Brewer Interview - The Beer Thrillers https://thebeerthrillers.com Central PA beer enthusiasts and beer bloggers. Homebrewers, brewery workers, and all around beer lovers. Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:46:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://i0.wp.com/thebeerthrillers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cropped-The-Beer-Thrillers-December-2022-Logo.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Brewer Interview - The Beer Thrillers https://thebeerthrillers.com 32 32 187558884 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: DANA Conference – Round of 32 https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/02/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-dana-conference-round-of-32/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-dana-conference-round-of-32 Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:46:34 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16794 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: DANA Conference – Round of 32

This is the official voting page for the DANA Conference – Round of 32. It will go from March 2nd until March 8th, 2026. Below are the rules and then the voting survey block. You may only vote once per day per battle. The honorees section is 10 breweries, but only 1 will move on to the next round.

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – DANA Conference: Round of 32

VOTING Rules

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA. (All named after different hop varietals.) Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll. Starting with the Round of 64, all the way down to the finals of each conference, followed by a Fatal Four Way that will have the winner of each conference fighting for the grand champion!

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. The rounds are as follows: Round of 64, Round of 32, Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4, Conference Finals (Round of 2), and the Finals Fatal Four-Way (Winner of each Conference in a four-way match). So for the first week, there will be 32 matches in the conference, then in the second week there will be 16 matches, then 8 matches, then 4 matches, then the last two rounds are just 1 match each.

VOTE

2026 Battle of the Breweries: DANA Conference - Round of 32
2026 Battle of the Breweries: DANA Conference - Round of 32
DANA Conference - Round of 32

(1) Antifragile Brewing vs. (32) Lebanon Valley Craft Brewing

(2) Warwick Farms Brewing vs. (31) Old Forge Brewing

(3) Human Robot Beer vs. (30) Black Forest Brewery

(4) Coven Brewing vs. (29) Conshohocken Brewing

(5) Lolev Beer vs. (28) Back Porch Brewing

(6) Levante Brewing vs. (27) 2SP Brewing

(7) Voodoo Brewing vs. (26) Olde Bedford Brewing

(8) Rotunda Brewing Company vs. (25) Big Dog Craft Brewing

(9) Wolf Brewing vs. (24) Von C Brewing

(10) Cinderlands Beer Co vs. (23) Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

(11) Pizza Boy Brewing vs. (22) Scrubby's Craft Brewery

(12) Pour Man's Brewing vs. (21) Helltown Brewing

(13) ShuBrew vs. (20) Root Down Brewing

(14) Breaker Brewing vs. (19) Second District Brewing

(15) Hemaur Brewing vs. (18) Firewhistle Brewing

(16) Inspiration Brewing vs. (17) Selin's Grove Brewing

HONOREES (You can only vote for 1 to move onto the next round)

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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16794
The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: CICERO Conference – Round of 32 https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/02/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-cicero-conference-round-of-32/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-cicero-conference-round-of-32 Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:35:26 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16792 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: CICERO Conference – Round of 32

This is the official voting page for the CICERO Conference – Round of 32. It will go from March 2nd until March 8th, 2026. Below are the rules and then the voting survey block. You may only vote once per day per battle. The honorees section is 10 breweries, but only 1 will move on to the next round.

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – CICERO Conference: Round of 32

VOTING Rules

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA. (All named after different hop varietals.) Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll. Starting with the Round of 64, all the way down to the finals of each conference, followed by a Fatal Four Way that will have the winner of each conference fighting for the grand champion!

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. The rounds are as follows: Round of 64, Round of 32, Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4, Conference Finals (Round of 2), and the Finals Fatal Four-Way (Winner of each Conference in a four-way match). So for the first week, there will be 32 matches in the conference, then in the second week there will be 16 matches, then 8 matches, then 4 matches, then the last two rounds are just 1 match each.

VOTE

2026 Battle of the Breweries: CICERO Conference - Round of 32
2026 Battle of the Breweries: CICERO Conference - Round of 32
CICERO Conference - Round of 32

(1) Aslin Beer Co vs. (32) Gunpowder Falls Brewing

(2) Ever Grain Brewing vs. (31) Appalachian Brewing Company

(3) New Trail Brewing vs. (30) Cold Springs Inn and Brewery

(4) Pineknotter Brewing vs. (29) Lancaster Brewing Company

(5) Cartel Brewing and Blending vs. (28) The Leaning Cask Brewery

(6) YAH Brew vs. (27) 1787 Brewing Company

(7) Pilger Ruh Brewing vs. (26) Fat Bat Brewing

(8) Bespoke Brewing vs. (25) Victory Brewing

(9) Our Town Brewery vs. (24) Happy Valley Brewing

(10) Mad Chef Brewing vs. (23) Benny Brewing

(11) Hares Hill Brewing vs. (22) Hop Farm Brewing

(12) Schaylor Brewing vs. (21) Helicon Brewing

(13) Shy Bear Brewing vs. (20) Locust Lane Brewing

(14) Copperz Brewing vs. (19) Sign of the Horse Brewery

(15) Conny Creek Brewing vs. (18) Tortured Souls Brewing

(16) BierHall Brewing vs. (17) Oakbrook Brewery

HONOREES (You can only vote for 1 to move onto the next round)

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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16792
The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: BELMA Conference – Round of 32 https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/02/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-belma-conference-round-of-32/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-belma-conference-round-of-32 Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:23:07 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16789 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: BELMA Conference – Round of 32

This is the official voting page for the BELMA Conference – Round of 32. It will go from March 2nd until March 8th, 2026. Below are the rules and then the voting survey block. You may only vote once per day per battle. The honorees section is 10 breweries, but only 1 will move on to the next round.

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – BELMA Conference: Round of 32

VOTING Rules

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA. (All named after different hop varietals.) Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll. Starting with the Round of 64, all the way down to the finals of each conference, followed by a Fatal Four Way that will have the winner of each conference fighting for the grand champion!

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. The rounds are as follows: Round of 64, Round of 32, Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4, Conference Finals (Round of 2), and the Finals Fatal Four-Way (Winner of each Conference in a four-way match). So for the first week, there will be 32 matches in the conference, then in the second week there will be 16 matches, then 8 matches, then 4 matches, then the last two rounds are just 1 match each.

VOTE

2026 Battle of the Breweries: BELMA Conference - Round of 32
2026 Battle of the Breweries: BELMA Conference - Round of 32
BELMA Conference - Round of 32

(1) Sworn Brewing vs. (32) Evil Genius Beer

(2) South County Brewing vs. (31) Otto's Brewpub

(3) Hitchhiker Brewing vs. (30) Lydian Stone Brewing

(4) Forbes Trail Brewing vs. (29) Axemann Brewery

(5) Rough Edges Brewing vs. (28) Covered Bridge Brewhaus

(6) La Cabra Brewing vs. (27) Bearded Lady Brewery

(7) Moo-Duck Brewery vs. (26) Snitz Creek Brewing

(8) Inner Groove Brewing vs. (25) Saucony Creek Brewing

(9) Lindgren Craft Brewing vs. (24) Bright Path Brewing

(10) Acclamation Brewing vs. (23) Juniata Brewing Company

(11) Free Will Brewing vs. (22) Robin Hood Brewing

(12) Allusion Brewing vs. (21) Bullfrog Brewery

(13) Braeloch Brewing vs. (20) Columbia Kettle Works

(14) Liquid Noise Brewing vs. (19) AleCraft Brewery

(15) Lincoln Avenue Brewing vs. (18) GearHouse Brewing

(16) Molly Pitcher Brewing vs. (17) Burg'hers Brewing

HONREES (You can only vote for 1 to move on to the next round)

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: ATLAS Conference – Round of 32 https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/02/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-atlas-conference-round-of-32/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-atlas-conference-round-of-32 Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:15:10 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16786 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: ATLAS Conference – Round of 32

This is the official voting page for the ATLAS Conference – Round of 32. It will go from March 2nd until March 8th, 2026. Below are the rules and then the voting survey block. You may only vote once per day per battle. The honorees section is 10 breweries, but only 1 will move on to the next round.

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – The Atlas Conference

VOTING Rules

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA. (All named after different hop varietals.) Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll. Starting with the Round of 64, all the way down to the finals of each conference, followed by a Fatal Four Way that will have the winner of each conference fighting for the grand champion!

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. The rounds are as follows: Round of 64, Round of 32, Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4, Conference Finals (Round of 2), and the Finals Fatal Four-Way (Winner of each Conference in a four-way match). So for the first week, there will be 32 matches in the conference, then in the second week there will be 16 matches, then 8 matches, then 4 matches, then the last two rounds are just 1 match each.

VOTE

2026 Battle of the Breweries: ATLAS Conference - Round of 32
2026 Battle of the Breweries: ATLAS Conference - Round of 32
Atlas Conference - Round of 32

(1) Other Half Brewing vs. (32) Jigsy's Brewpub

(2) Hidden River Brewing vs. (31) Bube's Brewery

(3) Dancing Gnome Brewing vs. (30) Lost Mined Brewing

(4) Abjuration Brewing vs. (29) Jackass Brewery

(5) Fourscore Beer Co. vs (28) Rusty Rail Brewing

(6) Grist House Craft Brewing vs. (27) Spring House Brewing

(7) Michaux Brewing vs. (26) Desperate Times Brewery

(8) Bonn Place vs. (25) Punch Buggy Brewing

(9) Collusion Tap Works vs. (24) Eclipse Craft Brewing

(10) Raney Cellars Brewing vs. (23) Artillery Brewering

(11) Boneshire Brew Works vs. (22) The Millworks

(12) Boal City Brewing vs. (21) J.J. Rattigan Brewing

(13) Rural City Brewing vs. (20) Levity Brewing

(14) Groove Brewing vs. (19) Aldus Brewing

(15) The Beerded Goat Brewing vs. (18) Rubber Soul Brewing

(16) Broken Goblet Brewing vs. (17) Stable 12 Brewing

HONOREES (You can only pick one to move on to the next round)

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

]]>
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The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: Competitors List https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/02/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-competitors-list/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-competitors-list Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:05:49 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16779 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries: Competitors List

The following list is the full 168 competitors that will be competing in this year’s (2026) Battle of the Breweries! The regular 128 competitors in the main tournament, with each conference having their bonus “10 play-in honors” competitors, who will then face off with the 1 v 16 winner in the second round. Thus bringing the full tournament up to a total of 168 Pennsylvanian Brewery competitors!

For the rules and guidelines and voting, you can see the main article here: The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – Rules, Guidelines, Competitors, and General Information.

Good luck to all involved!

(Note, the following is listed in their spot in the tournament – 1 to 32 by conference, and then the 10 honorees listed in their grouping.)

(Note two, keep in mind the tournament is structured that 1 v 32, 2 v 31, 3 v 30, etc.)

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries Tournament

ATLAS Conference

  1. Other Half Brewing
  2. Hidden River Brewing
  3. Dancing Gnome Brewing
  4. Abjuration Brewing
  5. Fourscore Beer Co
  6. Grist House Craft Brewing
  7. Michaux Brewing
  8. Bonn Place
  9. Collusion Tap works
  10. Raney Cellars Brewing
  11. Boneshire Brew Works
  12. Boal City Brewing
  13. Rural City Brewing
  14. Groove Brewing
  15. The Beerded Goat Brewing
  16. Broken Goblet Brewing
  17. Stable 12 Brewing
  18. Rubber Soul Brewing
  19. Aldus Brewing
  20. Levity Brewing
  21. J.J. Rattigan Brewing
  22. The Millworks
  23. Artillery Brewing
  24. Eclipse Craft Brewing
  25. Punch Buggy Brewing
  26. Desperate Times Brewery
  27. Spring House Brewing
  28. Rusty Rail Brewing
  29. Jackass Brewery
  30. Lost Mined Brewing
  31. Bube’s Brewery
  32. Jigsy’s Brewpub

Honorees:

  1. Sterling Pig Brweing
  2. Susquehanna Brewing Company
  3. The Church Brew Works
  4. Two Frays Brewing
  5. Urban Village Brewing
  6. Hidden Key Brewing
  7. Market Cross Brewpub
  8. ZeroDay Brewing
  9. Twelve78 Brewing
  10. Sherman Street Brewing

 

BELMA Conference

  1. Sworn Brewing
  2. South County Brewing
  3. Hitchhiker Brewing
  4. Forbes Trail Brewing
  5. Rough Edges Brewing
  6. La Cabra Brewing
  7. Moo-Duck Brewing
  8. Inner Groove Brewing
  9. Lindgren Craft Brewing
  10. Acclamation Brewing
  11. Free Will Brewing
  12. Allusion Brewing
  13. Braeloch Brewing
  14. Liquid Noise Brewing
  15. Lincoln Avenue Brewing
  16. Molly Pitcher Brewing
  17. Burg’hers Brewing
  18. GearHouse Brewing
  19. AleCraft Brewery
  20. Columbia Kettle Works
  21. Bullfrog Brewery
  22. Robin Hood Brewing
  23. Juniata Brewing Company
  24. Bright Path Brewing
  25. Saucony Creek Brewing
  26. Snitz Creek Brewing
  27. Bearded Lady Brewing
  28. Covered Bridge Brehause
  29. Axemann Brewery
  30. Lydian Stone Brewing
  31. Otto’s Brewpub
  32. Evil Genius Beer

Honorees:

  1. Stoker’s Brewing
  2. Stolen Sun Brewing
  3. The Washington Brewing
  4. Therapy Brewery
  5. Turkey Hill Brewing
  6. Twisted Bine Brewing
  7. Whisker’s Brewing
  8. Bald Birds Brewing
  9. Seven Sirens Brewing
  10. Lost Tavern Brewing

CICERO Conference

  1. Aslin Beer Co
  2. Ever Grain Brewing
  3. New Trail Brewing
  4. Pineknotter Brewing
  5. Cartel Brewing and Blending
  6. YAH Brew
  7. Pilger Ruh Brewing
  8. Bespoke Brewing
  9. Our Town Brewery
  10. Mad Chef Brewing
  11. Hares Hill Brewing
  12. Schaylor Brewing
  13. Shy Bear Brewing
  14. Copperz Brewing
  15. Conny Creek Brewing
  16. BierHall Brewing
  17. Oakbrook Brewery
  18. Tortured Souls Brewing
  19. Sign of the Horse Brewery
  20. Locust Lane Brewing
  21. Helicon Brewing
  22. Hop Farm Brewing
  23. Benny Brewing
  24. Happy Valley Brewing
  25. Victory Brewing
  26. Fat Bat Brewing
  27. 1787 Brewing
  28. The Leaning Cask Brewery
  29. Lancaster Brewing Company
  30. Cold Springs Inn and Brewery
  31. Appalachian Brewing Company
  32. Gunpowder Falls Brewing

Honorees:

  1. Stone Bridge Brewing
  2. Strange Roots Ales
  3. Thirsty Farmer Brew Works
  4. Tired Hands Brewing
  5. VK Brewing
  6. Wissihickon Brewing
  7. Well Crafted Brewing
  8. Gift Horse Brewing
  9. McCall Collective
  10. Aviator Brew Hub

DANA Conference

  1. Antifragile Brewing
  2. Warwick Farms Brewing
  3. Human Robot Beer
  4. Coven Brewing
  5. Lolev Beer
  6. Levante Brewing
  7. Voodoo Brewing
  8. Rotunda Brewing Company
  9. Wolf Brewing
  10. Cinderlands Beer Co
  11. Pizza Boy Brewing
  12. Pour Man’s Brewing
  13. ShuBrew
  14. Breaker Brewing
  15. Hemaur Brewing
  16. Inspiration Brewing
  17. Selin’s Grove Brewing
  18. Firewhistle Brewing
  19. Second District Brewing
  20. Root Down Brewing
  21. Helltown Brewing
  22. Scrubby’s Craft Brewrey
  23. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
  24. Von C Brewing
  25. Big Dog Craft Brewing
  26. Olde Bedford Brewing
  27. 2SP Brewing
  28. Back Porch Brewing
  29. Conshohocken Brewing
  30. Black Forest Brewery
  31. Old Forge Brewing
  32. Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery

Honorees:

  1. Straub Brewery
  2. Sunset Hill Farm Brewing
  3. Coal Tipple Brewery
  4. Truss Brewing
  5. Fetish Brewing
  6. Yards Brewing
  7. Yellow Bridge Brewing
  8. Dock Street Brewing
  9. Fegley’s Brewery
  10. Vortex Brewing

Voting

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA.  Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll.

Voting schedule:

  • Round of 32 – March 2nd through 8th
  • Round of 16 – March 9th through 15th
  • Round of 8 – March 16th through 22nd
  • Round of 4 – March 23rd through 29th
  • Conference Finals: March 30th through April 5th
  • Finals Fatal Four Way: April 6th through 19th (Two weeks for the finals)

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. For the Conference Finals I might just make it 1 voting page rather than 4 distinct voting pages. It all depends on what will be easier for the blog’s coding and all that back house stuff.

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

 

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16779
The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – Rules, Guidelines, Competitors, and General Information https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/03/01/the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-rules-guidelines-competitors-and-general-information/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2026-battle-of-the-breweries-rules-guidelines-competitors-and-general-information Mon, 02 Mar 2026 03:00:29 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16776 The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – Rules, Guidelines, Competitors, and General Information

Once again its March and we find ourselves ready for The Battle of the Breweries! Each year I try and do something different with it, and this year is no different. This year we are doing just Pennsylvanian Breweries. Of course, the same rule as always applies – to be in the tournament, it must be a brewery that one of the writers for The Beer Thrillers have visited. (Meaning, a brewery or taproom of the brewery, in Pennsylvania, visited by B. Kline, J. Doncevic, or Paul Kan.) This year’s tournament size is impressive too! Its four conferences of 32 breweries each, for a total of 128 breweries. But wait — theres more! Each conference has a bonus “10 brewery honors” vote. From this group, only one brewery will move on, and they will join the winner of the 1 v 16 to make a triple threat in the second round.

Gotta love a good gimmick! (Paul Heyman taught me that.)

The 2026 Battle of the Breweries Tournament

The Battle of the Breweries

We’ve been hosting our version of the NCAA March Madness since 2021. We call it “The Battle of the Breweries”. Its a pretty straightforward tournament, ran similarly to that of the March Madness basketball tournament. The conferences this year are: Atlas, Belma, Cicero, and Dana. (All named after different hop varieties.) (Each year I pick different hop conference names, in the past I’ve done wrestlers for WrestleMania, and other years I’ve done hop varieties.)

Between the three of us we have visited over 200 breweries in Pennsylvania, so we had to limit it down to the tournament size of 128. And I still found that too hard to keep it a great list…. so I added the four honors sections of 10 breweries each, bringing this to a total of 168 competitors. The original 128 were selected for their conferences randomly (I rolled a D4). The ten honors though are mostly end of alphabet breweries. Sorry, tough decisions had to be made with how to select the tournament and to set it up, and my time is very limited (a 50+ hour week job, four daughters, other hobbies, etc.) (I am devoting as much time to this unpaid event as I can, and actually this event as well as maintaining the blog costs me money, so I spend as much time as I can devote to a project that actually costs me money…. don’t tell my accountant.)

Once selected for their conferences, the breweries are then ranked via their Global Average Untappd rating as of 3.1.26. In the case of ties (ex. Brewery A – 3.77 rating and Brewery B – 3.77 rating) I rolled a dice for each brewery to determine the higher seed between the two (or three or four).

Yes I understand this isn’t the most fair tournament, and I also understand the additional 10 breweries were not selected fairly due to the alphabet. But unfortunately, most tournaments and such aren’t fair, and this is meant to be a fun tournament. This isn’t meant to demean or destroy a brewery or to cause fighting or hatred. This is all meant to be in good fun, so please keep it in mind and keep the spirit of it all while participating.

A list of the 168 competitors will follow this article shortly.

Voting

Voting is straight forward and simple. There are four conferences: ATLAS, BELMA, CICERO, and DANA.  Each week, from Monday through Sunday, there will be a voting page for each of the conference. Click on the voting page, open it up, and it will have a pop-down survey poll.

Voting schedule:

  • Round of 32 – March 2nd through 8th
  • Round of 16 – March 9th through 15th
  • Round of 8 – March 16th through 22nd
  • Round of 4 – March 23rd through 29th
  • Conference Finals: March 30th through April 5th
  • Finals Fatal Four Way: April 6th through 19th (Two weeks for the finals)

You can vote daily for each of the conferences, so you can make up to 4 votes (one per conference) per day. Each round will be one week, except for the Finals which will be two weeks. For the Conference Finals I might just make it 1 voting page rather than 4 distinct voting pages. It all depends on what will be easier for the blog’s coding and all that back house stuff.

Tournament Guidelines

We fully encourage everyone to have as much fun as possible with this tournament! Share and comment and talk about the breweries facing off. Upset your favorite brewery isn’t in the tournament? Sorry! It means one of us probably haven’t been there, or they just barely missed our cut when deciding the 256 breweries to include! Social media is a fantastic tool for sharing your brewery or your favorite brewery’s voting page. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkTree, umm…. MySpace? LinkedIn? Pinterest? What other social medias do you cool young kids use? Whichever it is, feel free to share and bolster and brag about how your brewery is doing or encourage others to vote for your favorite brewery!

Please do keep it all in fun though. This isn’t meant to belittle or demean breweries or to create real animosity. Its a fun light hearted competition in the spirit of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. So with that in mind please enjoy it!

VOTING LINKS

The following section will be edited over time to include all of the different voting pages and their links. As well as the results pages. Results pages will be done when I have time. Between having four daughters, a girlfriend, a job, and writing for the blog, results pages may not be done immediately. Voting pages will be though.

2026 Battle of the Breweries – Rules, Guidelines, Competitors, and General Information

  • The 2026 Battle of the Breweries – Rules, Guidelines, Competitors, and General Information
  • The Battle of the Breweries 2026: Competitors List

Good Luck

Once again – good luck to all the breweries involved, and have fun! Be sure to share this page or the direct voting pages for best results.

 

Cheers!

 

-Ben

-The Beer Thrillers

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

 

 

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Book Review: The Psychology of Zelda (edited by Anthony M. Bean) https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/02/26/book-review-the-psychology-of-zelda-edited-by-anthony-m-bean/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=book-review-the-psychology-of-zelda-edited-by-anthony-m-bean Fri, 27 Feb 2026 03:45:30 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16773 Book Review: The Psychology of Zelda (edited by Anthony M. Bean)

The Psychology of Zelda isn’t your typical gaming book: it’s a collection of academic essays by different psychologists and scholars examining The Legend of Zelda series through the lens of psychological theory—ranging from Jungian archetypes to grief models to music and identity. It’s a concept that will delight some fans and frustrate others.

On the positive side, the book brings a fresh way to think about a franchise many of us grew up with. Essays like those on Majora’s Mask and Link’s psychological journey can genuinely make you reflect on why these games resonate so deeply. On the less positive side, the content can feel repetitive, and for readers already familiar with basic psychology or Zelda lore, a lot of the material might seem introductory or obvious.

Overall: a solid 3.5 out of 5—a worthwhile read for devoted Zelda fans and casual psychology buffs, but it lacks the depth and cohesion that would make it essential reading – but read on for the review!

(Also — see our article on Zelda and Craft Beer)

The Psychology of Zelda: Linking Our World to the Legend of Zelda Series (edited by Anthony M. Bean)

The 40th Anniversary Year of Zelda

2026 is the 40th anniversary year of the original game – The Legend of Zelda (1986) released in Japan in 1986 and in America in 1987. I have many, many, many incredible fond memories of the Zelda series as a whole, and particularly the first game, A Link to the Past, and then the N64 games – Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. I’ve played nearly every game of the series (minus the Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, which I intend to this year with the Switch Online, and the only other ones being Twilight Princess and Tears of the Kingdom [though I have played it a little], and the newest one based around Zelda).

2026 marks the 40th anniversary of the original The Legend of Zelda, which debuted in 1986 and laid the foundation for one of gaming’s most enduring and beloved franchises. That history casts an interesting shadow over The Psychology of Zelda: much of what the book discusses—the archetypal hero’s journey, the cycle of conflict and rebirth, and the symbolic elements like the Triforce—is rooted in storytelling patterns that have kept Zelda relevant for four decades. The games’ influence on players’ identities and emotional lives, as explored in the book, speaks to the series’ longevity and cultural impact.

The Psychology of Zelda: Linking Our World to the Legend of Zelda Serie

The following is the GoodReads “back of the book blurb”:

It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this (book).

For more than 30 years, The Legend of Zelda—which immerses players in a courageous struggle against the shadowy forces of evil in a world of high fantasy—has spanned more than 30 different installments, selling over 75 million copies. Today, it is one of the most beloved video game franchises around the globe.

Video game sales as a whole have continued to grow, now raking in twice as much money per year as the entire film industry, and countless psychologists have turned their attention to the effects gaming has on us: our confidence, our identity, and our personal growth. The Psychology of Zelda applies the latest psychological findings, plus insights from classic psychology theory, to Link, Zelda, Hyrule, and the players who choose to wield the Master Sword.

In The Psychology of Zelda, psychologists who love the games ask:

How do Link’s battles in Ocarina of Time against Dark Link, his monstrous doppelganger, mirror the difficulty of confronting our personal demons and the tendency to be our own worst enemies? What lessons about pursuing life’s greater meaning can we take away from Link’s quests through Hyrule and beyond the stereotypical video game scenario of rescuing a Princess (Zelda)? What do we experience as players when we hear that familiar royal lullaby on the ocarina, Saria’s spirited melody in the Lost Woods, or the iconic main theme on the title screen? How do the obstacles throughout Majora’s Mask represent the Five Stages of Grief? What can Link’s journey to overcome the loss of the fairy Navi teach us about understanding our own grief and depression? Why are we psychologically drawn to the game each and every time a new version becomes available even when they all have a similar storyline? Think you’ve completed the quest? The Psychology of Zelda gives you new,  thrilling dungeons to explore and even more puzzles to solve.

GoodReads “The Psychology of Zelda”

Book Review

Lets get into it, and we’ll break it down chapter by chapter.

Chapter Highlights (Themes & Takeaways)

Thanks to published chapter listings, we can unpack what each essay focuses on.

1. Embodying the Virtual Hero: A Link to the Self

This opening essay explores how players identify with Link and project themselves into his role, using psychological concepts of projection and selfhood. It argues that embodying Link can reflect aspects of our own identity and growth.

2. It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: The Hero’s Journey

A classic motif in the Zelda games, this chapter ties Link’s quests to the monomyth Hero’s Journey framework—which frames Link’s progression from humble beginnings to heroic maturity.

3. The Nocturne of (Personal) Shadow

Drawing on Carl Jung, this essay looks at enemy figures (like Dark Link) as symbolic representations of the player’s inner fears and unresolved aspects of the self.

4. The Archetypal Attraction

This broader psychological perspective investigates why the Zelda mythos consistently engages players: the universal appeal of archetypes like the Hero, Mentor, and Threshold Guardian.

5. Unmasking Grief: Applying the Kübler-Ross Five Stages

One of the most praised chapters looks at how Majora’s Mask mirrors the five stages of grief, using regions of the game world to symbolically reflect emotional states like denial, anger, and acceptance.

6. The Protective Power of Destiny: Posttraumatic Growth

This essay links Link’s repeated confrontation with adversity to psychological posttraumatic growth, showing how overcoming challenges can become a source of resilience.

7. The Quest for Meaning in the Legend of Zelda

Explores deeper existential themes, showing how the series reflects humanity’s search for meaning through adversity and purpose.

8. The Song of the Ritos: The Psychology of Music

A unique entry: it considers how Zelda’s music influences player emotions and strengthens memory and immersion—tying sound design to psychological engagement.

9. Triforce Heroes and Heroines

Focuses on the Triforce’s symbolic meanings—balance, unity, and integration of opposites—and how it reflects broader psychological concepts.

10. The Legend Herself: From Damsel in Distress to Princess of Power

This final essay looks at how Princess Zelda’s role has evolved from a passive figure to one of agency and power, reflecting changing societal views on gender and identity.

What Works

  • Fun for Zelda fans: Makes you see familiar games in new ways.

  • Accessible psychology: Even non-psychology majors can follow the essays.

  • Diversity of topics: From grief to music to meaning, there’s a broad range.

What Falls Short

  • Repetition across essays: Jungian concepts crop up often.

  • Introductory depth: Experienced psychologists or readers might want deeper analysis.

  • Western-centric viewpoints: Some interpretations lean heavily on Western psychological frameworks.

  • Dating Throughout the Work – Theres a few times, even sometimes within the same chapters where games are dated inaccurately or differently. One chapter I can recall, talks about Wind Waker being (2003) and then also saying (2002), which is odd when they even say it came out five years after Ocarina of Time (1998).

Final Thoughts

If The Psychology of Zelda were a video game, it would be like a Zelda title you enjoy for the worldbuilding and unique ideas, even if some dungeons feel familiar. It’s insightful, thoughtful, at times eye-opening—but imperfect. For the 40th anniversary of the Zelda franchise, this book adds an interesting layer of reflection on why those pixelated trips through Hyrule meant so much—and still do—for players.

My Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
For GoodReads: *** out of 5
For LibraryThing: ***.5 out of 5
Global Average GoodReads Rating: 3.72 (as of 2.26.26)

Other Book Reviews

All of Our Nerd Content

Here’s all of our nerd content, served up best in one single place. Enjoy!

I know ya’ll here for the nerd reviews. So check out our other nerd reviews below:

Star Wars:

Futurama

Lord of the Rings:

Magic the Gathering:

Heroes of Barcadia:

Zelda:

Rick and Morty:

Space Balls:

Game of Thrones:

The Simpsons:

Back to the Future:

Scrooged:

Groundhog Day:

A Christmas Story:

The Peanuts:

Pro Wrestling:

Soccer:

World Cup:

Phillies:

Philadelphia Eagles:

Matrix:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

Mario:

HP Lovecraft / Cthulhu:

Seinfeld:

The Muppets:

Jason Voorhees / Friday the 13th:

Other:

 


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For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

 

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Book Review: Strengths Finder 2.0 (Tom Rath) https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/02/04/book-review-strengths-finder-2-0-tom-rath/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=book-review-strengths-finder-2-0-tom-rath Wed, 04 Feb 2026 21:52:05 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16762 Book Review: Strengths Finder 2.0 (Tom Rath)

Every so often I’ll peruse the aisles of the Hershey Public Library and pick things almost at random. Career books, management books, leadership style books, they all fit into this category; where every so often I’ll pick one up and read it, see what I could possibly learn from it, and see if it could help me in my career(s) or life in general. And thus, how I got reading Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath.

Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath

GoodReads Book Blurb

This is the back of the book blurb based on GoodReads:

**Once you have purchased this ebook, the unique access code will be sent to the email address you have registered with Kindle.**DO YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO WHAT YOU DO BEST EVERY DAY?Chances are, you don’t. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents.In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you’ll use it as a reference for decades.Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself — and the world around you — forever.AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY IN THE NEW & UPGRADED EDITION OF STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0(using the unique access code included with each book)* A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment* A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year* A more customized version of your top five theme report* 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes)* The more user-friendly StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website, with a strengths community area, library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver, and a program for creating display cards of your top five themes

Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (GoodReads)

My Book Review

There’s a certain kind of book you don’t really read so much as you experience, and StrengthsFinder 2.0 very much lives in that space. It’s less a traditional self-help book and more a personality diagnostic with a spiral-bound instruction manual attached. You crack it open, take the assessment, get your Top 5 strengths, and then… well, then it’s sort of up to you what happens next.

At its core, StrengthsFinder 2.0 is built on a solid and refreshing premise: stop obsessing over your weaknesses and start developing what you’re already good at. That alone puts it ahead of a lot of grindset, “fix everything that’s wrong with you” literature. The book argues—convincingly—that most people plateau not because they lack self-awareness, but because they’re investing energy in areas where they’ll never be great. Fair point.

The real star of the show, though, is the assessment itself. It’s quick, intuitive, and oddly revealing in the way personality tests often are—enough specificity to feel personal, enough vagueness to apply broadly. When you read your results, there’s that familiar mix of “Oh wow, that’s me” and “Sure, I guess that fits.” It’s accurate enough to spark reflection, which is ultimately the point.

Where StrengthsFinder 2.0 stumbles is in what comes after. The book is extremely light on actionable depth. Once you’ve read about your Top 5 strengths, you may find yourself flipping pages thinking, Is that it? The descriptions are clean, corporate-friendly, and clearly designed for HR departments and team-building workshops. That’s not inherently bad—but it does mean the book feels more like a workplace tool than a personal roadmap.

There’s also the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) sense that this book works best if your life problems can be solved with better communication, productivity, or leadership alignment. If you’re looking for something more existential, messy, or human—something that grapples with doubt, burnout, or meaning—this probably won’t scratch that itch.

That said, StrengthsFinder 2.0 does what it promises. It’s efficient, polished, and accessible. It won’t change your life, but it might help you reframe how you see yourself at work—or at least give you a cleaner vocabulary for explaining why you operate the way you do. Think of it less like a deep, barrel-aged stout and more like a dependable, middle-of-the-road pale ale. Drinkable, useful, but not something you’ll be talking about months later.

Final Verdict:
StrengthsFinder 2.0 is a solid tool with a limited shelf life. Worth reading (and taking) once, especially if you enjoy personality frameworks or work in a team-heavy environment. Just don’t expect it to deliver profound transformation.

My Rating: *** out of 5 on GoodReads
On LibraryThing – *** out of 5 as well
Global Average Rating is 3.93 out of 5 on GoodReads (as of 2.4.26).

Other Book Reviews

 


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For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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The Brewer’s Art in Mount Vernon Has Closed Its Doors After 30 Years https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/02/02/the-brewers-art-in-mount-vernon-has-closed-its-doors-after-30-years/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-brewers-art-in-mount-vernon-has-closed-its-doors-after-30-years Mon, 02 Feb 2026 22:45:17 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16755 The Brewer’s Art in Mount Vernon Has Closed Its Doors After 30 Years

Just yesterday we reported on Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD shutting down, and now we have news that The Brewer’s Art has abruptly shut down in the outskirts of Baltimore, MD (“technically considered Mt. Vernon”).  Located at 1106 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21201, yet another brewery closing in 2026, and another in Maryland, and still also another that Amy and I had visited.

The Brewer’s Art bar (photo courtesy of The Brewer’s Art website’s gallery)

Abrupt Closure

If you’ve ever ducked down the stairs into The Brewer’s Art’s basement bar — that low-ceilinged space where the wood got a little sticky by last call and the taps were always ready for another round — this one might sting a bit. After three decades in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, The Brewer’s Art has quietly closed its doors for good.

Opened back in 1996, it was more than just a brewpub. Upstairs, you’d flirt with a pint of Resurrection or Beazly between bites of duck-fat rosemary fries; downstairs, regulars found their corners and their folks. It was the sort of place you didn’t just go to drink — you went to belong

But earlier this week, staff got word in a way very few of us would have guessed: a text. Owner Volker Stewart told employees the business couldn’t continue — finances had taken a turn, strains that had been growing worse in recent months finally left them without a path forward. The doors were to stay closed, and payroll stopped with the last shift.

That abruptness has left a lot of folks reeling — not just the 20 or so people who worked there, but the community that somehow folded this spot into its own story. On Mount Vernon sidewalks and online forums alike, you see those memories surface: first legal pints, Friday night happy hours, quiet conversations over a hazy flight. Some are holding onto the hope the beer might live on somewhere else; others are just mourning the loss of a place that felt like home.

What happens next — whether the recipes get poured again under a new roof, or whether Resurrection quietly becomes a memory in fridges and growlers across town — isn’t yet clear. But for now, The Brewer’s Art is a name you’ll only bring up in stories and inside jokes and toasts.

Cheers to the years it was.

For More Information on The Brewer’s Art

The following comes via Untappd.

(Note: It is already listed as out of business, so the stats for number of unique beers has been removed.)

The Brewer’s Art is a brew pub located in Baltimore, MD. With (blanked out) unique beers and over 101,000 ratings, with a unique average rating of 3.64 globally (as of 2.2.26). Their Untappd description reads: House brewed beers and innovative cuisine in a 1901 mansion.

You can follow them at these social media platforms:

Their Facebook was last updated on January 29th, with no word of the closure (updated – as of 2.3.26, their Facebook page still hasn’t been updated).

Sources

Brewery News

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

 

 

 

 

 


Follow The Beer Thrillers

For more updates on Pennsylvania brewery news, closures, openings, and expansions, follow The Beer Thrillers on social media and subscribe for the latest articles on the state’s ever-evolving craft beer scene.

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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

 

 

 

 

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Idiom Brewing Co. Announces Closure After Seven Years in Frederick https://thebeerthrillers.com/2026/01/30/idiom-brewing-co-announces-closure-after-seven-years-in-frederick/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=idiom-brewing-co-announces-closure-after-seven-years-in-frederick Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:30:16 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=16749 Idiom Brewing Co. Announces Closure After Seven Years in Frederick

Idiom’s Final Days
(photo supplied by Idiom Brewing Company’s Facebook page)

Well, unfortunately, another favorite brewery (favorite of mine anyway) is closing. We previously wrote about Idiom here – Idiom Brewing’s Owner is Stepping Down – Michael Clements Bids Farewell to Idiom Brewing – but now it looks like its completely official and the count down to the final days are on. Seems like more and more of the favorite breweries my ex-girlfriend and I loved to visit are closing up shop. (Alementary, Big Bottom Brewing, Rocket Frog, Tattered Flag, Mellow Mink, Cox, etc.) But I suppose its like they say, all good things must come to an end.

Another light is dimming in the Mid-Atlantic craft beer landscape.

Idiom Brewing Co. has announced it will permanently close its doors on February 15, 2026, bringing an end to a seven-year run in downtown Frederick, Maryland. The news was shared directly by owner and head brewer Mike Clements in a heartfelt message posted to the brewery’s Facebook page — the kind of post that has become far too familiar in recent years.

Idiom opened with a simple but powerful mission: craft great beer and even better conversation. For seven years, they did exactly that, becoming a fixture in Frederick’s brewing identity and a gathering place for locals and visitors alike.

But as Clements noted, the brewing industry is currently facing what many have described as a “perfect storm.” Rising ingredient costs, increased competition, shifting consumer habits, distribution challenges, and overall economic pressure have pushed even well-loved, well-run breweries to the brink. Idiom, despite best efforts to weather those forces, has reached the end of its road.

Located at 340 E Patrick St #104, Frederick, MD 21701 , be sure to stop in before they close.

A Community-Focused Farewell

Rather than quietly fading out, Idiom is choosing to go the way it came in — surrounded by friends.

The brewery will remain open through February 15, 2026, giving the community time to say goodbye, share stories, and help kick the remaining kegs. It’s a gesture that feels very on-brand for Idiom: transparent, communal, and rooted in gratitude rather than bitterness.

In his message, Clements made a point to center the people who made Idiom what it was:

  • The staff, past and present, described as “the soul of Idiom”

  • The guests, who brought their milestones, weekends, and lives into the taproom

  • Frederick itself, whose brewing legacy Idiom proudly became part of

That sense of mutual ownership — where a brewery belongs as much to its patrons as its founders — is something you can’t manufacture. It has to be earned, pint by pint.

Visit Idiom Before They Close (photo courtesy of Idiom Brewing)

Another Data Point in a Troubling Trend

Idiom’s closure isn’t happening in isolation.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen an accelerating number of brewery closures across the country — including highly regarded, award-winning, and community-supported operations. This isn’t a story about bad beer or bad intentions. It’s a story about margins getting thinner, risks getting higher, and sustainability becoming harder to achieve in a market that once felt endlessly expandable.

Frederick, long celebrated as one of Maryland’s strongest beer towns, now joins a growing list of cities forced to reckon with what “craft beer maturity” really looks like. Not every brewery that deserves to survive will.

And that’s the part that hurts the most.

Final Pints, Final Thanks

If you’ve ever spent an afternoon at Idiom — laughing with friends, meeting strangers, celebrating something big or hiding from something heavy — the next few weeks matter.

Show up.
Tip well.
Thank the staff.
Raise a glass.

Because while the doors may be closing, the impact Idiom Brewing Co. had on Frederick’s beer scene — and on the people who passed through its taproom — won’t disappear with the last pour.

From all of us at The Beer Thrillers, we wish Mike, the Idiom team, and everyone connected to the brewery nothing but the best in whatever comes next.

Announcement

It is with an incredibly heavy heart that we announce Idiom Brewing Co. will be closing its doors for good.
Seven years ago, we opened with a simple mission: to craft great beer and even better conversation. Since then, you’ve shared your milestones, your weekends, and your lives with us. But as many of you know, the brewing industry has faced a “perfect storm” lately, and despite our best efforts to weather it, we’ve reached the end of our road.
We want to go out the way we came in, surrounded by friends. We’ll be open through 2/15/2026, and we’d love to see you one last time. Come help us kick the kegs, share a story, and say goodbye to the taproom we’ve called home.
To our staff, past and present: You are and have been the soul of Idiom. Thank you for every pint poured and every smile shared. To our friends and guests: Thank you for making us a part of your lives and the Frederick brewing legacy.
Please come out during our final weeks to show your support to the staff members you have gotten to know and love over the years.
It’s been an honor and a privilege.
Mike Clements
Owner / Head Brewer

For More Info About Idiom Brewing Company

The following information comes from Untappd.

Idiom Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Frederick, MD. They have 454 unique beers and over 106,000 ratings with a global average rating of 3.87 (as of 1.29.26). Their Untappd description reads: “Idiom Brewing Co. has a simple goal in mind – To bring people from all walks of life together, to enjoy themselves and each other. Whether you’re a hop head looking for explosively juicy IPAs; are one of the adventurous few looking to try boozy, sour or complex flavors; or you’re just looking to enjoy classic styles and seasonal favorites, we’ll have a little something here for you!

You can follow them on their social media pages:

Brewery News

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

 

 

 

 

 


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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.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server).

We also now have a SLACK channel – which acts as a hybrid chat room, message board, Reddit style; workspace and posting area for us. You can hang out with us there and chat about all kinds of things – not just beer, but “off topic” things like movies, TV, books, podcasts, hiking, sports, and more! Join us at: The Beer Thrillers on SLACK.

We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written. The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of May 2025.) 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!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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