Tattered Flag Brewery - The Beer Thrillers

Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works Sold to California-Based Tower Investments

B. Kline — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:45:45 +0000

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery in Middletown, PA

Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works Sold to California-Based Tower Investments: A New Chapter for Middletown’s Historic Brewery

The beloved Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works, a (former) staple of Middletown’s craft beer and spirits scene, has officially changed hands. California-based Tower Investments, operating locally as Middletown South Union Street, LLC, has purchased the historic property at 1 S. Union Street, according to Dauphin County deed records. This sale marks a significant moment for the community, as Tattered Flag was more than just a brewery; it was a gathering spot that held a special place in the hearts of local craft beer enthusiasts.

July 28th, 2023 Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery announced their closure. It was announced that it was for sale (and was actually up for sale before the announcement of its closure). (Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery For Sale.) After a while of being unable to sell the business, Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery Ended Up For Auction. They went on the auction block in May 2024.

According to Nik Sgagias of NAI CIR, Tower Investments is actively seeking tenants for the space, hinting at possible new beginnings for the 13,000-square-foot property. Tattered Flag, known for its veteran-owned roots and innovative brews, closed its doors on October 1, 2023, following a public auction in June. The auction had a starting bid of $275,000, highlighting the historic and commercial appeal of this full-service restaurant, brewery, and distillery space.

The story of Tattered Flag began in 2015 when military veteran Pat Devlin and friends from Susquenita High School took on the massive renovation of the former Elks building. They transformed the two-story structure, which previously held three storefronts and a meeting room, into a unique brewpub and distillery, blending community spirit with a passion for craft beer and cocktails.

Over the years, Tattered Flag expanded to various locations, including taprooms in Lancaster, Gettysburg, and Derry Township. Unfortunately, these expansions—coupled with challenges from the pandemic, inflation, and labor shortages—eventually led to financial strain, and the decision to close the business was made earlier this year. The original Middletown location, however, remained a cherished landmark for both locals and visitors.

While Tower Investments has yet to comment on future plans, the company’s focus on real estate development suggests the property will likely find new life soon. Tower is a family-owned company specializing in real estate investment and development, with experience transforming properties across the country.

As Middletown awaits the next chapter for this historic location, locals can look back fondly on the memories made at Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works, and many of us will be watching to see what the future holds for this beloved space in the heart of our community.

You can find out more about Tower Investments by checking out their website here: Tower Investments.
See our full historical review and look at Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery here – A Look at Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery.

Our Articles About Tattered Flag

Looking to read more about Tattered Flag, check out our articles here:

Tattered Flag Brewery Information

The following comes from Untappd about Tattered Flag Brewery – they are a micro brewery from Middletown, Pennsylvania, with 637 unique beers, and a global average rating of 3.78 (as of 5.22.24). They have 119,110 ratings. Their Untappd description is currently blank.

You can follow them on the following social media pages:

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:

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MAPS OF BREWERIES

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With Heavy Hearts Tattered Flag Announces Last Day

B. Kline — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 12:40:00 +0000

With Heavy Hearts Tattered Flag Announces Their Last Day of Operation

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery announced on their social media just minutes ago (at 8:30 AM) when their last day of operation will be. Saying with heavy hearts that Sunday, October 1st of 2023 will be their last day of operation.

We had previously announced their sale – Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery For Sale – which is a complete buy out / turn key sale. All product, all equipment, full brand, full building sale. (More on the sale later in this article.) The sale was announced to the public on July 7th, 2023 (it had been internally and privately on sale for a solid month before that).

Today, July 28th, 2023 just minutes ago (8:30 AM) Tattered Flag announced their upcoming closure. The following was their announcement on Facebook:

It’s with heavy hearts that we announce that after seven incredible years, our final day of operation will be Sunday, October 1st. Had we known the pandemic was coming, we would not have expanded as quickly as we did. When the Covid shutdowns happened, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would likely go out of business…but Pat said, “Let’s do as much good as we can before the end.” So we made hand sanitizer and fought like hell to survive. Unfortunately, the pandemic and the resulting inflation/labor crisis have finally caught up to us. Many of you will ask how you can help. We ask that you come see us several more times in the next two months, and when you do, take good care of our amazing staff.

We want to thank everyone who supported us…our Middletown neighbors and friends, near and far, who raised a flag with us. We shared good times and great experiences that we will cherish forever.

#sevenincredibleyears #drinklocal #raiseaflag
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery – Facebook Post

Lancaster, Gettysburg, and Hollywood Casino Operations

The Lancaster Barrel House, the Gettysburg Tap Room, and the Hollywood Casino Upstairs Bar have been closed for several weeks now. Their tap room and bar lounge in Hershey has been previously leased to YAH Brew.

They were up to five locations at one point – the main brewery and restaurant location in Middletown PA, their Gettysburg PA tap room, their barrel house in Lancaster PA, the Hershey PA bar lounge, and their upstairs restaurant and tap room at Hollywood Casino in Grantville PA.

Tattered Flag Brewery For Sale

The following comes from our article about their sale:

The Middletown brewery and distillery appears to be up for sale. Nearly ten years in business, they opened in 2015, as a veteran owned brewery and distillery (the first in the state). In recent months (less than two years or so) they have opened a location in Lancaster – their barrel house – as well as took over the upstairs bar and restaurant at Hollywood Casino (Tattered Flag at Hollywood Casino).

They previously also had a location in Hershey – the Tattered Flag Bar and Lounge – which they are sub leasing to YAH Brew.

PennLive broke the story this morning:

Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works in Middletown is for sale.

The nearly 10-year-old brewery and distillery at 1 S. Union St. is listed for an undisclosed price by Nik Sgagias of NAI CIR, a commercial real estate company in Lemoyne. Tattered Flag remains open for business.

The sale includes a 13,000 square-foot state-of-the-art brewery with canning and bottling lines, distillery, and full service restaurant with seating up to 200 guests, according to the listing.Dauphin County brewery / distillery with restaurant listed for sale – PennLive

In 2020 they announced they would be shipping statewide with their “Supply Drop” feature, letting you order their beers anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.

Their locations in Lancaster (the Barrel House) and Gettysburg (the tap room) are currently listed as temporarily closed.

Justin Hoak, a former head brewer of theirs, now runs his own brewery – YAH Brew – at their former location in Hershey, next to Duck Donuts.
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery For Sale

Our Articles About Tattered Flag

Looking to read more about Tattered Flag, check out our articles here:

Tattered Flag Brewery Information

The following comes from Untappd about Tattered Flag Brewery – they are a micro brewery from Middletown, Pennsylvania, with 637 unique beers, and a global average rating of 3.78 (as of 7.28.23). They have 119,110 ratings. Their Untappd description is currently blank.

You can follow them on the following social media pages:

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:

Thank You For Reading

If you like this article, please check out our other many articles, including news, beer reviews, travelogues, maps, and much much more. We greatly appreciate everyone visiting the site!

Cheers.

MAPS OF BREWERIES

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The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery

B. Kline — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:33:13 +0000

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery Logo

The Final Four

This is the final week (the last few days) of voting for The Battle of the Breweries (2023), and I said that one per day, I would cover each of the final contestants. First up is Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery. Tomorrow we will be covering Allusion Brewing Company, and then AleCraft Brewing Company, and finally Mad Chef Brewing.

You can vote in the tournament here: The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Finals Fatal Four Way.

In this article we are going to discuss Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery as a whole, then discuss how they did in this year’s tournament, and offer links to all of our related articles, as well as a history of the tournament this year.

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery

Tattered Flag Brewery and Still Works – Veteran Craft

First, let’s start with the words straight from their own mouth, this is how Tattered Flag describes themselves, from their new Tattered Flag Supply Drop website:

What started as a dream in the mountains of Afghanistan has now become a brand that is recognized for quality and innovation. We are honored to have been named “Simply the Best Brewery” (2019/2020) and “Simply the Best Distillery” (2018/2019/2020) in Central Pennsylvania by Harrisburg Magazine. To check our our full website, including the individual pages for each location, please head to www.tatteredflagbsw.com.
Tattered Flag Supply Drop

(Tattered Flag Supply Drop is their Shipping Service Statewide in Pennsylvania.)

Back in September 2016, Cathy Jordan, a journalist for The Burg newspaper ran an article where she interviewed owner Pat Devlin. (Pat Devlin by the way is a US Veteran, and has even done recent deployments, and been featured on FOX News.)

Hope is a tattered flag, according to a verse by Carl Sandburg, a poem that celebrates the American spirit.

According to Pat Devlin, a U.S. Navy veteran, co-owner and CEO of Tattered Flag Brewery and Still Works, a flag—though tattered—still represents what it once stood for, but with character. And it’s that character that Devlin wants to capture within the brewery, which opened in July.

The business idea brewed inside the heads of owners Pat Devlin, Matt Fritz, Tony DeLellis and Ben Ramsay for many years. The guys have known each since high school and share a common interest in craft beer. Their goal is to provide something you can’t find elsewhere.
Hoist the Flag – Tattered Flag Article in The Burg

The article goes on to mostly discuss the building they are currently in, on Union Street in Middletown, Pennsylvania:

“I traveled a lot and visited hundreds of breweries,” he said. “After my wife and I moved back home, we actually looked at six different locations. When I walked into this building, I just knew this was the place. It was unique.”

That unique find was the 105 year-old Elks building, which means the brewery is stocked with nostalgic charm. The Elks moved out years ago, and, since then, the building has housed a variety of businesses, including a sporting goods store, a florist shop, an upscale men’s clothing store and a shoe store. Its basement now hosts an open fermentation space, a brew house, canning line and grain mill. The first floor is a tasting room, while the third floor houses three private party rooms—including the “The Penn State Room” and a three-season room—along with an open kitchen, a stage, seating for more than 240 people and a standing bar.
Hoist the Flag – Tattered Flag Article in The Burg

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery in Middletown can be located here: 1 S Union St, Middletown, PA 17057.

In August of 2015, PennLive ran an article about the opening and starting up of Tattered Flag in Middletown.

The project received contingent approval from both the Middletown Industrial and Commercial Development Authority and borough council Monday night after an hour-and-a-half presentation and question/answer session in MCSO Hall.

Ramsay, of York, said they worked with marketing and development experts to find a location. “The three top areas were Marysville, Linglestown and Middletown,” Ramsay said.

“When we came to Middletown, the environment we wanted to create and some of the brand we wanted to be just fit with what we are, especially the inside of that building,” Ramsay said.

“All of us have memories of coming to dollar movies here when we were kids,” Ramsay said, referring to the Elks Theatre in the building, which is not part of the deal.

This will not be “just a small-town microbrewery,” Ramsay said. “There are a lot of things with the building we’re going to do.”
Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works to be more than ‘small-town microbrewery’

They further discuss the distillery aspects of Tattered Flag:

They see themselves on the leading edge of the distillery movement, while the number of small craft breweries is already booming in the state. There are 22 distilleries in Pennsylvania, Ramsay said, and one is planned for midtown Harrisburg. There are that many craft breweries and brewpubs in York County alone.

As for brewing experience, partner Pat Devlin said their head brewer and assistant brewer each have more than 10 years brewing experience, and the head brewer has 2.5 years’ commercial experience. Devlin said he has four years brewing experience, and nine months apprenticing in Gettysburg.
Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works to be more than ‘small-town microbrewery’

The article did discuss the four owners and partners of Tattered Flag. As far as I know, now in 2023, the only two that are still partners and owners are Tony and Pat. Their biographies from the article are:

Tony DeLellis of Marysville is an Elizabethtown College graduate who has worked three years in the mortgage industry. He was previously a teacher, and is a regional church planner.

Pat Devlin of Mechanicsburg, who completed a 10-year stint in the Navy last September, is a Penn State graduate. He has six years’ experience in the food industry, and is apprenticing as a brewer in Gettysburg.
Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works to be more than ‘small-town microbrewery’

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery opened their Middletown location in July of 2016, a veteran owned business, and one of only (roughly) 20 or so such breweries in Pennsylvania. They were the first brewery and distillery to open as a single entity.

Tattered Flag Brewery Information

The following comes from Untappd about Tattered Flag Brewery – they are a micro brewery from Middletown, Pennsylvania, with 632 unique beers, and a global average rating of 3.78 (as of 4.12.23). They have 117,996 ratings. Their Untappd description is currently blank.

You can follow them on the following social media pages:

The Battle of the Breweries (2023)

Here is a look at how Tattered Flag Brewery made it to the Finals Fatal Four Way:

In the Group Stage, they were in Group H of the Chinook Conference. Tattered Flag Brewery and Rusty Rail Brewing Company emerged victorious from Group H. (Tattered Flag Brewery had 76 votes, and Rusty Rail Brewing Company had 75 votes.)

In the Chinook Conference Round of 16, Tattered Flag Brewery (122 votes) defeated Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (86 votes).

In the Chinook Conference Round of 8, Tattered Flag (136 votes) defeated Sly Fox Brewing (96 votes).

In the Chinook Conference Final Four:

In the first match up we had the number 9 seed Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery taking on the number 13 seed Chubby Squirrel Brewing Company. Tattered Flag Brewery came out on top with 140 votes against Chubby Squirrel Brewing Company’s 81 votes.

In the Chinook Conference Finals:

In the Chinook Conference we had number 9 seed – Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery – going up against fellow veteran owned number 10 seed – Cox Brewing Company. Both breweries have been on a tear in the voting, putting up big numbers in each of the last several rounds.

Tattered Flag Brewery put up an absolute dominant performance this round however. (Looking as dominant as Roman Reigns did last night… ….see what I did there… no? … ok….). Tattered Flag Brewery garnered 9358 votes this round. Besting Cox Brewing Company’s 2414 votes. Thats a 6944 vote difference.

They are going to be very tough to beat in the Finals Fatal Four Way.

(See end of article for all of The Battle of the Breweries voting and results pages.)

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery Related Articles

Here is all of our articles on Tattered Flag Brewery:

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Voting and Results Pages

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Finals Fatal Four Way (Voting Page)

Past Results:

Group Stage Voting Pages

Group Stage Results Pages

Round of 16 Voting Pages

Round of 16 Results Pages

Round of 8 Voting Pages

Round of 8 Results Pages

Conference Final Four Voting Pages

Conference Final Four Results Page

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Conference Final Four Results

Conference Finals Voting Page

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Conference Finals

Conference Finals Results Page

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Conference Finals Results

Thank You for Reading

I know this post and article was due yesterday, but got very busy with the beautiful weather and the yard work. So the new schedule is now – Tattered Flag (today / now / Wednesday), Allusion Brewing Company (tomorrow / Thursday), AleCraft Brewing Company (Friday), and Mad Chef Brewing (Saturday).

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the four remaining breweries and wish them all the best of luck. I have enjoyed visiting all four of them, and they certainly all rank very highly in my opinion. (Amy has been to three of them with me, and has loved the three she visited as well.)

It is a tremendous honor to get to this point in the competition – out of 160 breweries, we are down to just 4 remaining. Thats amazing to think about, and shows the love and support these breweries have.

Even the conference runner ups put in a tremendous effort and deserve some recognition too. Cox Brewing Company, Von C Breiwng Company, RAR Brewing, and Boneshire Brew Works are all amazing breweries and have loved my (and Amy as well) visits to their breweries.

As well as I want to take the moment to thank all of the 160 breweries that shared, linked, pushed, and helped make this tournament a rousing success. You all blow me away with the love, support, and energy you pour into this – as well as what you pour into your breweries (and, by relation – what you pour into my glass). Thank you all for everything you’ve done!

This tournament has been a lot of fun, but it is also a lot of work. So thank you to everyone for your patience.

I might be getting the Map of Vermont Breweries done today, but its not looking likely due to another gorgeous day (81 degrees today!) and having lots of yard work, as well as going to Drew’s to film some Star Wars related reels for his Knights of Nostalgia page.

We have also completed the first two Maps of Breweries – Maine and New Hampshire. You can see those here:

We are currently starting to work on creating maps of all the breweries in each state, starting geographically with Maine. So be on the lookout for these great resources to soon be popping up on the blog. Hoping to get a state done every 2 – 4 days. (Some will be quicker and easier than others, but 50 states, plus Washington D.C., will certainly take some time!)

Thank you everyone for reading and please like, share, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff you see at the end of every YouTube video.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

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