Guava, Inexplicably Juicy, Miami Vice, Old 51, Dillston, Saison and Hurry up and Wait, a beer flight from Tony’s travels up north at the Black Gryphon, Wolf Prints, and Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart.

On July 19th we launched our Twitter page. Which just a few days ago, we hit our 100th follower! (Time for me to plug in here and suggest everyone head over there briefly to follow us, then come back here.) On July 23rd we also started our Instagram page. I will be the first to admit that we don’t do as much with Instagram, primarily because I don’t know enough about it yet. Looking to learn more about it in 2020 and get that page going a lot more.

July continued with some more beer reviews like Enigma, Green Zebra and Next Coast, Good Walk Spoiled, another beer flight from Troegs, and Road Less Traveled. I ended the month by discussing my upcoming road trip with my daughters.

July also saw some fun and interesting events I got to do for the first time. I lost my Ffej of July cherry, getting to make it out to possibly the biggest, baddest, most sickest birthday bash / lawn party ever. Me and Drew also attended the Moo-Funk Home Brew event as well. July was certainly a fun month, but August was looking to be even better.

Straub’s Brewery in St. Mary’s

August started off with a bang, I took my daughters up north PA to visit Elk Country, then we visited Straub Brewery, then we went to Kinzua Bridge and after that stopped at Logyard Brewery and next door to it was Twisted Vine Brewery. That was Day One. Day two saw us hitting the Pittsburgh area. First at dawn we hiked McConnell’s Creek, then went to ShuBrew before going into Pittsburgh proper and visit the city where we did a whole slew of things like see Fort Pitt, take the Duquesne Lift, check out medieval Catholic relics, stop by a Jewish synagogue, see the outfield wall still standing, and we also checked out a few breweries like Cinderlands Warehouse, The Church Brew Works, and we finished the day staying at a motel right next door to Yellow Bridge Brewing. Day Two was a lot busier than day one, but just a much fun.

The altar at Church Brew Works

Olde Bedford Brewing in Bedford PA

We didn’t slow down for Day Three. We had a whole host of driving to do on day three. We started at Bushy Run to watch the reenactment and check out the events, then went to the Alleghany Portage and Railroad Museum, and then went into Johnstown to see the Johnstown Flood Memorial and there we checked out the brewery Stone Bridge Brewing. From there we Staple Bend Tunnel Trail and then we stopped and paid our respects at the Flight 93 Memorial. On the way back home to the Hershey area we stopped at Olde Bedford Brewing.

Was a fun three days where we got to see lots of cool places, museums, memorials, monuments, and nine breweries to boot. Can’t beat that!

The beer reviews weren’t going to slow down in August either. Ghost in the Machine by Josh , a beer flight at Twisted Bine, Juicy Fruit sWheat Tart, and Caucus Race 6.0. Then shortly before my oldest daughter’s birthday I took her and my second oldest down to Antietam to see the battlefield there and on the way back home we stopped at Cushwa Brewing. Which I did a brewery review of.

Cushwa Brewing in Maryland

They have since moved out of that building but they are still close by to the location. August still had plenty more beer reviews for you guys starting with Harrishire, Kettle Sour Series – Raspberry, Ghost in the Machine by B. Kline, Good Vibrations, and then I did a dual beer review from two beers I had at a Harrisburg Senators game – a Pineapple Kolsch and a Dry Irish Stout, Reve Coffee Stout, Rye for an Eye (my birthday blog post and beer), and that closed out the month of August. As for events in August, me and my friend Ming went to the Lancaster Brewfest and afterwards went to Mad Chef Brewing (my first time there) which was an overall fun event.

Taco and a Beer – a fantastic birthday treat, even belatedly

Moving onto September started with my cashing in my birthday taco coupon at Newfangled Brew Works and had a really tasty Kettle Sour from them. In September I wrote a piece for Breweries in PA and also posted it on my blog – the version on the blog is found here: Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg (9.6.19). It has become one of the most popular pieces on our blog, and I believe it has done very well for the Breweries in PA crew as well. Beer reviews certainly didn’t slow down: a flight of Levante and Tattered Flag beers, a flight of Troegs beers, Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale, a flight of beers from Mount Gretna Brewery, and Spundae.

September also saw me do our first listicle articles. With two – one celebrating our oldest posts – and one celebrating our most viewed posts. Followed by, as always, more beer reviews – Key Lime Pie, They Burn Them All Away, AuZealand, a flight of Ever Grain beer, Vanilla Ice Cream Stout, and a Sour Blueberry wrapped up September.

October started off with a couple of Boneshire Brew Works beers – Tried and True (Mango) and Iscariot. I then got to attend Dr. Alison Feeney’s seminar and event at Mid-Town Scholar “For the Love of Beer“. Afterwards I went to The Millworks and had a flight. I did a book review of Dr. Alison Feeney’s book – For the Love of Beer. We finally joined Facebook on October 17th, you can find our Facebook page here. We are now up to 154 followers on Facebook, hoping to grow more! Did a beer review of Salted Caramel Moo-Hoo next.

Midwest Coast Brewing

I was contacted back in September by Midwest Coast Brewing Company to do an advertisement article and announcement article about their brewery opening. And I think it turned out very well. This was the first time a brewery reached out to us and asked us to do a piece for them and I think it turned out very well. I did a bit of an interview with the owners / brewers, and talked about their brewery’s opening. This has led to Mellow Mink reaching out to us and inviting us to their place to check them out and do an article (January 2nd we’ll be doing that).

J. Doncevic did a review of Ekaunot by Barebottle. We then covered Rotunda Brewing Company’s rebranding of Irv’s Pub into Rotunda Brew Pub. Also did a news article on Pennsylvania breweries that won at the 2019 GABF. That was my first straight up news article for the blog.

More beer reviews: Athena, Sour Me Peach, Irish Table, Envie and Envie 4X, Yuengling’s Hershey’s Chocolate Porter, and to wrap up the beer reviews of October I did Fatum Series: Member Berries. We also covered Boneshire Brew Works’ 3rd Anniversary Celebration.

November was a crazy month for me. I challenged myself to doing 30 blog posts, one per day – MINIMUM, and I am proud to say I achieved that and met my goal. It was certainly daunting a task, but I did achieve it.

Here’s the list of my articles in November: Pumpkin Stout, St. Thomas, Walker Station Stout, a flight by ZeroDay, King Sue, Intergalactic Warrior, s’Mores LazaRIS, There’s Nuttin Butter Than a Nice Pair of Camo Pants, Secret Machine, Broken Heels, Animal Adjective, 556 Stout, Boat Drinks, a flight of Tattered Flag – Newfangled Brew Works – and Cox Brewing beers, Alpha Abstraction, Double IPA, Lager, Birra Di Levante, Tickle Parts – Passionfruit, a flight of beers from Appalachian Brewing Company, Default Brewing, Darwin’s Salted Forehead, Newfangled Pils, Gotta Get up to Get Down, Paradise Lost, Moon of Vega, Citraquench’l, Azathoth, a flight of Troegs including Mad Elf, and finally a review of Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s second location. WHEW! That was a lot to get out, you can read about it in the November Recap.

November also saw Default Brewing join us here at The Beer Thrillers. Headed by AJ Brechbiel, they are a group of home brewers who will be providing home brewing articles for the blog from time to time. They gave us a welcoming post in November: Cheers from Default Brewing.

I also started up a collaboration with Let Us Drink Beer blog. Where we would be guest writing and contributing to each other’s blogs occasionally. They are down south, and with us being here in PA, it seemed like it’d be a nice fit. Provide some information and beers and breweries that readers might not normally get to see. They posted their first article “Five Must See Breweries in Atlanta” in November.

Josh also wrote two beer reviews in November: Ghost 782 and Ghost 779.

December started off a little slower here for us, probably because I was a bit tired from November, or perhaps just because its the holiday season, I don’t know. But my first beer review was Ice Dreamz. I did a few more beer reviews in December – My Watch Has Ended, The Hog, Scrooge IPA, Sap, and Autumn.

Default Brewing gave us an introduction to their crew: “Meet The Crew at Default Brewing“.

I covered the guest blogging that was going on and Let Us Drink Beer gave us a review of Koki Bunni.

Finally, the last article posted in all of 2019 (outside of this one now) was a travelogue of me and Drew brewery hopping around Harrisburg. Starting at Boneshire Brew Works, and going to The Vegetable Hunter, The Millworks, The Sturges Speakeasy, and ZeroDay Brewing. Was a fun day jumping around from place to place.

Hopefully you enjoyed this look back on 2019 with The Beer Thrillers. The second part of this article will most likely be posted January 1st, possibly before work, possibly after work. I have to leave for work now, and work until (at least) 8PM, and will most likely be going right out to enjoying New Years Eve festivities with my daughters. Tomorrow I work 10-6, and afterwards will be doing a podcast with Esteban about LOST.

The second part of this series will cover top beers, top breweries, and other things about the year for The Beer Thrillers and myself. For example – podcasting.

So make sure you check out part two then as well!

As always, I hope you have a Happy New Year, enjoyed the blog, and continue to do so! Without you, we don’t need to write, so we hope you are having as much fun and entertainment with this as we are!

-B. Kline on behalf of The Beer Thrillers staff.

My hop arbor in the rain

Meet the crew from Default Brewing

defaultbrewing — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 00:58:00 +0000

Here at Default we have a variety of individuals involved with our group. The originator of the group is AJ Brechbiel. AJ’s wife Katie Brechbiel, and good friend Stan Woodward Jr have been crucial to keeping the wheels turning. We have many people that pop in and out to visit, assist, or brew their own batch. The atmosphere is very welcoming and inviting.

AJ has been brewing for a little over three and a half years. His first experience brewing was helping with a batch in his buddy’s kitchen. After helping with about three sessions it was time to try his hand with his own recipe. AJ started with all grain right off the bat. He has competed at Harrisburg Beer Week twice and three times in Hanover at the Miscreation Brewing Co. competition. Through the years and experiences there has been a lot of lessons learned and unforgettable memories. If it wasn’t for his wife’s support, and cleaning abilities, this wouldn’t be possible. She has been a teacher for 15 years and he has recently gone full time in the beverage industry. AJ is a brewer and beertender that wears multiple hats at a new brewery and also works part time at a local popular distributor.

Stan Woodward Jr came into brewing by shear curiosity. He only has a quarter of a years worth of experience but enjoys the learning portion. He met AJ, and started helping with brew days, and since been a part of the Default Brewing collective. He has been working around the beer industry for a year, and has been into craft beer for three years previous. Currently he is a full time associate at the largest, and one of the most popular distributors in town.

The variety of recipes and the brainstorming that goes on keeps us fresh and innovative. No matter our walks of life, we are here for each other as friends, family, hobbiests, and professionals. We look forward to many more brew days and visitors over the years. Here’s to bending the rules and having fun!

AJ Brechbiel & Default Brewing

Default Brewing

BKline — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 04:21:06 +0000

Default Brewing

Big, wonderful, fantastic news is coming to The Beer Thrillers! Excited to finally announce that we have our own home brewing section soon to start up. AJ Brechbiel is an amazing home brewer who along with a buddy (sometimes buddies) brew under the name ‘Default Brewing’. You can check their Facebook page here: Default Brewing.

AJ comes with an immense amount of experience and knowledge about home brewing and beer and the industry and cannot wait to further that knowledge here on the blog. He is looking forward to imparting his wisdom onto all of you.

So for those of you who are home brewers, or into home brewing, or just want to learn or read up about home brewing or the brewing process, stay tuned for all of AJ’s future posts. They will definitely be ones you won’t want to miss. I know I am excited to have him onboard and to see The Beer Thrillers expand and grow and our team of dedicated writers getting bigger and better and larger.

Some additional house keeping notes, our FaceBook page has reached 106 Likes and were looking to keep that growing. So check out our FaceBook page and click like to get the latest information. Likewise, our Twitter following has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few days. We are up to 91 and looking to break 100 by the end of November.

We are also still currently listed as #11 on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs. You can see a full ranking of their top blogs here, and see that we’ve been at #11 for quite a while nice. Would be amazing to crack the Top 10 by year’s end!

We were recently asked by Matt, owner / brewer for Mellow Mink to meet with him for a behind the scenes look at a brewday and to try out some of their newest samplings. That was in the works for today, but it has gotten pushed back to December (most likely either December 5th or December 12th). This is a wonderful opportunity and we can’t wait for it. So please check in with us to see that great article once its published.

My (B. Kline) version of NaNoWriMo is still going strong. Though this is a bit of a ‘cheat article / blog post today, I’m still counting it. (I’m above using emojis in my post, but just imagine me sticking my tongue out at you right now.) This marks the 21st day of November, and the 21st day of blog posts (at least one per day). Granted I got some of them in and published just in the nick of time (last night’s got published at 11:58PM EST), but I have still maintained my record of one per day.

I am going to be going back through and combing the beer and brewery reviews to make sure they are consistent with future styling. I am going to be adding a category for ‘style’, and that will make it easier if you want to see a STOUT review or a IPA review or a PILSNER review. You can scroll down to the Category: Style and select STOUT or SOUR or what have you, and be able to see all of our reviews of that style of beer. I will be doing the same with locations and maintaining a better listing for all of that going forward. I am also going to go back through and work on some of the backlinking to make navigating around the blog a bit easier and more fun.

As always, we here at The Beer Thrillers, myself (B. Kline), J. Doncevic, and AJ / Default Brewing, are extremely thankful for you, and that you’ve taken the time to read our articles and blog posts. So please, in the future, leave us some feedback. We love comments and feedback. Let us know what kind of reviews or blog posts you want to see more of in the future. Or if there’s a beer you think we should review or a brewery we need to check out and review. Let us know. We love hearing from you!

Thank you everyone for reading and please welcome AJ Brechbier and Default Brewing on board. We are so grateful to have him here and can’t wait to read what all he has to say!

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

— The Beer Thrillers Staff