Autos and Ales

Coming up this Friday – November 5th (2021) is the annual Autos and Ales Craft Beer Festival; held yearly at the AACA Museum in Hershey Pennsylvania. Its one of the more fun craft beer festivals of the year (in a studded area for beer festivals; like the Mount Hope Renaissance Faire, the Lititz Craft Beer Fest, the Lancaster Brewfest, and the Atlantic City Brewfest). This one is unique and fun, because as you sip and drink, you can mill around looking at all the various cars on display in the museum.

The event page on Facebook describes it:

Autos & Ales, an annual event held at the AACA Museum, Inc. located in Hershey, PA. Join us for a fun night of sampling craft brew beers from dozens of different brewers while your eyes savor the magnificent automobiles on display inside the Museum.

Autos and Ales Facebook Event Page

Information

For more information, you can go right here: AACA Museum: Autos and Ales. And buy tickets here: Autos and Ales Tickets page.

More information, can be found through various sources from them (Facebook, Facebook event page, and their websites). Such as: “With 2020 in the rearview mirror, the AACA Museum, Inc. is excited to welcome the return of Autos & Ales, one of the Hershey area’s oldest and most enduring craft beer festivals. Friday, November 5th, from 6 to 10 pm, the event kicks off with live music, food, and dozens of breweries, all within the galleries of our award-winning transportation museum.” And their list of features:

• Regional craft breweries with dozens of craft brew beers for sampling
• Live music from local favorite, Smooth LIke Clyde
• Delicious food prepared by C&J Catering
• VIP hour from 6 to 7 pm (VIP ticket holders can remain through the close of the event at 10 pm.) The VIP hour features the debut of our 2021 event’s signature beer brewed by Snitz Creek Brewery of Lebanon, PA. The “Tucker Pucker Torpedo” beer is a delicious sour inspired by our unmatched collection of famous Tucker ’48 automobiles.
• Early access to all breweries from 6-7 pm.

Their Facebook event page has more information as well:

Enjoy tasting the region’s best breweries and listening to live music at the Antique Auto Museum in Hershey, PA.We’re excited to announce that we are partnering with Rotunda Brewing Company for something special at this year’s Autos & Ales event!New VIP happy hour from 6-7 where VIP guests will be able to enjoy an exclusive tasting of the AACA Museum Tucker ’48 IPA brewed especially by our friends at the Rotunda Brewing Company in Annville. You’ll also have early access to our other breweries and some creative food pairings. VIPs can stay all evening too. Limited tickets available.Regular tickets and Designated Driver tickets are available too with event times from 7-10:30 PM.Our Facebook friends get the first call on tickets for this year’s event – on sale today!Regular tickets – $50 / $20 (7-10:30 PM)$5 Early Bird Discount on regular tickets right now.Designated Driver: https://red.vendini.com/ticket-software.html…VIP tickets – $65 (6-10:30 PM)Limited tickets available. https://red.vendini.com/ticket-software.html…Get your tickets today!

Autos and Ales Facebook

A list of their participating breweries are:

• Aldus Brewing
• Anchor Brewing Company
• Barley Creek Brewing Company
• Beatbox Brewing
• Big Bottom Brewing
• Boneshire Brew Works
• Boom City Brewing
• Cellar Works Brewing
• Cold Springs Inn Brewing Company
• Conyngham Brewing
• Cox Brewing Company
• Crook and Marker
• Desperate Times Brewery
• Englewood Brewing
• Fat Bat Brewing Co
• Fat Head’s Brewery
• Flying Embers
• Funk Brewing
• Helltown Brewing
• Howie’s Spiked Teas and Lemonade
• Howling Henry Brewing
• Isaac’s Brewhouse
• Jackass Brewing
• Lancaster Brewing Company
• Lebanon Area Fermentors
• Mount Gretna Craft Brewery
• Newfangled Brew Works
• New Trail Brewing
• Pilger Ruh Brewing
• Poured in Pennsylvania
• Press Premium Alcoholic Seltzers
• Ravenbeer
• ReHab Home Brewing
• Rotunda Brewing Company
• Sapporo
• Snitz Creek Brewing Company
• Spring Gate Brewery
• Troegs Independent Brewing
• The Vineyard of Hershey / The Brewery of Hershey
• Whitehorse Brewing LLC
• Winding Path Brewing
• Yuengling
• ZeroDay Brewing Company

That is quite the lineup! And a wide range of breweries and presences; so there’s plenty for everyone. (Yuengling for some, seltzers for others, home brew for some, big name local breweries for others, etc.)

We’ll Be There

I’ll be mosying around, enjoying me some fine craft beers and helping out the good cause Friday night, so look for me (I’ll most likely be wearing my Boneshire Hoodie). It will be a great time and I can’t wait!

Again, for more information, and to buy your tickets: AACA Museum: Autos and Ales. And buy tickets here: Autos and Ales Tickets page.

Hope to see some of you there!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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As you can see, I am well stocked for the election results. (Not pictured is actually a draft already drank before my pizza got done and brought out to me.) What is pictured is I Voted Today by Tired Hands, Tired Branches II (the small remainder of a pour) by Tired Hands, and Heretic’s Shallow Grave (a porter). But thats not what today’s story and review is about.

You can guess what today’s story and review is about…. trains. Its all about trains and the locomotives that transformed America in the 1800s and early 1900s….. oh wait…. no… no… thats not it at all.

No, today’s review, is brought to you by the letters I. V. T. …. I Voted Today. And followed by the letters T. H. Oh… you figured out the pattern by now did you? This marks the first Tired Hands beer for the blog, surprisingly, but so it goes.

The full accurate title for this one should read: I Voted Today (Simcoe and Chinook) (Tired Hands), but that felt like adding too much to it all, so I just left it at “I Voted Today” which is far more the important part anyway.

….Well, I guess, its easy to discuss it now, and the cat is kind out of out of the bag, but today is November 3rd, which means, in America, its election day, when millions upon millions of people stand in line to do something very similar to getting Other Half or Burley Oak beers – vote.

Knowing the parking lot for the Lower Dauphin High School would most likely be completely packed, I parked at my parent’s house (which is about two blocks away) and walked over. I got to the high school to stand in line at about 8:08AM. Its interesting how Hummelstown has their voting set up. Everyone votes in the same location, but they have it split into two groups – “West Side” and “East Side”. (Yes, I can imagine what you are thinking about this.) The dividing line is Rosanna Street in town. I don’t know the official split of residences, but it is far lopsided in that West Side has a ton more residences and people than the East Side. Mainly because they added Greystone Farms (a development) to the West Side and most of the East Side is primarily just Main Street which has turned a lot of the houses into businesses. Plus it just doesn’t have the same amount of land. So while the wait for the West Side was incredibly long, if you lived on the East Side you could literally walk right in, vote, and leave.

I took this picture while still waiting in line but having at least made some progress, this is me now waiting at 8:40AM. Meanwhile the East Enders are flying past me still at the regular brisk pace they were before. Interesting notes – while in line I saw that both George Scott and Lindsey Drew were there by the entrance. George Scott walked up the line thanking everyone for coming out. Also at the entrance was Mayor David Roeting, which has been the Hummelstown standard for as long as I’ve been alive, Mayor Brad Miller and Mayor Bud Alexander both would stand at the polling entrance for the entirety of the day.

(First, disclaimer, before posting the above picture, I looked it up, in Pennsylvania you are allowed to take a photo of your non-filled out ballot and post it online. From what I have read on a few sites, you are not allowed to take a picture of a filled in ballot however. So the above is perfectly fine in compliance with these laws since its not filled out.)

Finally at 9:22AM I am inside and able to vote. I am #197 and getting to vote. I am not elaborating or discussing my details. This isn’t the point of this post or beer review. This is all just to discuss the actual process of voting. On exiting, the line had certainly gotten smaller, and I ran into Rich Dibeler who said he had been only waiting twenty or so minutes and he was up to the door (so he had about ten to fifteen more minutes to wait).

At 4PM my parents went to vote after my mom got home from school (she’s a teacher not a student). This was the line they were greeted to, and they were finally able to get in and vote around 4:40-4:50. My dad texted saying he was #895. They ran into Robert Myers as well as Mayor Roetting still there.

It is fantastic to see people doing their civic duty. Voting is one of the strongest and most powerful tools we have in America for the real change we want to see as Americans, and everyone should exercise it. Too many countries in the world don’t have the ability to have a say in their government and their politics, and we owe it to people like them to let our voices be heard.

After voting, I walked back, got home, took care of wind damage from the night before and had to leave for work, after work I went straight to Pizza Boy to try the ‘I Voted Today’ by Tired Hands. I had been looking for a ‘I Voted Today’ beer for the past week to be able to review it for the blog on election night. (I try to go nerdy and do the right things for the blog like election beers on election day, etc.) I wasn’t able to get any of cans from places like Monkish or etc, but was told and was able to get the last of ‘I Voted Today’ by Tired Hands at Pizza Boy. Literally, the last of it. Sorry if you didn’t get to try it, but here is the review of it all the same.

This might be one of the first times you get a sneak peak of the writing world there, as you can see my laptop up and running with the beer review started. You can also see my backup beers (one of which I started before I got the pizza). Backup beers were Tired Branches by Tired Hands and Shallow Grave by Heretic. Before the night was over, I would also get Elationship by Shy Bear and Valley Standard by Pizza Boy.

Beer: I Voted Today (Simcoe and Chinook)
Brewery: Tired Hands Brewing Company
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Brewed with American two row barley and malted wheat, hopped with an enthusiastic dose of our very favorite American hop, Simcoe, and fermented with our house ale yeast. This batch was double dry hopped first with more of our beloved Simcoe, then again with ultra classic and punchy Chinook. 5.6% abv. Notes of sparkling orange drink, Meyer lemon, fresh cut grass, dank green stuff, and a beautiful piney bitterness to finish it of.

This was a bright yellow pale ale. Mine looks a bit darker than some of the others I’ve seen pictures of on the internet and Untappd, which I found to be interesting, perhaps it was due to date, perhaps just the lighting at Pizza Boy where I was sitting, or my camera. My camera has been at full memory so I haven’t been able to use my flash (I know, I know, I need to get rid of all the old hiking photos and upload them to my computer so I can delete them off my phone, and also remove old apps like Hop Plotter and work out apps I’ll never use), so it might also be because of no flash. But it has a beautiful yellow to light golden color, with a very foamy head that dissipated quickly. (My pour also doesn’t do a good service to the head, and was retopped too, so it doesn’t show it as well either.)

Aroma is strong hop presence, very powerful Simcoe and Chinook hop presence. Simcoe is a hit or miss hop for many people. I personally love it, and I also love Chinook (I even grow Chinook hops at home). There is a strong lemon zest and lemon grass from the hops, some piney and a bit of earthy and regular grass undertones as well.

This is certainly a delicious crushable beer. Probably a four pack of these would be fantastic to ride out election night results. Luckily at Pizza Boy I was able to do my best to only partially glance out at the results, and only after 8PM. (I got there at 6:30.) The hop presence just like in the aroma is very strong here, and you get all of the Simcoe and Chinook hop flavors you are expecting – lemon, zest, lemon grass, pine, some hints of earthy notes, some hints of orange drink – though I always found this very subtle and don’t always pick up on it like some have, and this tails off from being juicy to leaving a light hop bitterness at the end. Which I enjoy that little ending ‘kick’ of hop bitterness, letting it not all be juicy and dank and instead giving you a wide range of flavors and tastes. This isn’t as complex as it sounds, but is more just a full flavor wheel of the above. The lemon zest, lemon grass, and grass all work together, the orange drink, piney, dank, and earthy notes all work together, and as a whole it just blends well as a juicy drink with that hop ‘kick’ of bitterness at the end. Its also only 5.6% so it’s certainly not a heavy beer and very light on the palate and stomach.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.01 (as of 11.3.20)

While eating and drinking and writing and reading, I had been texting co-workers about the election results as they were starting to come in, as well as texting a friend Haley, as well as my mom about election results, and several others. Wrapping up and going to get a box for my pizza I hear this, “Ben is that you?” and turn around, and here it was Haley, her and her mother and a friend were there the whole night as well, and we just hadn’t even seen each other there, despite texting each other the whole time. Funny world. It was her birthday (28, practically still a child, compared to my old 35). So I bought her a drink (got her a Shallow Grave by Heretic) and got myself one more beer – the Valley Standard, and we chatted and hung out and watched some of the results pour in on the screen while discussing how she’s not coming back to the casino, how her son is, etc.

After Pizza Boy I stopped at my parents to also watch the rest of the election night results with my mom, something that is usually a staple for election nights for me. I always find it interesting hearing her perspective on the country’s voting. Made it home after that to find Drew was streaming with Rome on his Knights of Nostalgia page. So I put them on in the background, while I had the TV on mute, and finished writing this (literally, writing this sentence right now with the above as described).

Please everyone remember – whoever you voted for, whichever side, blue, red, yellow, green, doesn’t matter what party you represent or voted for, what you are registered as. Nobody is “the losing side” or the “winning side”, nobody is the enemy, we are all people, we are all brothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, workers, teachers, waiters, writers, streamers, construction workers, accountants, etc. Nobody is the enemy. We. Are. Humanity. And that is what we always need to keep in focus. Left vs. Right doesn’t work and isn’t something we need to be seeing when we can see it as simple as HUMAN and HUMAN. No versus. Just AND. That is the key I think, if we can just look at the person who voted opposite of us, and say, “I see you as a person, as a friend, as a co-worker, as a person.” Rather than seeing them as “voting opposite, as the enemy, as wrong”, I think we can get back to National civility, to global humanity, to friendliness, to a better world, and a better humanity.

I’ll take my step down off my soap box now, and move on. My little naive rant over. Some day I hope for a better world, and I feel the change is possible, that its right there, and we just all overlook it due to the pettiness and the banalities of people’s lives and choices. But this is probably viewed as a soppy mushy weak view and sentimental by many. Shrug. This is a beer review and I’m not going to get too crazy on the politics or the human rights rant here.

Enjoy your beers and take care everyone. Cheers!

-B. Kline

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So after a long day at work yesterday (my monday) followed by a Halloween / remembrance party at a friend’s house I’m back at it this morning. Got to keep the streak alive and continue going 30 for 30. Can’t let you all down now. So I’m hitting the ground running with a wonderful stout I had the other day from Pretoria Fields Collective. I had received this can in a beer mail trade a few weeks ago.

Pretoria Fields Collective is a micro-brewery from Albany Georgia. You can check their Untappd page here: Pretoria Fields Collective. They have 79 unique beers with a global rating of 3.68 out of 9,257 ratings.

From the beer mail I received a nice collection of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina beers. And I’m working my way through them, and I thought since the day was cold, it’d be nice to warm up with a delicious stout.

Beer: Walkers Station Stout
Brewery: Pretoria Fields Collective
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (blank)

This was a perfect beer to enjoy on a cold, misty, ugly, Halloween Thursday afternoon waiting for the kiddos to get done from school and to inform them that no trick or treat was happening that day. (Don’t worry, we went to Pizza Boy where they absolutely had a blast – you can read about that in my St. Thomas review.)

After cracking it open and pouring her, which had a fantastic and wonderful amount of carbonation by the way, you are hit with the roasted malts. You get all kinds of notes of roasty and toasty malt action; caramel and chocolate a bit, some coffee, but you can tell you’re in for a nice bitter blended stout here just from first whiff.

Appearance is as per usual with stouts – dark black, with a very heavy dense foamy head to it. Its a creamy rich head, light brown, with lots of carbonation letting it retain for quite a while.

And taste is exactly what you expect from the appearance and aroma of this. You immediately get a deep, resonating heavy bitter, heavy roast, every toasted, malty stout. You get bitter, you get roasty, you get toasty, you get all that you expect from the dark malts and dark grains. Its got a heavy mouthfeel but not cloying or too thick, just enough to make it a good thick stout, not too thick that you are chewing it down.

My Rating: ***.75
Global Rating: 3.8 (as of 11.3.19)

Going strong so far, 3 days into November, and 3 posts done. Somewhat keeping up with my goals and challenges I’ve set for myself this month (though I missed my step-goal of 10K every day in November last night/yesterday by 1200~ {ended somewhere at 8.8K} but I did get a walk in in the morning for 2 miles, and with the party, I’m not too bummed by missing my total).

Please keep hanging in there with me and see if I can make it 30 for 30. Fingers crossed. So far I’m 3 for 3. That just means 27 more to go. I got this!

-B. Kline

(EDIT: [12.17.19]: For our good friends at Let Us Drink Beer blog, as a guest writer, I have uploaded this review for their blog as well, to go alongside their review. The review on their blog is mostly the same as this, with just a few changes. You can read my beer review here: Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Field Collective). Let Us Drink Beer also did a review on this [hence why I uploaded this review to their site], you can read theirs here: Pretoria Fields Collective – Walker Station Stout. Make sure to check them both out and show their blog some love. Thanks everyone!)