3:16 Day

Give me a hell yea! What?! Give me a hell yea!! What?!

Do you know what time it is? ….or well, more importantly, what day it will be (tomorrow)? Thats right, it will be Austin 3:16 tomorrow, and do you know what that means? That means we need to open a can of whoop —- I mean, open a can of El Segundo Brewing Company’s new ‘Steve Austin’s Broken Skull American Lager’. (Ok, maybe that’s not as catchy as Stone Cold’s catch phrase, but… well, its still something anyway.)

Tomorrow is March 16th (or St. Patty’s Day Eve), and that means its Stone Cold Steve Austin’s 3:16 Day. WWE, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and El Segundo Brewing Company are all celebrating the big day in a big way.

Previously, Steve Austin has collaborated with El Segundo Brewing Company on an IPA which was called ‘Broken Skull IPA’. We have covered it previously in a review here: Beer Review: Broken Skull (Stone Cold IPA) (El Segundo Brewing Company).

Steve Austin’s American Lager

El Segundo Brewing Company’s collaboration with Stone Cold Steve Austin – the Steve Austin’s Broken Skull American Lager – will be releasing nation wide tomorrow on 3:16. No word on what areas or locations will be getting it here in the Central PA area, but most likely distributors like Breski’s Beverage, West Connection Vault, Weis’s, Giant’s, and Wegman’s will have it.

From the WWE press release on the beer:

The pro wrestling world will be celebrating Austin 3:16 Day on Wednesday of this week.

As seen in the video below, WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin has announced that his Broken Skull American Lager will be released nationwide on 3:16 Day. Austin has worked with the El Segundo Brewing Company for a few years now to release his own line of beers.

WWE will celebrate 3:16 Day on Peacock and the WWE Network with a special edition of The Best of WWE. The episode will be hosted by Stone Cold and will feature his best WWE matches and moments from over the years. Also on Wednesday, WWE’s The Bump will have Kevin Owens as a guest, and he will be there to discuss Austin accepting his invite for The KO Show at WrestleMania 38.

WWE

For more information on the release, you can check out the following news articles:

• Steve Austin and WWE Celebrate 3:16 This Week (Lords of Pain Wrestling News)
• Broken Skull American Lager Pre-Sale (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Lager Goes On Sale Nation Wide on 3:16 (ComicBook.com)
• Stone Cold Steve Austin Has a New Beer Out (Dallas Observer)

WrestleMania Season

It’s WrestleMania Season and the WWE Universe is gearing up for WrestleMania 38, which is looking to be including an appearance (or possibly even a match) with Stone Cold Steve Austin himself. (He hasn’t wrestled a match since losing to The Rock at WrestleMania 19.)

From the Royal Rumble (which by the way, we also did a beer review of a beer called Royal Rumble – by Funk Brewing) til WrestleMania, the time frame is collectively known as “WrestleMania Season”, and WWE is always in pure hype mode during this time (Mid January – Early April).

Steve Austin will be doing a ‘beer’ event in Texas tomorrow on 3:16. For more details on that you can follow WWE and their social media pages, or follow Stone Cold Steve Austin and his social media pages, or follow El Segundo Brewing Company and their social media pages.

This year’s WrestleMania is being held at the AT&T Stadium (Dallas Cowboy’s home stadium) in Dallas, Texas. So this year’s ‘Mania is especially a Texas Sized Event. (And thus the even larger push with Stone Cold Steve Austin.)

You can read about the WrestleMania 38 event and the card for it here: WrestleMania 38 (Wikipedia).

The Battle of the Breweries (2022) – March Madness

As we started last year, March also means ‘March Madness’ and here on The Beer Thrillers we call it ‘The Battle of the Breweries’ and make it WWE themed. Last year we had conferences of HEELs and FACES with divisions of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Ric Flair, and Triple H.

This year, we are doing four big conferences in honor of WrestleMania 38 main events – Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey, and Charlotte Flair.

For information on the event and how you can vote, please see our main page: March Madness (2022) – The Battle of The Breweries.

Tonight end’s the second round of voting. You can see the current conferences and vote directly here:

• Brock Lesnar Conference (Round 2)
• Roman Reigns Conference (Round 2)
• Ronda Rousey Conference (Round 2)
• Charlotte Flair Conference (Round 2)

Scott Hall

I would be remiss not to mention the passing of Scott Hall yesterday. A man who fought his demons and was a friend to many, an inspiration to even more, and a joy to watch for many wrestling fans. We would like to offer our condolences to his family and friends, and say “Hey Yo” one last time and let him rest in power.

One of my favorite descriptors for dark beers on the blog here was always “Razor Ramon hair dark black” (or some version of that). I will still use the line occasionally, and will fondly think of all the great memories he has given me and many others.

As Scott Hall said at his Hall of Fame induction speech:

Hard work pays off, dreams do come true. Bad times don’t last, but BAD GUYS do.

Scott Hall

Popular Culture and Beer Collide

As always with these kind of posts, I like to give a shout out to just how much popular culture, nerd culture, and the like intersect with the craft beer community and industry. And the below is all of the various ‘nerdy’ and ‘pop culture’ beer reviews, book reviews, and other news articles we have covered here on the blog:

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)

Rick and Morty:

• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Mario / Super Mario:

• Beer Review: Level Up (Idiom Brewing)

Space Balls:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

• Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)

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:

• Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Scrooged:

• Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

Groundhog Day:

• Beer Review: Prognosticator Pils (Logyard Brewing Company)

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 WWE Will Be Celebrating 3:16 Day with El Segundo Brewing Company and the Release of His American Lager Nation Wide

Matrix:

• Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

• Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

Seinfeld:

• Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Paradise Lost:

• Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition)

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

Tomorrow morning will be busy before my 9AM work start. I will be posting the Round 2 results of our March Madness tournament, as well as posting the new voting pages for Round 3. So be on the look out for that 7-8AM.

Hopefully then after work (I get done at 5PM), I will be able to grab a four pack of the new American Lager, and give a review of it. Fingers crossed on all of that getting done nice and smoothly.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and please continue to vote in the tournament! Its been a lot of fun so far!

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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As soon as I saw that Breski’s had the Stone Cold beer…. I was grabbing the keys and jumping in the car for the drive over. I picked up a four-pack of this, as well as a four-pack of the FVCK COVID beer which I did a beer review of previously. This is another one of those beers that falls into the category of ‘got it because of marketing’ over got it because of what hops are in it, or flavors, or adjuncts, or knowing the brewery’s reputation, etc. Like some bad beers I’ve had, like Trial by Wombat, or Jon Voight’s Car, where I got them because of can art or name of the beer – I got this because its the Stone Cold beer.

Early 2000s, high school me was a huge wrestling fan. We watched each RAW, each SmackDown, even the minor shows like Heat, Velocity, Metal, etc. We also watched TNA when they started up with the Wednesday PPVs and their Impact show. We watched WCW at its tail end when it ended and WWF bought them out in 2001. We were big fans of ROH as well, me and D. Scott were at Final Battle 2004. D. Scott, R. Dibeler, and myself have been to a couple of shows, the more notable ones being WWE Unforgiven 2003 and WWE Royal Rumble 2004. Stone Cold was one of our favorites, mine in particular, along with (sad to say now due to everything that’s happened – but – Chris Benoit), Taz, RVD, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, (Rory’s favorite was always Kane) – and that’s just listing the WWF/E wrestlers. Not getting into the indies or puroresu or lucha libre and stuff.

And this might surprise some…. but Stone Cold Steve Austin knows a little bit about drinking…..

Maybe…. just a little.

So what better beer to do a review of on National IPA day than the Stone Cold Steve Austin IPA beer?!

Beer: Broken Skull
Brewery: El Segundo Brewing Company
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 67
Untappd Description: Broken Skull IPA: A bad-ass 6.7% India Pale Ale designed by Steve Austin and ESBC for the working man & woman. It features Citra, Cascade, and Chinook hops to deliver big flavor with an easy finish. Now stop reading and start enjoying this awesome beer! Cheers! -Steve

According to their Untappd page, El Segundo Brewing Company (ESBC) is from El Segundo California, United States, and is a micro brewery. (I honestly thought they were from Texas, not California, so I learned something new by clicking their Untappd page.) They have 286 unique beers for a 3.87 global average rating (as of 8.6.20). Their Untappd Description reads: “El Segundo Brewing Company is the product of founder, Rob Croxall’s love and passion for beers. More than anything, Rob has a knack for hoppy beers. Being a brewer, he decided leave his longtime career in aerospace financing to establish his own microbrewery. Rob invested in the Los Angeles area. El Segundo Brewing Company specializes in hops that provide outstanding and unique bitter flavors of beers. The brewery focuses on its personal dry hopping brewing method that produces fine aromas. Rob’s great love for hops has become the motivation behind the success of El Segundo Brewing Company today.”

Lets jump right into this review and tackle the beer itself. Appearance is a clear, bubbly pilsner / light West Coast looking IPA. Not very dark, not very malty, completely clear minus the bubbles (very well carbonated), this honestly looks like it could have been a pilsner, or lager, or a lite beer – Miller or Coors – when poured out. Big foamy head to it that just kept bubbling up.

Aroma is light hoppy, and not a whole lot more. Which is pretty typical for an IPA; especially American / West Coast style, etc. There’s no adjuncts, nothing added to it, no ‘milkshake’ or ‘New England’ – ness to it, its a straight legit IPA, in the old vein. The hop combination of citra, cascade, and chinook is pretty distinguishable. I grow cascade and chinook hops at home, and I can pick out their aromas pretty distinctly. Citra is also another easy to pick out hop aroma and flavor, mainly because its name is a pretty big indicator. There is no other real aromas to this, its just hops and ‘beer is beer’ smell. No malt, no sweetness; just the citrus, grassy, slight lemon, a little bit of pine, that comes from the combination of hops in this.

Flavor… and taste…. is where this falls a bit flat. And no, the beer itself isn’t flat…. its just, there’s not a whole lot here. Its actually pretty bland. Me and D. Scott decided it tasted like a ‘starter IPA’. Do you have a friend who you want to start drinking IPAs, and want to move them away from Miller Lite, Coors Lite, and Yuengling Lager? Then this is the beer for you! And being an easily marketable beer – “The Stone Cold beer!” or “The Stone Cold IPA” it should be an easy pitch for you to get your buddy to drink it. There just sadly isn’t a whole lot going on here flavor wise. Its not bad, there’s no off flavors, nothing tastes horrible, no lingering after taste thats bad…. its just underwhelming. Its watery, its a bit thin, it tastes like hops in water, and not a whole lot much of anything else going on. The hops don’t even come off as that strong and don’t give you a complete kick or gut-punch hop flavor either. The hops give off a slight, very light, citrus flavor, like a lemon peel in water kind of thing, there is a little bit of grassy and earth notes and just a wee bit of a pine / pinecone hop taste, but none of it is severe, or even strong. That isn’t to say this is a horrible beer and you won’t like it, its a perfectly accessible and perfectly fine beer, for 12$ (a little bit less I think, maybe a little over 12.10$ with tax) a four pack, this is a very fine, crushable even (only 6.7% ABV and the light flavor makes it go down easier) beer, that you and a buddy can kill an evening playing video games and drinking this. So in that way it makes for a perfect beer for Stone Cold Steve Austin…. and that’s the bottom line…………….. Because Stone Cold Said So!

Kick.

Stunner.

Ultimately though, my opinion of this, if given the choice between this and the many other options out there, might be closer to Stacy Keibler’s:

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.84 (as of 8.6.20)

I want to think some of that rating bump is namesake and marketing, but maybe others genuinely loved it or at least liked it better than I did. I dunno, if you’ve had it, leave me a comment and let me know what your thoughts were on it. Maybe I’m way off base. Maybe the cans we got were different or off. I dunno, let me know, I’d love to hear from you guys!

As always, thanks for reading everyone. Check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages, you can find the links for them at the top and bottom of each page. We’re almost up to 200 Twitter Followers, so please click the follow and like buttons on each of our social media accounts, it adds up and really helps!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

And that’s the bottom line…. because Stone Cold Said So! Austin 3:16 says I just opened a cap of whoop ass on you! WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!

Oh…. I could go on all day doing this! Better stop and have another beer. Cheers all!

Happy National IPA Day!

-B. Kline