Boneshire Brew Works is moving into Harrisburg. While always been a part of the Harrisburg beer scene, their physical tap room and brewery has been kind of on the periphery and outskirts of Harrisburg proper. The brewery itself is located on Derry Street next to the 717 Armory and Blue Smoke BBQ food truck, as part of a small outlet mall that includes Marino’s Pizza, Signal 5 Crossfit, and Everest Spice. The address being: Boneshire Brew Works, 7462 Derry St, Harrisburg, PA 17111.

But now, they are moving into the city proper. The city that they’ve helped and worked on so much through events like Harrisburg Beer Week and sip @ soma and 3rd in the Burg, and other great events like brewfests and Beers and Bacon. The city that has loved and embraced Boneshire Brew Works so much, is now fully accepting them into the capital itself.

As reported yesterday – Monday July 13th 2020 – on The Burg’s website, as well as on our Facebook page, and then later on PennLive and with an interview Alan Miller did with Breweries in PA – Boneshire Brew Works will be setting up a taproom on 3rd Street in Harrisburg.

As quoted from The Burg’s press release on the brewery’s expansion: “On Monday, Harristown Enterprises announced that Boneshire would open a tasting room in the SoMa neighborhood on S. 3^rd Street in space that had been the location of Sip@SoMa.

‘We are a small brewery that focuses on providing an opportunity for community gathering, and we think Boneshire and SoMa are a perfect fit,’ said Alan Miller, majority owner of Boneshire, which is based in Swatara Township.

In early 2019, Harristown opened the snug, 25-seat Sip@SoMa in a first-floor storefront as an interim measure until it could attract a brewery to the location. Since then, breweries from around PA have used the 12-tap system to serve their beer on a visiting, rotating basis, often in conjunction with 3^rd in the Burg, though the COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to that undertaking.”

Harrisburg is a vibrant and large city with a diverse culture and many tourist opportunities and attractions. The capital of Pennsylvania, it sees many people coming from all over to visit annually. Located along the Susquehanna and near towns of Hershey and Hummelstown, it provides a lot of entertainment options for visitors. From museums to the waterfront, from bars to restaurants all over the city, there is much to see, eat, drink, and do in Harrisburg. Harrisburg currently has a few other craft breweries – ZeroDay Brewing and The Millworks are the two largest, but there is also a small craft brewery in the vegan restaurant – The Vegetable Hunter.

The sip @ soma location has been a prime target for craft beer and has been a vital part of the craft beer scene in the Harrisburg area. Sara Bozich, a regular planner, and part of the creation of Harrisburg Beer Week regularly (well, regularly pre-COVID-19) hosted ‘block parties’ there, offering a variety of craft breweries and craft beer – but one staple that typically was well represented at the block parties was Alan Miller’s Boneshire Brew Works.

According to Harristown Enterprises: “Boneshire expects to open its SoMa tasting room in spring 2021. It also will continue operating from its main location on Derry Street outside of Hummelstown.

‘Having a dynamic, local craft brewer like Boneshire take over the space is exactly what we’re looking for in the neighborhood,’ said Brad Jones, Harristown’s president and CEO.”

Alan Miller is very enthusiastic for the growth. As well as he should be. Expansion is the key to much of the craft beer scene. Growing, maintaining quality, growing, maintaining quality, is the key to success. You can look at other local breweries like Troegs Independent Craft Brewing or Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery, and see how their growth has led to more growth. Troegs Brewing originally started in Harrisburg on Paxtang Street and has since moved to Hershey, just outside of HersheyPark on HersheyPark Road, growing to become one of the largest producers of beer in Pennsylvania (behind Yuengling Brewing and Yards Brewing). Likewise, Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery has grown to several additional locations – Gettysburg, as well as the old Hershey Biergarten and soon to Lancaster. Growth can be difficult for some breweries, and there is usually a small bit of a ‘adjustment period’. Breweries like Rotunda Brewing Company expanded in recent history from a small little bottle shop and near home-brewery size equipment, to a 7 Barrel System, as well as opening a second brew pub in Hershey. There was a small window of time for them that was an ‘adjustment period’, but after that small blip and bump, they’ve maintained that quality they were known for before hand, and now providing it on a bigger scale, and to more people – which is ultimately the goal of all craft breweries and craft brewers. Alan being no exception to that.

Alan is an extremely smart brewer and knows what he is doing. I, personally, think he will have no difficulty with the adjustment and addition of the new taproom, due to open in Spring 2021. The new tap room won’t be adding any additional brewing size capacity to Boneshire Brew Works, but will be providing a second location to have their beers on tap. This will likely mean a quicker turn-over for their production though, so Alan will probably have to spend more time brewing to meet the demands of two locations as well as wherever else their kegs are shipped, and if they further their market by moving cans into beer distributors.

From The Burg’s press release, Alan had to say: “We love the feel and vibe of the SoMa area in Harrisburg, and we have been involved in the SoMa block party since day one and are excited to have a permanent place in the neighborhood.”

This is certainly an interesting time for brewers, not just in Pennsylvania, but the world over, as the coronavirus – COVID-19 is still working its way through the human population. A difficult time for brewers with a lot of uncertainties. Hemauer Brewing recently opened their doors during the pandemic, and Wolf Brewing Co, has had their opening pushed back a bit due to the pandemic as well. Likewise, Rubber Soul Brewing in Hummelstown which was due to open back in late May / early June, still has yet to open, and is looking to open tentatively late July / early August.

The tap room is typically described as ‘intimate’. Its small, and cozy, relaxed, ‘intimate’, but will feature a vibrant tap list. The seating is only 25, which is rather small, but will work well for Boneshire Brew Works. The current tap system has 12 taps, and will thus be able to cover the full spread of Boneshire Brew Works’ beer menu, as well as possibly other ‘guest taps’ if they so choose to do. (As per their licensing, Boneshire Brew Works can have guest taps for craft beer from any Pennsylvania brewery.)

The current location for Boneshire Brew Works (their brewery) is 7462 Derry Street Harrisburg PA. The tap room’s location will be 13 South 3rd Street Harrisburg PA.

For additional information, you can check out these sources:

• Boneshire to tap into city market with a tasting room in downtown Harrisburg (The Burg)
• Dauphin County brewer to open tasting room in Harrisburg (PennLive)
• Meet The Brewer Series – Breweries in PA’s interview with Alan Miller

For more articles from The Beer Thrillers on Boneshire Brew Works, check out:

• Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary Celebration
• Beer Reviews:
  * Beer Review: Sunburst
  * Beer Review: Dillston
  * Beer Review: Good Walk Spoiled
  * Beer Review: Road Less Traveled
  * Beer Review: AuZealand 2.0
  * Beer Review: Caucus Race 6.0
  * Beer Review: Harrishire (with Harris Family Brewery)
  * Beer Review: Tried and True (Mango)
  * Beer Review: Iscariot
  * Beer Review: S’mores Lazaris
  * Beer Review: The Hog
  * Beer Review: Blue Hippo
  * Beer Review: Pandemic Pils
  * Beer Review: Long Tongue Liar w/Cherries (Barrel Aged)

Brewery Openings and Expansions:

• Rotunda Brew Pub Opening in Hershey
• Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing in Mechanicsburg
• A Sneak Peak at the New Rubber Soul Brewery in Hummelstown
• Midwest Coast Brewery Opening in Chicago
• Official BBQ and Burgers Becomes Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location in back of Rutherford

Definitely excited for the opening of this tap room. It will be great for the residents of Harrisburg, it also shows off the hard work Alan Miller and his co-owners / partners have been putting into Boneshire Brew Works, it will also be great for the craft beer scene in Harrisburg to feature another great craft brewery, and will be great for craft beer enthusiasts in Harrisburg; as well as be great for Boneshire Brew Works. Hopefully soon, in Spring 2021 I will be sitting and having a drink (or two, or three) with some of you at the new Boneshire Brew Works taproom!

Until then – cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Monday was Veteran’s Day and it was a bit of a busy day for me. At least at work it was; as usual most Monday holidays tend to be a bit busier at work. So after work I jumped right on I-81 and drove the 26 minutes to get to Tattered Flag. And to be honest, I couldn’t think of a better place to be Monday night than at Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery. A veteran owned brewery with veteran employees on Veterans Day sounded like a perfect idea to me.

As anyone who has been familiar with this blog knows, I did the 556 Stout review already, (two days ago in fact), but I will gloss over it at the end of this flight review. Needless to say it’s my favorite of this flight.

Also, anyone who has been checking in with us daily has seen that I am doing a blog post per day the entire month of November. This is day 14 and this is my 14th blog post of the month. It is also blog post #100 (if counting small posts discussing our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, and counting our two listicle posts – Old Articles and Most Popular Articles). And its amazing to see that today we also hit 100 likes on our FaceBook page with a total of 102 followers counting RSS. We also pushed up to 80 on Twitter. So today is a bit of a milestone in that sense. So I would like to take the time right now to thank everyone who has read any of the posts, commented, liked, followed, subscribed, up-voted, thumbs-upped, retweeted, or anything else. We greatly appreciate it. It means a lot to me and J. Doncevic. Thank you!

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, lets move on to this wonderful beer flight!

First up on my flight is Tattered Dreamz. This sour behemoth is a collaboration between Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co.; created for the Brewsgiving Brew Fest. This is a special collaboration brewfest where each beer you have there is a beer created by breweries in a joint collaboration effect. Tattered Flag worked with Wolf Brewing Co. at the brewfest. Other breweries that did brews together included Pilger Ruh with Snitz Creek, as well as Liquid Noise and Cold Spring, Hidden Stories, Lindgren Brewing, Cave Brewing, Rotunda Brewing, and many others. Always sounds like a killer and fun event and one I’ve been wanting to check out for a while but unfortunately due to work I haven’t yet. The winners compete for tag championship belts. Last year Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co. won and this year they came in second place.

This beer is worthy of second place minimum. Its a terrific high end, high ABV, sour that will just blow you away.

Beer: Tattered Dreamz
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Collaborator: Wolf Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A Collaboration with Wolf Brewing Co. This fruit imperial sour was brewed with Apricots, Peaches, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Vanilla.

First off, its a rarity to see or find sours that cross the 8% threshold. Especially ones that are done this well. The few 8%+ ones I’ve had ended up tasting too boozy or just being a bit too all over this place. Not the case for this beautiful gem.

Appearance is a soft orange. Similar in look and coloring and appearance to that of hazy NEIPAs; it has the unfiltered opaque look with a sugary-ness left over on the glass as you drink it similar to a lot of other fruited sours and smoothie sours. The lacing on the glass s legit and well, and at initial pouring there is a thin ring of head to it. A small look of sediment but nothing too bothersome.

Aroma is kind of similar to milkshake IPAs and fruited sours. You get notes of vanilla, notes of apricot and peach. A lot of apricot aroma as you inhale deeply on it. Small traces of the cinnamon and nutmeg but almost imperceptible and subtle. Not a whole lot of nose on those flavors. The vanilla is noticeable and gives it a nice creamy smell to it that like I said gives kind of a nose of milkshake IPAs.

Taste is just phenomenal and will blow you away. This is extremely delicious. Easily drinkable and with how delicious it is, and at the high ABV that it is, this is just scary. My initial quick Untappd write up on it reads: “ Extremely delicious sour. Vanilla and apricot heavy with notes of peach. Not a whole lot of nutmeg and cinnamon but a slight spice finish. ” And this pretty much holds up; just needs some explaining. It is extremely delicious (and it is a sour, duh). You do get mostly vanilla and apricot from drinking this especially at the start. The vanilla and lactose makes it smooth, and gives it a creamy taste. Apricot takes the forefront of the flavors with some peach coming in. The cinnamon and nutmeg is very minute however. Which is probably a good thing because I’m not sure how those flavors in abundance would have affected the taste of this, and this is so damn good as it is right now, I’d think it might make it worse. The mouthfeel for this is smooth and thick, very heavy, very textual, lovely. Nice pulp left on the glass after drinking.

This is still currently on tap at Tattered Flag; not sure how much they made in addition to what they made for the Brewsgiving event, so it might not last long. I believe they did a minimal canning run for this as well. So make sure to stop in and grab a draft (or cans if they did canning / have any left). You won’t regret it!

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.17 (as of 11.14.19)

Another sour from Wolf Brewing Co we reviewed: Wolf Prints.

What a great way to kick off this flight. And moving on….

In honor of Veterans Day, three local breweries, as well as a local armory all joined forces. All three breweries are veteran owned, as well as the armory. Those breweries are: Tattered Flag, Newfangled Brew Works, and Cox Brewing Company. The armory is 717 Armory. All four joined up to brew three different beers, giving each brewery their own one as main credit, and the other two breweries being listed as collaborators on each one. Those three beers are: Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled lead), Seven.Point.Six.Two (or 7.62) (Tattered Flag lead), and 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company lead). The beers will be on tap at each of their locations, and all of them are on tap at Tattered Flag. On Veterans Day they also did a special sampling session at the 717 Armory (located on Derry Street in Rutherford, right next to Boneshire Brew Works and the BBQ food truck), where they also gave veterans a free hour on the range.

Tattered Flag’s beer is an IPA (the 7.62 IPA), the Cox Brewing Company is a stout (the 556 Stout), and Newfangled Brew Works’ beer is a Belgian (the Twin Mount .50).

Beer: Twin Mount .50
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Collaborators: Tattered Flag, Cox Brewing Company, 717 Armory
Style: Belgian Tripel
ABV: 9%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Belgian Tripel brewed as an all Veteran Collaboration with Tattered Flag, Cox Brewing Co and 717 Armory.

Belgians, Tripels, Quads, Dark Belgians, Dubbels, any and all Belgians are one of my favorite styles (when done right obviously). It always just has wonderful taste, wonderful notes, wonderful characteristics, and isn’t done that often, that it makes it such a fantastic style. And this is certainly no exception.

Appearance is similar to that of the Tattered Dreamz but translucent rather than opaque. Not hazy, filtered rather than unfiltered, no sediment or pulp or sugar on the glass. Thin ring of head that looks good and shows a nice carbonation. Good lacing on the glass as you drain it down. The coloring looks slightly more IPA-ish than a normal Belgian, but I think thats due to its sweetness. Which is unusual for a Belgian, but not unheard of, and not in a bad way.

Aroma is all about that yeast. That typical Belgian yeast brings out a forefront yeasty smell on the aroma that is typical for Belgians and is just classic. If you like the style you can note it a mile away, even without knowing what style or what kind of beer you are smelling or tasting. There is also a sweet smell to this that ties in I think with the coloring, and certainly ties in with the taste.

Taste is your usual Belgian. Very high note of the yeast strain that is common to Belgian. You get a lot of coriander and the usual Belgian spices. But this has an overarching theme of sweetness to it. An underlying taste to it that is just sweet and makes this a very smooth Belgian. I’ve had a few like this in the past and its a nice change of pace to that of regular Belgians. It adds a nice complexity to an already dense and complex beer style and just creates a bit of a different mouth feel and flavor than one you normally expect or are prepared to expect in the beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.97 (as of 11.14.19)

Another Newfangled Brew Works beer we reviewed: Pumpkin Stout or Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour.

Moving on to a regular IPA from Tattered Flag, and solely their own creation, no collaborators for this one.

I know from talking to the guys at Tattered Flag that this is a different version than last year’s. They tweaked and changed the recipe of it enough to feel confident calling it “Government Overspending 2019” rather than just continuing with “Government Overspending”. Interestingly though, I couldn’t find the original check-in for this on Untappd (No Government Overspending listed anyway on the app) and I don’t believe I had it; or if I did, I don’t recall it, and unable to look it up. So I’m not sure if they ret-conned it and retroactively changed the name of the old version, or if it got deleted, or if it never really existed like I thought it did. Not sure. But I do know from talking to the actual brewers and owners, that this is a second version of this beer. Regardless of whatever the prior version was called.

Beer: Government Overspending 2019
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: IPA – Triple New England
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Its time to overspend again. This year we used a ton of Galaxy in this years version of Government Overspending. Then we used more Galaxy Citra and Mosiac to Triple Dry hop this beer.

So right there, from the Untappd write-up you can tell its the second year of it. Just no idea what happened to the original version of this in the app.

(So… I’m not crazy… …maybe…. sorta…. …possibly…)

Anyway….. back to the beer…. appearance wise… its a golden orange, hazy, unfiltered, as per the NEIPA style. This is probably slightly more on the yellow spectrum then most NEIPAs, especially TIPA (Triple IPAs) ones. Again, as per with the rest of the beers of the flight, the carbonation was good, giving it a nice foam head, small ring of diverse bubbles, and followed by good lacing on the glass.

Aroma is straight hop. Juicy hop. Fruity citrusy hops. Galaxy is really a wonderful hop and has quickly become one of my favorites. Even before reading the write up on this, from aroma alone I could pinpoint Mosaic and Galaxy. They are such distinct, wonderful hops and provide such great aroma and taste. The triple dry hopping really brings the hop aroma to the front.

Taste is pure hop juicyness. No bitterness. This is soft, pillowy, very dank, delicious hop brew. All kinds of wonderful hop notes and citrus and juicy hop flavors play over your mouth as you drink this down. The high ABV is barely noticeable.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.02 (as of 11.14.19)

We’ve done several IPAs from Tattered Flag in the past: You Hoppin On Me? , Banana Milkshake IPA, Inexplicably Juicy, and Multiple Beer Review – Levante and Tattered Flag.

Tattered Flag’s turn to take the lead on one of the collaborations from Vet Collab day. And of course they’d make an IPA. …or maybe a sour… or… or…. But yea, Tattered Flag has become known for their IPAs (and sours) in recent years, and for good reason: they are pumping out some amazing IPAs (and sours).

Beer: Seven.Point.Six.Two (7.62) IPA
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Collaborators: Newfangled Brew Works, Cox Brewing Company (CBC), 717 Armory
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.62%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Seven.Point.Six.Two a 7.62% NEIPA made with veterans blend hops The 2019 Veterans Blend is comprised of five different Pacific Northwest-grown varieties including Simcoe®, Loral® and Ahtanum®. It will perform well in any hop forward beer, providing a well-balanced mix of tropical, citrus and herbal aromas. Proceeds go to wounded warriors family support fund. Collaboration with Cox and Newfangled brewery.

It is always heart warming, and awesome, and amazing to see when beers and breweries give some of their proceeds and money earned to charities. Especially ones in such need like Wounded Warriors. Just a great showing by Pat (owner of Tattered Flag) and the others from Newfangled, Cox Brewing, and 717 Armory, to do this. I cannot fully endorse this more.

This has more of that typical NEIPA look than even the Triple NEIPA (Government Overspending 2019) had. This has the hazy, opaque, unfiltered, glowy orange juice like look to it. And once again, nice carbonation, and nice lacing. Good theme going for the day on both of those fronts.

Aroma is very floral hoppy. A nice selection of different style of hops brings out a very well rounded aroma to this. Sometimes a wide variety of hop can provide for too much of a jumbled aroma, with competing smells of floral or herbal or citrus or pine, (same thing can happen with taste, too many bitter vs. citrus hop blends that don’t pan out well), but here this all works well, its a nice varied combination to make a layered floral hoppy bouquet. It just works.

Taste is similar to aroma, as is often the case. Its a floral hoppy cornucopia of hop flavors and tastes. I like this a bit more than Government Overspending (2019) primarily due to it having a bit of a bitterness to it, kind of uncommon for NEIPAs, but there is just a bit of a bitterness bite to this that provides it with a kick and a punch to it that is lacking from Government Overspending. I like that, and despite it, there is also a smoothness to this, probably some lactose or other smoothing agent in the beer (possibly vanilla as I get slight notes of it, which could also be lactose, or could also be a sign that this is beer #4 in a flight of 5).

This compares nicely to the recent New Trails Broken Heels I had.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.23 (as of 11.14.19)

Ok, so I reviewed this one separately, and in more depth just a few days ago. You can read that review here: 556 Stout by Cox Brewing Company (CBC).

But, I will give the bare-bones information on it here:

Beer: 556 Stout
Brewery: Cox Brewing Company (CBC)
Collaborators: Newfangled Brew Works and Tattered Flag
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 5.56%
IBU: No
Untappd Write-Up: Vet Collab Stout with Newfangled and Tattered Flag

Fast forward through a lot of the review, to just my thoughts on the taste (if you want to read more, check out the other article, its far more in-depth):

” Taste is what really drives this. It is immediately amazing. Wonderful flavor profile, wonderful mouth feel, wonderful taste, wonderful notes and characteristics, and …. wonderful any other cliche catch-all terms that you want to use. Its sweet, its malty, its caramel, its dark, its heavy, its low key and not boozy, and only a 5.56% ABV (get it… … …you know… since the name is 556… they made sure to work the OG and sugars to make it 5.56% ABV). This all combines perfectly and into one wonderful stout. A perfect cold weather stout, a perfect warm weather stout, a perfect all year round stout. But more importantly, a perfect Veteran’s Day stout. “

Some other stouts we’ve reviewed are: S’Mores LazaRIS, Walkers Station Stout, Vanilla Ice Cream Stout, Salted Caramel Moo Hoo, and Irish Table.

My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: 4.1 (as of 11.14.19; on the previous article, there wasn’t enough ratings yet to give it a global rating).

(I will point out that the 556 Stout was my absolute favorite of the flight. And if I had to rank my flight of 5, it would go like this:

1. 556 Stout
2. Tattered Dreamz
3. Seven.Point.Six.Two (7.62) IPA
4. Twin Mount .50
5. Government Overspending

Thats not to say any of the lower ordered ones were bad, just how this flight went. And considering my ratings for them, you can see that it was an amazing flight!)

Well, I’m shooting a buzzer beater with this one. Finishing this up right now its 11:40. So just barely getting this to print (or to screen) before the deadline and maintaining my blog post per day. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit smoother and I get my post up sooner. I am also going to be doing more work / editing on this in the morning. So if you read it now, and then re-read it around 9AM, there will be some edits, links added in, and other things. I’ll note them here at the ending in an “UPDATE: EDIT” section.

Thanks for reading everyone. Thanks for getting us to 100 blog posts. And thanks for getting us to 80 Twitter Followers and 102 FaceBook followers. We appreciate each and every one of you!

UPDATE / EDIT: Ok, so starting at 6AM when I woke up… well… ok… 630AM after I watched The Mandalorian’s newest episode…. I went through and linked up things to their correct places. This should look better. No content changes, just cosmetic changes. Last night I was pretty tired and feeling kinda lazy to do a lot of the HTML / inside / behind the scenes work of the blog, and just posted up the writing side of it. Now it looks more accurate. Sorry for those who read the original version and didn’t see the links. (Not a huge change made.)

Also, just to reiterate we are on the Top 100 Best Beer Blogs currently sitting at #11. We debuted at #137 and second week went to #11 and have sat there ever since. Would be great to gain some momentum and move up! Be sure to check out the site, and click back to us, not sure if it helps, but it certainly can’t hurt anyway.

We’re making a lot of big strides here at The Beer Thrillers. We just hit 100+ posts, 100+ followers on Facebook, and 80+ Twitter followers. Coming in with the new year we are looking to move over to a full blog status, adding a home brewer to our writing staff, and possibly one or two more writers to our staff. Lots and lots of content for lots and lots of people to read, so make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and do all the fun stuff so you can see all our hard work! We appreciate you checking us out, and thanks for making all of this hard work so much fun!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline