Kweza Craft Brewery

Today is Giving Tuesday, and theres no better time then to bring up on the blog about ‘Kweza Craft Brewery’ in Rwanda. Firstly, you can go directly to there IndieGoGo site and give a donation right here: Kweza Brewing on IndieGoGo. You can read about their story from IndieGoGo here:

We’re Rwanda’s first craft beer brewery. We’re women owned, led, brewed, and cheffed. We make beers that are delicious, and tell a story – from the roots of African women making sorghum beer, to using local crops and plants such as sorghum, ginger, mangoes, and jasmine to make a variety of light ales, IPAs, stouts, with more variety to come. 

Women have traditionally made beer in most cultures around the world, but not been able to benefit from that creation and lineage at the commercial level. Kweza aims to have women running all aspects of the business. Our goal is that women have the profit from the product they’ve always made, and can build generational wealth on that history. Learn more about how we’re accomplishing this on our website and by watching this webinar we held on Women Brewing Beer in History, Africa, and Rwanda (with Kweza Craft Brewery)  . 

In 2016, Fina Uwineza, a Rwandan entrepreneur, and Steve Beauchesne, CEO of Beau’s Brewery, launched a Kickstarter to fund the purchase of a bottling line.  We’ve grown the project, purchased a bottling line AND an entire brewery worth of equipment! Read and watch more of the original Kickstarter here!

Kweza on IndieGoGo

First Sip Brew Box

While on my trip through New Jersey (while actually being on the ferry) I reached out to Dennis Guy and he quickly responded, about how First Sip brew Box is helping Kweza Craft Brewery. They are working on distributing world wide merchandise for the brewery, as well as helping their crowd funding efforts. As per their marketing brochure on a Google Doc, they are “handling the fulfillment of brewery swag for Kweza brewery.” First Sip is also working with artists to help create merchandise for the project as well.

The Beer Thrillers Getting the Word Out, and How You Can Help

We will be doing more articles in the near future, including our donation, and what all goes into that donation, and what that donation does for the brewery and its upstart. We are looking to do several articles spaced out in the near future, and hopefully some interviews as well (with brewers, builders, and workers on the project). Please stay tuned.

To read more about Kweza Craft Brewery, you can follow them through these channels:

• Facebook – Kweza Craft Brewery
• IndieGoGo – Donate to Kweza Craft Brewery
• Kweza’s Website
• Webinar on Kweza Craft Brewery, and Women in Brewing
• Instagram – Kweza Craft Brewery
• Twitter – Kweza Brewery
• Untappd – Kweza Brewery

To learn more, and read more about First Sip Brew Box, and what they are doing for Kweza Craft Brewery, you can follow them here:

• Website – First Sip Brew Box
• Facebook – First Sip Brew Box
• Twitter – First Sip
• Instagram – First Sip Brew Box
• YouTube – First Sip Brew Box
• Dennis’s Email: dennis@firstsipbrewbox.com
• Google Doc

Please join us in making a donation and helping this wonderful cause, today on Giving Tuesday.

Thanks For Reading

Thank you everyone for reading, this closes out November, and our daily articles. Hopefully I can keep up the pace and maintain a good amount of articles for everyone to read. Also, hopefully you’ll all stay tuned and stay with us. Cheers!

-B. Kline

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Some days the blog posts were easy. Other days not so much. Some days I had the blog post done at 7:30 or 8AM… other days I’m struggling to get the blog post done, and wrapping it up at 11:58PM.

I never truly felt like I had burnt myself out…. until I came to doing this recap blog post. Thats why its now December 7th and its getting posted; when this was meant to be posted on December 1st. And I still don’t think I’m ‘burnt out’. I think its a case of ‘start-up issues’. The hardest part about any blog post is starting the blog post. Like writing anything, the hardest part is the beginning, is putting ink to paper, or to type those first few words. So, as the time stretched from December 1st… to December 2nd…. to December 3rd…. I hesitated and procrastinated more and more, and this post went further and further by the wayside. So for that, and for the fact that the blog as a whole hasn’t had a single post in December, and no new blog post in a week, I apologize. For those of you who were looking forward to this recap posting of my “November NaNoWriMo Challenge”, I apologize. And yes, I know I’m not REALLY doing a NaNoWriMo, and I know I’m not using the term correctly.

But this is the recap post, and it is finally going live. I apologize for its tardiness, but hopefully you will enjoy it all the same.

I met all three of my self-set hard challenges for November, and fell short of a soft-challenge for myself. My hard challenges were: 1) One new blog post per day, 2) One new unique beer per day, and 3) One 1-mile or more walk per day. These challenges I completed. (Figured the 1-mile or more walk would counter-balance the fact I was drinking every day.) The soft challenge I failed was hitting my 10K steps per day. And I only failed that one day…. ironically the second day of the month. I only got 8.8K steps that day, mainly due to a friend gathering and party and having gone to it right after work.

But you all don’t really care about the challenges, and just want to see the recap right?! So here’s whats going with that. I’m going to make a list here of the dates (November 1st, November 2nd, November 3rd, etc.) as headings, and then underneath it, list the different blog posts we posted that day (mine, J. Doncevic’s reviews, AJ’s Default Brewing post, and the guest writing blog post by Let Us Drink Beer). I will also list what new unique beer I had each of those days (or in the cases of some days, ‘unique beers’). So lets to it!

NOVEMBER 1st:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Pumpkin Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Pumpkin Spice Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Catchin’ Feels (Tattered Flag)

NOVEMBER 2nd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Rose Cider (Wyndridge Farm)
• Blood Orange Cranberry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Strawberry (Delp Brother’s Home Brewing) (Friend’s Homebrew at the party)

NOVEMBER 3rd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Fields Collective)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Watermelon (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 4th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Sogni D’oro, Wastin’ Daylight, Market Research, Peach Novelty, Oktobock, Lucky Cat Lien (ZeroDay Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)
• Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)
• King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 5th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Black Cherry (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 6th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Apple (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 7th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: S’Mores LazaRIS (Boneshire Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 8th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory (J. Doncevic)
• Beer Review: There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 9th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)

Unique Beers:

• Schwarzbier (The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery)

NOVEMBER 10th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 11th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Colonization (Ghost 779) – Adroit Theory

Unique Beers:

• Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag)
• Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Government Overspending (2019) (Tattered Flag)
• Seven. Point. Six. Two. (Tattered Flag)
• 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company – CBC)

NOVEMBER 12th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )

Unique Beers:

• Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 13th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alcatraz Sour Apple (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 14th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag), Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works), Government Spending 2019 (Tattered Flag), Seven.Point.Six.Two (Tattered Flag), 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

NOVEMBER 15th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 16th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Birra di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 17th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Syndicate City Sour Peach (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 18th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Birra Di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 19th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beer:

• Great American Apple Pie (Stout Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 20th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Mechanicsberry, Bargain Black IPA, Embers Remain, Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Mechanicsberry (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Bargain Black IPA (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Embers Remain (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 21st:

Blog Posts:

• Default Brewing

Unique Beers:

• Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Nitro Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 22nd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)
• NVP (Nitro Series) (Breckenridge Brewery)

NOVEMBER 23rd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 24th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Cheers from Default Brewing!

Unique Beers:

• Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 25th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Crowd Control (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 26th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery(

NOVEMBER 27th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Scratch 394 – Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 395 – Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 396 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Mad Elf 2019 Vintage (technically not a ‘new’ beer, but my first of this year’s vintage) (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Coco-Nator (non-scratch version) (Troegs Independent Brewing)

NOVEMBER 28th: (Thanksgiving)

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 29th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Not My Style, Might Rate Anyway (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Visions of Yesterday (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 30th:

Blog Posts:

• Official BBQ & Burgers: Pizza Boy Secondary Location
• Five Must See Breweries When Visiting Atlanta (Let Us Drink Beer)

Unique Beers:

• Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Gose (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Whew, what an exhausting month November was. I think part of the reason it took me so long to get the energy to do this recap post, was knowing the amount of formatting involved and the photos…. and now that the challenge is over, a malaise kind of settled over me. Like my job was completed. I started this post this morning before work, and had to finish it now after an extra hour or so of work on it this evening. I still want to put in some statistics of the month, for the blog, and for myself, and will most likely come in and do the edit for that later tonight or tomorrow. I will also add the tags and categories. But for now, I just want to get this live and up on the internet. Its 7PM and this is long overdo.

I would like to thank my contributors and co-authors on this blog for making this month (and all the time in general) go so well, and for providing so much help, fun and entertaining blog posts to read, and for helping so much with the blog! Thank you J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (Default Brewing), and Let us Drink Beer Blog. My blog post for Let us Drink Beer’s blog will go live tomorrow and I will provide a link here for that in the statistics edit I will do. In the meantime you can read their post about their upcoming additions to their blog here: Let us Drink Beer: Exciting Additions Coming Soon!

Cheers and I hope you all enjoyed all of our blog posts in November. Heres to the rest of 2019, and then on to the future, 2020, and the next decade!

-B. Kline

EDIT:

Some statistics from the month here at The Beer Thrillers:

Blog posts:

• 34

Unique authors:

• 4
• B. Kline, J. Doncevic, AJ – Default Brewing, and Let Us Drink Beer

Visitors and Views:

• 2,767 Unique Visitors
• 6,293 Total Views

Twitter Followers:

• 95
• (Goal was 100, just missed it)

FaceBook Followers:

• 130

Most Vewied Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Breweries reviewed/beers of their’s reviewed:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Cox Brewing Company
• Adroit Theory
• Troegs Independent Brewing
• Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
• Levante Brewing
• WISEACRE Brewing
• Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
• Southern Prohibition Brewing
• Heist Brewery
• Toppling Goliath Brewing
• Dewey Beer Co.
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Appalachian Brewing Company
• Crosstown Brewing
• Fonta Flora Brewing
• Westbrook Brewng Co.
• Equilibrium Brewery
• Pretoria Fields Collective
• Wild Leap Brew Co.
• New Trail Brewing

Styles:

• IPA
• Double IPA
• Black IPA
• Brown Porter
• Stout
• Pilsner
• Lager
• New England IPA
• Belgian Dubbel
• Sour – Fruited
• Sour – Other
• Fruited Beer
• Gose
• Sour
• Belgian Strong Dark Ale
• Pale Ale

Some personal stats for me:

Unique Beers:

• 50

Total Beers:

• 68

Breweries Visited:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewery
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Appalachian Brewing Company

New Restaurants/Bars:

• The Gin Mill
• Official BBQ and Burgers

Again, thank you all for reading. This post has now been updated with tags and categories. Please leave a like, a comment, and please follow us!

Thank you everyone!

Cheers!!

-B. Kline

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving,
And all of Troegs was all-a-bustle,
So loud was the taproom,
That nobody even heard The Great Turkey,
There were friends and families commingling,
There was new friends and old friends all meeting,
For it was the night before Thanksgiving,
When The Great Turkey appears,
And all who are grateful hold each other so dear,
The day before the consumerism takes over for Black Friday,
And thousands of ‘craft beer seekers’ go running for Goose Island Beers,
But on this day, at this time, it was the night before Thanksgiving,
And with a mighty big cheer, one and all shouted:

“HAPPY DRINKSGIVING!”

So, after working a very stressful day on Wednesday, and before going home, I stopped at Troegs where normally I would pick up essentials for Thanksgiving (ie. the cranberry porter scratch beer); but alas, this year there was no cranberry scratch beer made, so I contented myself with ordering a flight, enjoying it, and then going home and running some errands with my daughters.

Unfortunately given my job, I don’t get ‘extra days off’ or even get holidays off unless they fall on my natural days off – and my natural days off are Thursday and Friday. So at least, each year, I have one holiday off – Thanksgiving. And as I said in the previous blog post – my review of Azathoth – my plans were the in-laws followed up by my sister’s.

But on this Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, it was me time, and it was Troegs time. So I ordered a flight – Scratch #394 Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale, Scratch #395 Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale, Scratch #396 Dry Hopped Pale Ale, and Mad Elf.

I’m only going to go over Mad Elf lightly, as I may/may not do a full review on Mad Elf. The thing about Mad Elf is that its the staple and the one that put Troegs on the map. While Nugget Nectar and Nimble Giant might be their best beers, its really Mad Elf that got Troegs known, and what everyone really knows them for, and why people flock to the brewery in Fall/Winter. So, on one hand I want to review it because its so popular, and well known, and on the other, thats precisely why I don’t want to review it. I tend to stay away from doing the staples, the beers that have been made for 15+ years, the beers that are the flagship ultra-known beers. But, I think there is a place for these beers to be reviewed as well, so I’m going to be flipping a coin about a hundred times in the next few days to decide if I should do it.

Beer: Scratch 394 – Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: We’re aiming to add a fourth beer to our Tart & Fruit Series sometime down the road, so we’ve been testing new fruit combinations on our Scratch system. For this week’s release, we’re betting on sweet and juicy mangoes. Tangerine adds depth to the fruit profile, a hint of lime adds a citrusy kick, and a dash of sea salt amplifies the refreshing flavors. We taste: ripe mango, sweet citrus, hint of lime.

Appearance is light, shiny, see-through translucent, sour (non-smoothie sour) looking, clear, and crisp. It has the light yellow straw coloring. A thin head. Nice bubbles.

Aroma is fruity through and through. You get instant notes of mango and tangerine. You can a subtle hint of lime, and some citrus. But upfront its all mango and tangerine. It has an overall tart smell to it that you expect.

Taste is a tart kick in the teeth. It is tart, it is tasty, it is crisp, it is refreshing. Its a mixture of all of these things all rolled up in so much and in so small a space, its a wonderful explosion. The mango and tangerine work really well together, and the lime provides a nice kick especially at the end of the drink. Its like at HersheyPark with those new soda machines that let you add flavors to regular sodas (love doing grape and lime with mountain dew).

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.71 (as of 11.29.19)

Beer: Scratch 395 – Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: This week’s small-batch Scratch release is all about fruit. Guava, an aromatic fruit grown in the tropics, lays down a backbone of juicy pear and mango notes, and fresh passionfruit pulls in a pleasantly sweet-and-tart tang. Pineapple adds refreshing tropical notes that are amplified by the Horninal Kveik yeast, and a dash of cherry juice gives this beer a soft pink hue. We taste: fresh guava and passionfruit, juicy pineapple, pleasant tartness.

Wow, this is an interesting one to even begin on. On all three fronts (well, at least on aroma and taste; the appearance is pretty clear cut). Its dark, its hazy, and its dank. Its sour, but it has the sour – smoothie style look, though its not really a smoothie, and its not really thick despite its appearance.

Aroma is a bomb of fruity notes. Just like scratch 394, this one is all over the place as well. I think this concoction is a bit too much though. And perhaps its just me with Guava, but I’ve had it in a few now – Wolf Prints (review here) and Fatum Guava (review here) – as well as others, like Tattered Abomination, some various Troegs scratch one-offs, etc. ….and the more and more I have guava in a beer…. I think I’m becoming less and less of a fan of it. There is just too much to it and it dilutes and changes the taste and aroma of the beer too much. And for this one, it has to compete with passionfruit (one I like), pineapple (one I’m indifferent to) and cherry (one I’m not a big fan of in beer). So this concoction of a beer has a lot to it, and so much competing notes.

And taste is the same way as the above. There is almost too much here. Its not altogether bad, it is certainly different, and it is certainly a lot to take in. There is the passionfruit and pineapple, and the guava, and the cherry, and its all mixed up in a thick tart sour. The passionfruit and guava take center stage, with the pineapple and cherry kind of playing backburner. But there is just so much here, that it is kind of overwhelming. The tartness is nice, and the flavors aren’t abhorrent, but its just a lot.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.81 (as of 11.29.19)

Beer: Scratch 396 – Dry Hopped Pale Ale
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: We’re starting to fine-tune an aromatic hop combination that we’re planning to use for something special down the road. This Scratch pale ale showcases Citra, Idaho 7, Chinook and Azacca. Look for notes of passionfruit, orange, grapefruit and subtle white pine. London 3 yeast will keep the beer dry and allow subtle malt and nut notes to come forward.
We taste: passionfruit, citrus rind, white pine

Appearance is similar to the above scratch 395, a thick, orange yellow beer color. The amount of hop in it creates the dank, heavy-set look to it, and it is certainly that. Its got a juicy, thick, hazy, sediment free, dank near-IPA like orange glow to it.

Aroma is pretty hop strong. You get the notes of the Chinook, Citra, and Azacca hops upfront. This is where you get the notes of passionfruit, orange, grapefruit, melon rinds. Its a bright powerful hop burst inside your nostrils.

Taste is juicy, but it has a dry component to it. Its got a very strong finish to it, and its got a nice thick mouthfeel. It is only 5.5% so its barely alcoholic, and you won’t get a big buzz from this, but you will get that sweet hoppy tiredness. This is bursting at the seams with hoppy goodness. You get the citra and chinook fruity citrus hop notes, and the azacca is similar just a bit more muted. There is flavor of passionfruit, orange, not much grapefruit, but I get a little bit of pine and some melon rinds. Its a nice finish that lingers on the tongue very well.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.86 (as of 11.29.19)

This is going to be a quick, brief, glossing over of this. As I’m pretty certain I’ll be doing my own review for Mad Elf. A beer I’ve had regularly, quite often, and nearly religiously now every year for the past 10-11 years. I’ll do much more in-depth on it, and I’ll do some discussion on its history, as well as the off-shoot variants of it like Naked Elf and Wild Elf (as well as the Grand Cru).

Beer: Mad Elf
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Belgian Strong Dark Ale
ABV: 11.5%
IBU: 15
Untappd Write-Up: The holidays at Tröegs start with our inner Mad Elf momentarily taking over the brew deck. So blame “him” for this cheerful ruby red creation brewed with honey, cherries and Belgian yeast reminiscent of cinnamon, clove and allspice.

So lets just say, this was my first Untappd check-in. This was how I fully got introduced to Troegs back in the day, (back in their Paxton Street days) before the move from Harrisburg to Hershey. Every year Troegs splurges and puts out the money to get a badge for this on Untappd as well (or at least usually every year).

I will say a cautionary note on the beer, I’ve become less and less in love with it as I’ve gotten older, as I’ve had more different and various craft beers, and as the brewing system at Troegs has grown, changed, and evolved. I’ve left my original rating for the beer what it was when I first had it, and was a pretty naive beer drinker – a five star beer. Each year’s vintage, I check in fresh, and then later on when I drink an aged bottle of it. And I give a different rating for it fresh; as well as for it aged. So if you look through my vintages and my actual Mad Elf ratings, you’ll notice a fluctuation in changes almost per time I drink it. Is this a five star beer? Probably not. And its definitely not anymore. Is it still a very good beer? I think so. Was it ever a five star beer? Probably not. Is there really any five star beers? Eh. Thats a matter of debate and dispute. What constitutes five star? For movies, for literature, for wrestling matches, for everything, five star either symbolizes complete perfection, or the extreme best. It depends on the critic, the rating system, those involved, the time of day, mood, etc. There is just so many factors. If I had this beer now, for the first time, I think it would be consistent with whatever I give the vintage for that year.

Some stats:

My Mad Elf Untappd Rating: ***** (like I said above, for why, and why it hasn’t changed in the system)
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.29.19)

My Mad Elf 2019 Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.12 (as of 11.29.19)

My Mad Elf 2018 Untappd Rating: – Fresh – ****.25 – Aged – ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.06 (as of 11.29.19)

I will break down some of these statistics, and my full thoughts on the beer, more thoroughly when I do the full Mad Elf review. So please look for that. I would really appreciate hearing all of everyone’s thoughts on Mad Elf, it is a very interesting beer to discuss with craft beer enthusiasts.

Until that time, cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

First off, let me say – Happy Thanksgiving; from The Beer Thrillers family to yours. We hope you had a wonderful day with friends, family, and/or co-workers, that you had wonderful food, great conversations, and even better beer. That you remain grateful despite tomorrow being Black Friday, and that you continue to be thankful for what you have in life. We hope the day brought you much joy, merriment, and happiness.

Ok, now, lets get down to business.

Started off the day traveling to the in-laws for Thanksgiving there. Had a nice time, and a wonderful meal, though despite bringing my own craft beer, I was told to leave it in the car, and drank the Corona with them instead. (Ok, I can be sensible enough with in-laws to not fight them on this, enjoy the free beer, thank them for it, and enjoy my craft beer later.)

Afterwards, drove by Official BBQ and Burgers on the way home to see where its at, and realized its located really close-by. This is going to be the ‘future’ (future as in tomorrow) secondary location for Pizza Boy Brewing. In a joint fashion, they are opening a bar room up, and will be having Pizza Boy beers on exclusively. (So far as my understanding of things go.) They are due to go live tomorrow – Black Friday – 11.29.19 – and begin pouring the Pizza Boy beers from anywhere from 5-20 taps I’ve heard. I perhaps might be stopping in tomorrow to see what the news is, and to get the details.

I must say I am stoked to have a place with upwards of 20 taps exclusively for Pizza Boy so close (~10 minute drive). A ten minute drive versus roughly twenty to twenty-five minute drive, and also with a different set of food (BBQ and Burgers rather than pizza) so a bit of variety on the food and beer side of things in the nearby area, sounds fantastic. Sign me up.

After all this, I then went over to my sister’s for a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving meal with a flare of Mexico as well. Was very nice, interesting, and different. I brought along Azathoth to drink with the meal, and then while hanging out with friends and family I drank a Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart (that I still had apparently in my fridge) and then during the Spanish Loteria game, I had a Double Knife Fight in Space. (If you click the link, you can read J. Doncevic’s review of the Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart.)

So…. lets get to the beer, because you could care less about how I wracked it up playing Loteria with my sister and her family and her in-laws. And you want to hear about the beer.

I had gotten the Azathoth in a beer mail trade. It was a southern box from a trade I did – local for local – with a person on BeerAdvocate. I traded (as per typical of me, and anyone whose read previous blog posts would know this already) Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag, Troegs Brewing, and Pizza Boy, and received Edmund’s Oast, Westbrook, Heist, Creature Comforts, Pretoria Field Collective, Fonta Flora, and Wild Leap. Not a bad trade if I may say so myself.

Beer: Azathoth
Brewery: Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 11.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Notes of fresh coffee & bakers chocolate

I started with the stout figuring it’d go with the meal the best, and I certainly think it achieved that and then some.

Appearance is very black, dark deep stout black. With a very good brown head to it, creamy looking, thick, it left good lacing, and had nice bubbles that were disperse, random, and various sizes.

Aroma is slightly coffee, heavy roasted malts, with some deep dark chocolate notes. There is certainly a ‘baking chocolate’ aroma that mixes in with the roasted malts, and the coffee peeks out around these notes. Its not a super aromatic beer, but when you inhale deeply you can get the separate and distinct notes.

Taste is very full stout heavy flavorful. The 11.5% ABV is very well hidden. You know its there with how deep and dark and heavy the mouthfeel and stout tastes and feels, but the actual booziness of 11.5% is hidden. There is no alcoholic bite. There is a distinct bitterness in a two-pronged way; one being the coffee notes, the other being the baking chocolate. Both give off distinct, separate, but not bad, bitter flavoring notes and tastes. They combine nicely for a well defined beer. One that paired very well with turkey, mashed potatoes, and all of the other Thanksgiving traditional food – as well as tomalies, and jalapeno poppers, and pigs in a blanket (which was supposed to be for the kids…. but I yoinked a few).

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.01 (as of 11.28.19)

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, and see you back here tomorrow for a Black Friday post. Maybe I’ll even get into anything. I know I won’t be going crazy trying to get the latest Goose Island Bourbon County bottles, but who knows, maybe I’ll get into something else for the day? Maybe check out the new Pizza Boy location? Who knows, check in here to find out! Or stay posted to our Facebook and Twitter feeds to find out!

-B. Kline

First off, let me say happy Drinksgiving for tonight, and hope you have a very blessed, happy, and fun filled Thanksgiving tomorrow. Moving on from there…. this might be a bit of a short beer review tonight, and a smaller blog post….. I might have started my Drinksgiving early – hitting Troegs right after work and having a flight there; which included Mad Elf and Mad Elf Grand Cru. As well as their scratch beers, and I picked up the Coco-Nator that we had previously reviewed and discussed when Troegs first presented the beer as a can released scratch variant of Troggenator.

So after all those, and now just having eaten a big meal, I find myself writing this blog post up. So it will be quick, succinct, and to the point.

So as a quick preamble, I had gotten this in a beer mail for trading some of the local breweries. Along with the Southern Prohibition, Edmund’s Oast, Westbrook, Fonta Flora, Parish, and Pretoria Collective; this was another southern brewery I got to try out thanks to beer trading. I love doing the local for local trades; I get to try small breweries I’ve never even heard of, and I get to ship some locals of my own – in these past scenarios: Troegs, Boneshire, and Tattered Flag – giving these local breweries some wider recognition and letting others try out breweries they’ve never heard of as well. Its a total win – win for everyone.

Beer: Citraquench’l
Brewery: Heist Brewery
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: 70
Untappd Write-Up: 100% Citra hops, NE Style IPA

For those of you unfamiliar, Citra hops are a bright, juicy, hop explosion every time they are used, especially, particularly, definitely, when used in New England style IPAs. Citra hops are pretty much instantly recognizable in any drink, and are just so full of flavor and juicy goodness you can easily spot it, even amongst a heavy hop lineup.

Appearance is bright yellow to orange, orange juice like in color and texture and sediment is heavy. Nice head that stays and a good lacing.

Aroma is pure citra hops. Powerful, heavy, juicy, fruit hop explosion as soon as it hits you, as soon as you crack the can open, the hop aroma is super powerful, knocking you back as you pour it into your glass. As it flows into the glass it really opens up and the aroma wafts out and just envelopes the area.

Taste is once again: pure Citra hops. Just through and through. As I think this should all be obvious by now, given the can art, the description, what we know of the beer going in, and what I’ve said so far in the review – this is pure Citra hop goodness. This is all kinds of fruit explosions in hop form, you get peach, pineapple, lots and lots of mango, some citrus, some melon rinds, but overall its just a fruity concoction hitting you all at once. As a whole this beer is just a pure hop (fruity hop) bomb, very hazy, very juicy, very dank, little bitterness despite its 70 IBU, and not really much of a hit with alcohol at only 7.1%.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.27 (as of 11.27.19)

I’m off to finish and polish off this Mad Elf Grand Cru bottle and hit the bed. Watching The Irishman by Scorsese on Netflix. Peace all and Happy Thanksgiving and Drinksgiving and see you here tomorrow!

-B. Kline

I had gotten a few of these from a mule through a Facebook group; and I will fully admit that it was based on beer name and label art. We’ve all done it. Walking through rows of beers for a mix-a-six at a distributor like Breski’s or even at Weiss while your significant other is getting groceries and you wander through the beer aisle and see an interesting beer name or some pretty or cool looking can art.

But the fantastic thing about this beer is; my decision to get it based on beer logo and name was backed up by (and reinforced by) the fact that its brewed by Equilibrium Brewery and J. Wakefield Brewing. Two fantastic, amazing breweries. Two top notch breweries. Breweries that are often discussed as elite, or great, or top tier, or fantastic, or wonderful, or amazing; in the same vein as Trillium, Tree House, Hill Farmstead, Dewey, Other half, Monkish, Great Notion, 450 North… etc…. etc…. etc…. etc. Yea, I could go on and on with a list of amazing breweries. But no matter how big my list, no matter how many I list, both Equilibrium Brewery and J. Wakefield Brewing deserve to be on that list.

Lone Starr: But Yogurt, what is this place? What is it that you do here?
Yogurt: Merchandising.
Barf: Merchandising? What’s that?
Yogurt: Merchandising! Come, I’ll show you. [to the Dinks] Open up this door. [Yogurt walks over to a wall filled with Spaceballs merchandise.]
Yogurt: Heh-heh. Come! We put the picture’s name on everything! [everyone is staring in amazement]
Yogurt: Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs: the T-shirt, Spaceballs: the Coloring Book, [holds up a Transformers comic book] Spaceballs: the Lunchbox, Spaceballs: the Breakfast Cereal! Spaceballs: the Flame Thrower! [fires a blast from flame thrower]
Dinks: Ooohh!
Yogurt: The kids love this one. And last, but not least, Spaceballs: the Doll; Me. [Yogurt pulls the doll’s string]
Yogurt Doll: May the Schwartz be with you!
Yogurt: [kisses the doll] Adorable.

Space Balls (1987, Mel Brooks)

It is extremely hard to find someone who doesn’t like Mel Brooks, and it is even harder to find someone who doesn’t like Space Balls. I’m convinced these people don’t exist. Because I have yet to meet them. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that they exist, but I’ve yet to see, hear, or talk to them. And even then, I’d question if their just pulling a prank on me or not.

Lone Starr: I wonder, will we ever see each other again?
Yogurt: Who knows? God willing, we’ll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.

Since I could sit here all day quoting Space Balls and posting gifs of it… and sniffing this fantastic beer…. lets stop doing those things… and actually review it! Otherwise I’ll just get drunk and will end up finding myself re-watching Space Balls over and over and over and forget all about this blog.

Beer: Moon of Vega
Brewery: Equilibrium Brewery
Collaborator: J. Wakefield Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.7%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: J wakefield collaboration lactose & vanilla deliciousness

Lets start off discussing how this beer has aged a bit. My first time drinking it (top picture of this blog post) was just a mere two days after it was canned and released. Had it at my friend D. Scott’s house as we (D. Scott, Esty, and myself) did the podcast for El Camino and Breaking Bad. (I linked it in a previous blog post, but I will do so again here.) My second time having it, was today. (Still have one can left too.) I will say taste has changed a bit, appearance slightly, but mostly just taste has changed. Aroma has stayed consistent.

So with that said, the appearance originally was a more glowing orange, where as the more recent is a yellowing orange with a bit more cloudyness to it. There was definite haze both times, but I think there was a bit more cloudyness, a bit more dank, a bit more haze, the second time I drank this. Granted, there is a month and roughly a week, separating the two dates of drinking, and this being an IPA, its going to show some obvious change. Though, this doesn’t seem to have changed that much, with little depreciation from the first time to this second time. Both times it had a fine ‘helmet’ … I mean head… and retention was great, with good lacing.

Aroma is interesting for this. Its kind of a vanilla hop bomb of aromatic notes. Very heavy vanilla and very heavy citrus and fruit hop notes. A lot of mango, peach, and some citrusy hop notes to blend with the vanilla. Like the vanilla goes up one nostril and the hops go up the other and twist and combine in your brain somewhere. Probably back behind the cerebellum or something. (I dunno, one of you more learned people could explain this better to me.) Both the appearance and the aroma screams ‘milkshake IPA’ despite its not being labeled as such.

Ok, lets drink this…. chug it perhaps?

Naw…. lets sip this and enjoy it! Because this is extremely tasty, extremely fun, and extremely drinkable 8.7% beer that will get us walloped quickly if we’re not careful with it. It’ll have us going….

….from drinking…. to light speed….. to ridiculous speed….. to ludicrous speed….. all the way to PLAID!

Ok, ok, before I make a….

….hole of myself…. I need to stop spamming you all with GIFs and continue with the actual review.

Taste…. that’s where we are. Ok, simply put, this is a delicious beer. When I first drank it back on October 18th, it was very green. The hops over powered the vanilla and lactose and it went from being more of a Milkshake IPA to more of a very heavy hoppy New England IPA. It wasn’t bad then, and its not bad now either. But now, it comes off more as a Milkshake IPA with the vanilla and lactose being more abundant, more upfront, more powerful, and the hops becoming more muted, more subtle, and less pungent (not in a negative way then or now). THEN – it tasted more bitter, more hop forward, with a very heavy dose of mango, peach, and some pineapple, with the vanilla and lactose smoothing it out as you drank. NOW – it drinks a lot more vanilla and lactose heavy, smoothie like, milkshake like, with no pineapple flavor, but a strong mango flavor to coincide with the vanilla and lactose, with some peach peaking out around the edges of it all. All around this is a fantastic Double IPA. The 8.7% will hit you, but it starts out subtle and picks up speed and then packs its punch in at the end after you drank the last sip, making sure every last drop falls out of the glass (or can) into your open mouth; even hungrily eating up the sediment. (Yes, I know you do that!)

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.25 (as of 11.26.19)

Just like with my last review – Paradise Lost – I’m drinking (most likely) my next beer review on here: Heist Brewery’s Citraquench’l. While writing the ‘Gotta Get up to Get Down‘ review, I drank the Paradise Lost. And when I was drinking ‘Gotta Get up to Get Down‘ I was reviewing Newfangled Pils (by Newfangled Brew Works).

So, as I was saying before, when I first had this beer, as evidenced by the first picture of the blog (with Esty in the background), me, Esty, and D. Scott were doing our podcast for “WTF Was I Watching: El Camino and Breaking Bad”. It was a two part series (because we ended up talking for 4 hours just about, and even after editing it comes out to be about 3 hours in total). In the next two weeks we’ll be meeting up together again to review ‘The Irishman’ by Martin Scorsese – a movie I am super hyped to see. Even more hyped than Star Wars; so you know thats saying something.

You can find the two parts of the Breaking Bad and El Camino (and some Better Call Saul) podcasts here:

* WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino, Breaking Bad – Part One
* WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino, Breaking Bad – Part Two

The full listing for podcasts for ‘So a Mexican and a Scot Walk into a Bar…’ staring the ‘WTF Did I Just Watch” podcasts can be found here on BuzzSprout:

* So a Mexican and a Scot Walk into a Bar

The podcast is a collaborative effort of D. Scott, D. Arndt, Esty, and myself. With future guest appearances by many people. Probably too many people to even list here, and too big of a random cast list to even have a clue of who all will appear to even put here. There is some language that might be ‘R rated’ and some themes that would also fit into that mold, so just be awares.

(NOTE: We do discuss beers when I am on, otherwise its just the movie and some fun and humor bits otherwise. On the Breaking Bad / El Camino episode, we discussed the Moon of Vega beer as well as Boneshire Brew Works’ Tried and True.)

I know this was certainly a much different beer review, with a lot of gifs and what not, but I thought with the Space Balls themed beer, I’d make it a lot more light hearted, and fun, and introduce some great quotes and gifs from Space Balls. If you would like to read up more on Space Balls you can read here:
* Space Balls
* Space Balls Quotes

If you would like to read some of our more serious beer reviews here on The Beer Thrillers, I highly recommend the following:

• King Sue (B. Kline)
• Intergalactic Warrior (B. Kline)
• Tickle parts – Passionfruit (B. Kline)
• Birra de Levante (B. Kline)
• Darwin’s Salted Forehead (B. Kline)
• Eukuanaut (J. Doncevic)
• Enigma (J. Doncevic)
• Ghost in the Machine (J. Doncevic)
• Irish Table (B. Kline)
• Cheers From Default Brewing! (AJ Brechbiel / Default Brewing)
  

We are currently running a POLL on Twitter, to try and find out you – the readers – thoughts and opinions and what you would like to see more of going forward. A direct link can be found here: https://twitter.com/thebeerthriller/status/1199305924000780293.

Stay tuned, as that poll ends at 8AM. I am most likely going to be re-posting the POLL but making it last longer than 24HR, probably have it last til Saturday, so plenty of people will get to see it and vote in it. I’m just learning how to do various functions on Twitter, so look for more in the future.

As always, make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and comment. It really means a lot to us. We have a lot of exciting stuff coming out. Like our brewery and behind the scenes visit of Mellow Mink coming up, some guest writers from different parts of the country promoting their local scenes, namely Let Us Drink Beer ; their most recent beer blog is a beer review of Akademia Skal Norwegian Wheat Ale. So I am definitely looking forward to their guest writing for us, and I will be doing a blog or two for them as well. So certainly be on the look out for all of that. We are also looking to do some guest writing for a Japanese beer blog and them helping us as well. So, like I said, lots of fun, cool, and interesting things coming out soon. So make sure you are here to check it all out!

And as President Skroob would say:

-B. Kline

All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield; (And what is else not to be overcome?) That glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me, to bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee and deify his power, Who from the terror of his arm so late Doubted his empire[.] (I, 106–114)

– Satan
John Milton’s Paradise Lost

While writing the review for the ‘Gotta Get Up to Get Down’ WISEACRE Brewing Company‘s beer last night, I drank this up, quickly, easily, and very happily. Getting home from work, and writing up the review, and reading over AJ Brechbiel’s first entry with Default Brewing: Cheers from Default Brewing! I had my first can. Walked my dog Leela across town, and came back to watch the Survivor Series and the latest Rick and Morty episode, I had my second can of this. Wish I had an entire four pack, or six pack, or eight pack, or twelve hundred pack of this delicious, super tasty, super juicy, fantastic brewski.

The beer mail that contained Southern Prohibition’s Paradise Lost, as well as the several others that I’ve reviewed: Crosstown Brewing’s “Boat Drinks: Pina Colada“, WISEACRE’s “Adjective Animal” and “Gotta Get Up to Get Down“. (I didn’t show the duplicates in the picture.) And for reference point, that’s Leela providing protection for the beers in the background. (She is a border collie pure breed, rescued, and she is named after Turonga Leela from Futurama.)

So now, as I sit watching another Flyers game and also switching back and forth with the Monday Night Football game of Rams vs. Ravens (go Rams I guess…..) and even jumping to RAW occasionally, I’m sipping on another Southern Prohibition beer – CROWD CONTROL – a double IPA. The green can in the above picture.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”

John Milton, Paradise Lost

For this review, I’m reviewing the Double Dry Hopped version of Paradise Lost. They have released cans of both the Doubled Dry Hopped and the regular version of Paradise Lost. The both have similar, but different can artwork.

Beer: Double Dry Hopped Paradise Lost
Brewery: Southern Prohibition Brewing
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 8.1%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: Like the title says, Paradise Lost that’s double double dry-hopped.

The Non-Double Dry Hopped Untappd Write-Up: Deep golden and opaque, Paradise Lost is our hoppiest beer to date. Massive tropical fruit and pine aromas escape the top of the glass thanks to the dose of Lupulin powder and a heavy handed double dry-hop. Clinging to the flaked oats like a life preserver, hop oils remain in suspension creating full flavors of peach, mango and pineapple. This is a beer celebrating our fondness of hops and how we utilize them, and like all IPAs it is meant to be drank fresh.

Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do augh good never will be our task; But ever to do ill our sole delight: As being contrary to his high will Whom we resist[.] (I, 157–162)

– Satan
-John Milton, Paradise Lost

Firstly, I could go all day quoting Paradise Lost, as its an incredibly easy book and piece of work to quote; plus its just a fantastic piece. So much so that many Christians believe much of whats written in it as Christian faith through and through. Similar to Dante’s Divine Comedy (aka Dante’s Inferno) where the imagery is so succinct, so profound, and so deep, that many Christians believe much of what Dante and Milton wrote are on the same level as The Bible itself.

But I’ll digress from Paradise Lost; the book and piece of fiction, and instead describe and review Paradise Lost – the beer, the fantastic, juicy, dank, tasty beer.

Appearance is very much keeping with the tradition of New England styled IPAs. Bright orangy glowing deep yellow to golden orange juice looking beer. Its hazy, its juicy, its dank looking. Its completely non-see-through-able. There is no sediment, and its probably filtered, but just the process makes it look so deep and dank and heavy. This is just one of those beers that looking at it you know its going to taste good.

Then you get to the aroma, and you are definitely sure its going to be good. It is just a straight up juicy punch of hops in your face. This is a very fruity, very juicy hopped up beer. All kinds of notes of peach, mango, pineapple, full on upfront assail and assault you. Then just to keep you on your toes, you get hit by some pine and zest with just a wee bit of earthy hop notes.

And finally, we get to drinking this beaut. And a beaut it is! Firstly its looked delicious, secondly its smelled delicious, and finally – well hot falling angel – it is delicious! There is a whole lotta flavor happening in this beautiful beer. A full glass of this bright orange juice will gift you with a whole lot of wonderful juicy, fruity, flavors. Peach, mango, pineapple attacking your tastebuds like a bunch of angels revolting. (See all of the allusions, and these great literary call-backs I’m doing? There’s some industry, zopes and tropes, and other crap I’m doing here, its like I’m trying to do something great and literary here…. something epic….. something so massive… that it would be like discussing Heaven, Hell, and the beginning of everything leading the end times…… Nawwwwwwww…… I’m just doing a silly beer review; disregard all of that.) Carrying on… this is a very delicious New England stylized IPA. Its very juicy, its very hoppy. You get lots of juice and dankness right up front, with the fruity hops taking the forefront, with the peach and mango in spades with some pineapple. This tails off into a little bit of bitter and interesting pine and earthy hop notes. Making for just a full well rounded, delicious IPA. The 8.1% ABV slowly creeps up on you and by the end of the 16 ounces it lets you know its there. (Just try drinking two of these with no food and having taken a dog for a walk; that 32 ounces of 8.1% ABV will really let themselves be known!)

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: (Regular Version) – 4.1 – (Double Dry Hopped Version) – 4.29 (as of 11.25.19)

“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
– Satan

― John Milton, Paradise Lost

The count down to the end of the month continues. Still going strong with the blog. And still going strong with my new beer a day. 25 days down, and 25+ new beers, and 25 blog posts done. 5 more to go. With one being Thanksgiving, and depending on any cool “Black Friday Stout” events I’m able to make it to on Friday, a possible special Friday event.

I’d like to try and get out to a new brewery before the month’s end. But with work, and the holiday, I’m not sure I’ll be able to. We’ll see though, and fingers crossed, hopefully I will.

For more great quotes from Paradise Lost you can check out the following sites:
* Good Reads – Paradise Lost Quotes
* SparkNotes – Satan’s Best Quotes from Paradise Lost
* Top 10 Favorite Quotes from Paradise Lost

Hopefully you all enjoyed this more literary bent beer review. I enjoyed writing it. I love getting to combine two of my great passions, reading and and books and beers. So finding a beer that is so literary bent on its own (well, on its namesake anyway) made for an easy choice to review. Now to find a beer named ‘Of Mice and Men’ or ‘Flowers for Algernon’ or perhaps a Star Wars themed ones…. or…. a Space Balls one….. like…. say the “Moon of Vega“. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, hint, hint on a future beer review there….

Also, always on the lookout for beer or nerdy themed beers. So if you know of any, let us know in the comments. I’d love to see some different beers I haven’t had or heard of yet and to do beer reviews of them.

Hopefully you all liked the review, let us know in the comments, let us know on FaceBook or Twitter. Let us know by clicking the subscribe so you can read more reviews. Or let us know by clicking the like or rating this post. We, all of us here at The Beer Thrillers, appreciate all the feedback we can get. It’ll help us grow and get bigger and better, so please let us know!

Cheers and enjoy everyone!

-B. Kline

Always a good idea to do a review… by drinking beer. Like when you brew beer, you need to be drinking a beer to do it. Just laws of nature really. So while I was writing last night’s NewFangled Brew Works: Pils beer review, I was sipping on this, and it was tasting mighty good.

A few weeks ago I did a local for local beer trade setup through the Home Brew Talk Network. I sent quite a bit of Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing, and Pizza Boy, and received the above from the Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina region.

I had previously had the Adjective Animal by WISEACRE Brewing Company and did a review. And I also had the Crosstown Brewing Company’s Boat Drinks: Pina Colada and did a review as well. I just cracked the Paradise Lost by Southern Prohibition, so you can most likely look forward to seeing a beer review of that in the near future.

Beer: Gotta Get Up to Get Down
Brewery: WISEACRE Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Milk / Sweet
ABV: 5%
IBU: 15
Untappd Write-Up: Enormous amount of Metropolis coffee straightens out the milk stout.

Appearance is a black brownish stout. It has the look, taste, texture, and head of a nitro beer. Its silky smooth looking, leaving a very distinct lacing. It has a big brown robust head that has lots of fine to large bubbles and craters along the top. It looks like the krausen in an open fermenting tank.

Aroma is what you would expect of a milk / sweet stout… but with a twist! Very heavy coffee aroma. Powerful, kicking in the front door and requiring things of you, strong coffee aroma. Like that one teacher’s breath first thing in the morning when you were in high school as he yelled at you for being late to class… …but… with a sweet after-smell. There is notes of sugar, lactose, of the roasted malts, notes of a bit of caramel and overall a sweetness that after the upfront smell of the coffee is very interesting, very soothing.

Taste is …whew… a punch and a mixture and a nice gentle hug afterwards telling you everything will be ok again. There is a very weird first sip, but it blends well afterwards. It is super smooth, super bubbly, very much as if it was a nitro. Not quite sure how thats pulled off, especially since its a regular can, no “nitro can” like Left Hand Brewing or Guinness Brewing have released. But there is a cold brew coffee upfront taste that is really strong, and then it just quickly blends and melts into this super sweet, super smooth, super sugary, super lactose, like sweet stout. The two different tastes; the coffee with its bitterness, and the lactose and sugar heavy sweetness combine to make one very interesting stout. Its almost hard to describe in a way just how all the flavors act, blend, concoct, and create a very unique beer. This is definitely one of the more interesting and distinct beers I’ve had in a very long time. I would highly recommend everyone who is able to find WISEACRE beers to try and locate this one; just for its uniqueness and distinct flavor.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75-**** (I legitimately went back and forth on this for this beer, and if I was a “Supporter” on Untappd, and able to use the tenths to rate things, I’d probably rate this anywhere from 3.80-3.95 or so.)
Global Untappd Rating: 3.99 (as of 11.24.19)

As some of you might be aware (those who read the blog consistently); we have recently added a home brewing section. Led by AJ Brechbiel and his Default Brewing. We are very grateful to have him and his fellow brewers who will be offering a lot of sage advice, insights, thoughts, opinions, and lots of other valuable information for home brewers (as well as people who would just like to read about brewing, the creation of beer, etc.) He wrote their introduction today, and you can find that blog posting here: Cheers from Default Brewing!. So be on the lookout for more articles from him and the brewing team from Default Brewing. I have it from a good source (….ok… AJ told me this himself) that he is looking towards writing a big article post each Sunday with occasional smaller blog entries throughout the week on random dates/times. So you will definitely get plenty to read!

So stay tuned everyone, there is a lot going on here at The Beer Thrillers and we hope you sit back, grab a nice cold drink, and enjoy reading what all we have to offer!

-B. Kline

Decided to stop around 5PM and take a break and have a nice delicious brewski…. ah heck, who am I kidding, I did very little today, but did SOME, and after doing just a LITTLE, I decided to take a break, had a delicious brewski, and then only got a LITTLE more done afterwards.

I’d like to say today was a busy or eventful day, that I got a lot done, and was running around doing all kinds of errands and got lots of things done…. ….but that would all be a lie. For my Sunday; (Thursdays are my Saturdays and Fridays are my Sundays) I did basically zilch and nothing.

But thats still no excuse to NOT drink. So… here’s my new brew for the day. That makes it a consecutive 22 days so far where I’ve had a new beer (not just *A* beer but a brand *NEW* beer – new to me at least). And this blog posting I’m typing up right now marks 22 days for blog posts.

Regardless of not getting much, or enough done, I still have time and still have energy to write up this blog. No further procrastinating, no further pushing it back. Let’s drink a great beer and review it!

As you can see from this picture, I got the Darwin’s Forehead in the one beer mail package I received, and the faithful followers of the blog can see I’ve been working my way through reviewing most of the beers provided. (I’ve done the Nuttin’ Cam Pants, the Blueberry Edmund’s Oast, and the Irish Table before.)

So now, we move onto the next one: Darwin’s Forehead (Salted Brown Porter).

Beer: Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter
Brewery: Fonta Flora Brewery
Style: Porter – Other
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: Caramalized and chocolate malts blended w/ caramel. Notes of smoked salt, roasted cocoa, arabica coffee beans

This will probably break the record for most times I use the word ‘forehead’ in a blog. Ever. Forehead. Forehead. Forehead. Forehead. Forehead. Probably also the most times I’ll ever use Darwin in a blog too. Darwin. Charles Darwin. Darwin. Charles Darwin. Darwin. I probably screwed up all kinds of SEO and algorithms with search engines and all kinds of things (probably also flagged myself), but at least its relevant…. sorta?

The appearance of this forehead… I mean beer…. is dark black. Stout black. It is black hole inducing black, sucking in the glass even. Razor Ramon’s hair has nothing on this. The head is a dark brown foamy pillow ontop of this black forehead….beer… The head has great retention, fine bubbles, and leaves a nice lacing.

The aroma for this forehead…. ugh…. beer…. is caramalized malts. You get typical brown ale and porter malt notes, kind of in a blend for this. Inhaling more of this, you start getting into the non-beer ingredients; you pick up the coffee notes, you pick up some cooking chocolate – cocoa notes, you get a fairly strong whiff of salted roasted pretzel.

And finally this forehead tastes wonderfully…. ok….. ok… I promise thats the last time I’ll do that! This beer tastes wonderfully! This isn’t smooth, nor is it intended to be quaffed down in an instant. There is a bitterness to this and a nice warming to the beer really helps bring out the flavors and aromas. You get big time flavoring notes of salted pretzel, roasted, toasted salted pretzel. The bitterness primarily comes from the cooking cocoa which gives it a sharp bite (I also suspect that there must be a decent amount of bittering hops to this to give it the 30 IBU). But as I said, as this warms up, it really brings the diverse flavors of coffee, cocoa, salted pretzel, roasted malts, caramel, all to the fore, and it tastes very, very, very nice.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.80 (as of 11.22.19)

November is speeding on pretty fast. Here its already the end of the 22nd and we’re speeding into the weekend which will soon lead into Thanksgiving. But have no fear, I’m still hitting my goals of 1) a brand new beer (to me) a day and 2) a new blog post every day. At the end of November, I’ll collect them all into one post for you to see and read and peruse.

Also, if you didn’t hear the latest news, The Beer Thrillers is expanding, and we’re getting a home brewing section now. AJ Brechbiel of Default Brewing will be doing home brewing articles and blog posts. Detailing different things, from brew day, to recipes, to technicalities, etc. All kinds of different things about the home brewing process. This will really expand the blog and bring so much more to the page that we can now offer you the readers. So please make sure you bookmark, follow, like, share, subscribe, do all that crazy jazz! We appreciate it! And we appreciate the support you guys give us!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Big, wonderful, fantastic news is coming to The Beer Thrillers! Excited to finally announce that we have our own home brewing section soon to start up. AJ Brechbiel is an amazing home brewer who along with a buddy (sometimes buddies) brew under the name ‘Default Brewing’. You can check their Facebook page here: Default Brewing.

AJ comes with an immense amount of experience and knowledge about home brewing and beer and the industry and cannot wait to further that knowledge here on the blog. He is looking forward to imparting his wisdom onto all of you.

So for those of you who are home brewers, or into home brewing, or just want to learn or read up about home brewing or the brewing process, stay tuned for all of AJ’s future posts. They will definitely be ones you won’t want to miss. I know I am excited to have him onboard and to see The Beer Thrillers expand and grow and our team of dedicated writers getting bigger and better and larger.

Some additional house keeping notes, our FaceBook page has reached 106 Likes and were looking to keep that growing. So check out our FaceBook page and click like to get the latest information. Likewise, our Twitter following has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few days. We are up to 91 and looking to break 100 by the end of November.

We are also still currently listed as #11 on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs. You can see a full ranking of their top blogs here, and see that we’ve been at #11 for quite a while nice. Would be amazing to crack the Top 10 by year’s end!

We were recently asked by Matt, owner / brewer for Mellow Mink to meet with him for a behind the scenes look at a brewday and to try out some of their newest samplings. That was in the works for today, but it has gotten pushed back to December (most likely either December 5th or December 12th). This is a wonderful opportunity and we can’t wait for it. So please check in with us to see that great article once its published.

My (B. Kline) version of NaNoWriMo is still going strong. Though this is a bit of a ‘cheat article / blog post today, I’m still counting it. (I’m above using emojis in my post, but just imagine me sticking my tongue out at you right now.) This marks the 21st day of November, and the 21st day of blog posts (at least one per day). Granted I got some of them in and published just in the nick of time (last night’s got published at 11:58PM EST), but I have still maintained my record of one per day.

I am going to be going back through and combing the beer and brewery reviews to make sure they are consistent with future styling. I am going to be adding a category for ‘style’, and that will make it easier if you want to see a STOUT review or a IPA review or a PILSNER review. You can scroll down to the Category: Style and select STOUT or SOUR or what have you, and be able to see all of our reviews of that style of beer. I will be doing the same with locations and maintaining a better listing for all of that going forward. I am also going to go back through and work on some of the backlinking to make navigating around the blog a bit easier and more fun.

As always, we here at The Beer Thrillers, myself (B. Kline), J. Doncevic, and AJ / Default Brewing, are extremely thankful for you, and that you’ve taken the time to read our articles and blog posts. So please, in the future, leave us some feedback. We love comments and feedback. Let us know what kind of reviews or blog posts you want to see more of in the future. Or if there’s a beer you think we should review or a brewery we need to check out and review. Let us know. We love hearing from you!

Thank you everyone for reading and please welcome AJ Brechbier and Default Brewing on board. We are so grateful to have him here and can’t wait to read what all he has to say!

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

— The Beer Thrillers Staff