(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”.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ok, final review from my time at the Gin Mill in Lebanon. And still working on my 30 for 30, Day # 9. Yesterday’s I kinda uploaded with little fanfare, through it up at 1PM, didn’t do much of the marketing behind it, and right after it dropped, J. Doncevic’s dropped. Mine uploaded at 12:56 and his uploaded at exactly 1:00. I didn’t quite mean to line it up that way, it just kind of did, and I didn’t mean to not do much fanfare. But for some reason it was a struggle to write yesterday’s. I think I was in one of those ‘funk’ ‘mood’ things. So therefore it felt like pulling teeth to get that review out. Yesterday was just a weird day overall I suppose. But it is out, and you can check it out here: There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants Review. And if you missed it, you can check out J. Doncevic’s review from yesterday here: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory. It is getting lots of views and people loved his review, so be sure to check it out!

So back to the review on hand…. last monday after work I stopped at the Gin Mill in Lebanon PA. I had two Toppling Goliath beers: King Sue and Intergalactic Warrior. This was the third beer I had that night before heading home. And all three beers were top notch fantastic beers. This was about as perfect as a sour can get, and the other two were about as perfect as a DIPA and a IPA can get. It was a good night.

If you ever go to Rehobeth Beach or Dewey Beach or Lewes Beach you need to find time to stop at Dewey Beer Company. Its a small restaurant and brewery, that is kind of easy to miss. It sits on Rt. 1 but it looks kinda -shack like – which doesn’t sound like the best descriptor for its location, but its somewhat accurate. In the last year or so they’ve been killing it with both their sour game an their IPAs. Their sours are getting constant good reviews (they are typically called Secret Machine – X) and often muled back to places by someone who traveled down. They also show up at a lot of beer shares and beer trades. So be on the lookout for them if you are interested in some good sour beers. You can check out their Untappd page here: Dewey Beer Company on Untappd.

Beer: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine
Brewery: Dewey Beer Company
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A sour combination of hybrid citrus fruits resulted in a spritzy and tangy Secret Machine.

This is a beautiful light yellow, effervescent, sparkling, bright glowing yellow. It looks like most lighter fruited sours. Where the berry sours typically have a purplish or bluish hue, the sours that rely on lime, or orange or peach or tangerine or lemon have a bright yellow going to orange look. (Mango IPAs and sours usually have a bright orange look, and ones with guava typically have a pinkish hue.) There is a small ring of a head, fine but there, not really necessary for a good sour but nice to see.

Aroma is very sharp tartness, very heavy lime, and a fair amount of the tangerine. It makes for a nice sour tart blast to your nostrils. The smell is enticing and the beer is so beautiful that it calls to you right away to drink it.

And you will be so glad you did. This is a delicious beer. It is tart with a fair amount of puckering, but not too tart to be off putting or too sour. There is a very strong key lime and citrus flavor to this, the tangerine then comes in and provides a nice fruity burst to the beer. The two compliment each other perfectly, the lime and the tangerine make an excellent combination. Providing both tartness and fruitful flavor the two work in great unison to provide one heck of a fantastic beer. Sour but fruited, citrusy but interesting, tart but juicy, lemony and lime but also with various other notes and flavors; this is just an extremely well rounded beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 11.9.19)

Last night I met my friend D. Scott who I do the podcasts for (WTF Did I Just Watch) (and soon to be video game one) and we went to The Manor along Rt. 39 where I had AuZealand by Boneshire Brew Works followed by New Trails: Broken Heels. I’ve had AuZealand several times and did a review for it previously. But the New Trails was a new beer (and my new beer for the day, still maintaining at least 1 new beer per day, and 1 new blog post per day). So that will likely be the next review up. So look for that tomorrow.

Until then everyone, keep drinking, keep tipping, and drive safe!

-B. Kline

The second of the three beers I had at the Gin Mill Monday night, and the second from Toppling Goliath I had while there. And neither one disappointed thats for sure.

You can read my King Sue review here: King Sue Beer Review.

But, did you guys vote yesterday? It was the general election. Not the big fancy Presidential Election that everyone always loves to vote in, but the general election. With some of the smaller “seemingly inconsequential” votes; but in actuality, the ones that probably matter the most to you on a local scale. These people have the responsibilities close to where you live and can determine and change and alter that laws of your very municipality. So in a lot of ways, the general election can matter more than the Presidential Election. Yet it gets a lot less press coverage and a lot less attention.

Well, anyway, I voted, and after getting home I continued my streak of a new beer each day so far in November. Sadly though it wasn’t anything special or fancy, it was a Redd’s Wicked Black Cherry that I found in the fridge from a party or something. Compared to some of the other Redd’s, it wasn’t actually too bad. But I’m still hitting my ‘at least 1 new beer a day in November’ challenge. And this post here continues my trend of a new blog post a day. So huzzah for goals!

Beer: Intergalactic Warrior
Brewery: Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 70
Untappd Write-Up: Galaxy and Warrior hops join forces to create a beer with a bitter punch. Big body, bold flavor, with a boost of citrus rind and just a kick of spiciness in the finish, Intergalactic Warrior is an India Pale Ale worth fighting for.

Get it… Galaxy and Warrior hops… Intergalactic warrior…. ….Clever….

But joking aside, this is really a kick butt beer that may or may not be better than King Sue in my (humble?) opinion. Its not quite the same but its similar and they are both amazing beers so its hard to say which is ultimately better, but I do know I loved them both.

This looks similar to King Sue. It has a bright orange glow, straw color, its similar in appearance to that of orange juice. Though this isn’t considered a New England IPA (its listed as an IPA – American or ‘original IPA’) it has the appearance of one, hazy, dank, unfiltered. King Sue was listed as a Double New England IPA. And this does look very similar to King Sue. It has the same coloring, and it also has great carbonation as well and keeps and retains a very nice fluffy head that just makes this look even more delicious.

Intergalactic Warrior’s two main hops are Galaxy and Warrior, and they are fantastic hops and work incredibly well together. For a bit of information on them:

Galaxy Hops:

Warrior Hops:

Developed by Select Botanicals Group, proprietary American hop Warrior® is fast becoming a favorite, especially with US craft breweries. Among its desirable traits are its clean, smooth bittering and a somewhat inconspicuous citrusy and spicy aroma. Its pedigree is a unknown to the public. Dogfish Head Brewery employs Warrior in many of its brews, most notably in its 60 Minute IPA.

(Citation: Hopslist Warrior Hops)

You can see how these two hops work in tandem to make a great smelling and tasting IPA that is juicy and dank and delicious. The aroma on Intergalactic Warrior is phenomenal. You get the citrus, passionfruit, and pineapple right away, with underlying notes of spice and perhaps a faint whiff of peach. This all blends nicely into a tremendous hoppy smelling beer.

And it blends even better for tasting. You immediately get walloped with the hops, the citrus, the passionfruit, the juicyness, the aroma in the foam in your nose as you drink, it all straight up gets you. This drinks just as easily as the King Sue, so be careful. Though at least the ABV is a bit lesser on this, coming in at only 6.2%. There is also less bitterness to this (70 IBU compared to King Sue’s 100 IBU) and its got no real noticeable dryness that say King Sue had a little bit of (to balance itself). This is just much smoother, simpler, but so tasty and still with a complexity of flavors. Ranging from the passionfruit, pineapple, citrus, to little bit of peach in there. As you drink this down you get all the notes and you get all the flavors, and they all work so well together, and compliment and blend with each other so perfectly well. This is just an incredibly well made, well crafted, and delicious beer that is made so well. These are the kinds of beers that make you appreciate the craft, and the hard work brewers put in to perfect their craft, and this is what you point out to people who are just drinking the swill from Macro breweries like Bud, Coors, or Miller. You give them one glass of this and they’ll be hooked.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.08 (as of 11.6.19)

Nearly a week into November and I’m still hitting my marks, still doing a blog post a day. This also marks blog post #91 for the blog. Since starting in (middle / late May). I’m impressed with how far we’ve come and how the readers have been liking it and the work done so far. So if you do enjoy what we do here at The Beer Thrillers, please take the time to click follow and subscribe to get all of our posts so you can be updated immediately, make sure to click the like button on the blog posts you read and like (so we know which ones you guys like), and make sure to leave comments. That really lets us know what you guys think of our posts. You can tell us anything in there, even things you won’t tell your spouse, ha… we promise we won’t tell them.

Thanks for reading as always, and try to keep that liver at above 15%, it only regenerates if you have 10% of it left!

-B. Kline

Finally…. finally… must I say it again? Finally! I got to try this amazing and delicious beer. And it is completely all the hype that there is about it, and it lives up to it and then some. This is just an incredible beer that drank down so fast, I probably could have ordered four or five before realizing it (or realizing where I was, or the ABV, or cost), because this was that easy of a drink to quaff down and the booze on this is so subtle and barely perceptible – until it hits you square across the face after your done drinking it!

I’ve been wanting to check out the Gin Mill in Lebanon for a while, and been receiving Untappd notifications about them as a verified venue, and getting Facebook alerts on them and stuff, and seeing that they get a pretty good lineup going, I finally made the drive after work to get there. It was very worth it. Foreign Objects, LIC Beer Project, Dewey Beach Beer, Toppling Goliath, with Rotunda Brewing, Pipeworks, and more Dewey on their on-deck, I would definitely say they know craft beer and know quality beer. They had a range of stouts / porters with two on Nitro, some middle of the road IPAs / lower quality craft beers, as well as the heavy hitter hops and sours. The place is part dive bar, part good food restaurant, and they were well busy on a Monday night at 730-845 when I left. I got three beers while there – King Sue (Toppling Goliath), Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath), and Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer); and all three were fantastic. So lets start with the first one – King Sue and break her down.

Beer: King Sue
Brewery: Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – Double / New England
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: 100
Untappd Write-Up: This lusciously hazy double IPA gains its hints of mango, orange, and pineapple from the use of the delicious Citra hop.

While that looks like a crazy amount of IBU; it hides it all, there is practically no bitterness to this, just a slight dryness. Its all juice, its all delicious, and it is definitely “luscious”.

Excuse the pictures a bit, their dark, and the bar area of the Gin Mill was dark, so not wanting to be a disturbance or the weirdo at the bar I chose not to use the flash, and so the pictures came out a bit dark, but I still think they show how beautiful this beer is. And it is certainly a beautiful beer. The color of orange juice, with a haze and an opaqueness with no sediment. It has a great head with lots of foam, lots of carbonation, that is overflowing the draft pour.

The aroma is fantastic as well, very hoppy, very juicy hoppy, you get bright powerful notes of the fruity hops, mango, orange, citrus, pineapple, it all hits you and it hits you powerfully. Even in a full bar with lots of other beers, foods, people around, I got the whiff of the fruity hops as soon as my bartender sat it down in front of me. Its like a sucker punch from a fruit cocktail with hops right at your nose.

…and then you get to the taste. You wouldn’t even know this was a beer, or alcohol. Its straight juice. Like GOOD juice. Like Sunny D when you were a kid and you came inside from playing with your Tonka Trucks on a dirt pile. This is immediately wonderful. There is no bad things to even say about this. You get all the citrus notes, you get multiple fruity hop notes, you get orange, mango, pineapple, citrus, you get hop, you get juice, all in a fantastic wonderful dance in your mouth. There is a slight dryness to it, but with how juicy it is, its basically cancelled out. Even saying it sounds oxymoronic, but it is there, its probably from the 100 IBU or the yeast strain. But there is this slight dryness at the same time as its so juicy. This goes down so smoothly, so easily. Nothing cloying, nothing too heavy, just the right mouthfeel. You don’t taste or feel the 7.8% ABV until its finished and you go to order your next. I could see a four pack or six pack of this being very problematic on a hot summer day when I’m supposed to be getting chores done. (…in so far as this would mean zero chores would be getting done.)

I cannot recommend this enough. In fact, all three beers I had last night at the Gin Mill; King Sue, Intergalactic Warrior, and Key Lime & Tangerine; were all fantastic. All highly recommended. I’ve had four different beers from Toppling Goliath so far and cannot say enough good things about them. (King Sue and Intergalactic Warrior last night, and Pseudo Sue before as well as a hop variant of Pseudo Sue from Tavour.)

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.42 (as of 11.5.19)

November is rolling on, and I’m keeping pace so far. Getting a mile walk/run per day. Having (at least) one new beer each day. And getting one new blog post per day. So five days in and so far five days good. Only thing I didn’t keep up was on the 2nd I only 8.8K steps rather than my goal of 10K steps per day (but I think the first made up for it with 21K steps). So here’s to the next 25 days going as smoothly as the first 5!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline