Bacon - The Beer Thrillers

Master of Pumpkins, Cupcakes, Cookies, and Bacon Cheeseburgers

AmyMWolfe — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 03:15:00 +0000

Pumpkin Season

I don’t consider myself a basic “girl” but let me tell you I do look forward to a pumpkin beer when fall is here!

We are starting this night off with Master of Pumpkins by Troegs and a bacon cheeseburger. I had to make sure it was clear I wasn’t eating anything for my main meal that had pumpkin in it. You see I have loved the pumpkin and fall flavors for many, many years.

Even this beer has been around for 20 years. (According to the Troegs Blog – Master of Pumpkins – brewed with real PA longnecks – October 2nd, 2022). (Master of Pumpkins.) But is it really a surprise that the following year is when Starbucks debuted the Pumpkin Spice latter in a select number of locations? (On their 20 Years Of Starbucks PSL: How The Humble Drink Became An Autumnal Icon) (Editor Note: Fun Ben note here, we discussed this just the other day, trying to figure out how old Master of Pumpkins was, and couldn’t find it in the “big book of beers” at work, we were guessing roughly 10 years, good to see we have a definitive answer here now.)

Troegs Independent Brewing – Master of Pumpkins

Troegs Master of Pumpkins (MoP or Mopkins) comes in at a 7.% ABV. It has an overall Untapped rating of 3.74 and is described as “Brewed with native Pennsylvania neck pumpkins harvested just a few miles from our brewery. Master of Pumpkins conjures the spirit of autumn by combining traditional pie spices with French saison yeast to elicit notes of vanilla, clove, nutmeg and honey.” And let me tell you this combination was just as delicious 20 years ago

MoP takes you on a subtle but telling journey through the freshness of the long neck pumpkins grown locally, the softness of the vanilla but the pie spices come through and remind you fall is here. One Untapped rating described this as “Still a damn good beer every year.” Yes indeed it is!

Cookies from Troegs Brewing as part of the Oktoberfest event. (Oktoberfest Gingerbread Cookie Hearts). The cupcakes come from Darby and are Pumpkin cupcakes with Nutella frosting.

My delight of the evening, lovingly provided by my boyfriend, was my delicious gingerbread cookie and my pumpkin spice Nutella icing cupcakes. The Gingerbread cookies, decorated especially for a brewery, are soft and pair nicely with the MOP. I thought it might be too many spice combinations but they each complimented one another. Then my spoiled butt got to finish off the evening with a pumpkin spice cupcake with Nutella icing. That homemade Nutella icing is whipped and fluffy. It perfectly compliments the dense but moist pumpkin spice cupcake. Taking that last swig of MoP was the perfect finisher to it all. Maybe that 4 pack won’t last long.

Drink More Beer
Amy

Editor Post-Script

Darby’s Cupcakes

Quick jump on here, editor Ben adding a post-script while Amy goes to sleep and I finish up her article. It has been a very busy weekend for us (despite the horrible weather). Amy had her first walk of the year – “Walk to End ALZ” in Lancaster yesterday, and was up at 5 AM to go and get everything ready for it. She absolutely nailed another great walk, and helped the cause, helping to try and find a cure to end Alzheimer’s. She is a tremendously hard worker, a hard trooper, and works her butt off for the Alzheimer’s Association.

I didn’t sleep well Friday into Saturday. I fell asleep sometime around 3 AM and woke up with Scarlet at 4:45 AM. Amy then left for her walk, and I watched Scarlet until my parents had her for the day so I could go to work. Work was super busy, crazy hectic, but a fun quick day despite the horrible weather. Got to meet Mark of Beards, Brews, and BBQs. Pretty cool dude and got to talk with him a bit and hang with him before his turn at the stein holding competition.

They announced the GABF winners yesterday. You can find some of the winner posts here (Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C.). I got those completed before I started falling asleep at the computer.

Note on the cupcakes – so Darby makes these wonderful cupcakes, cookies, etc and brings them in for all of us at work to enjoy. I have jokingly started telling co-workers that I made them and they could help themselves to them. So thus, she has now started putting her name on them and spreading her “lies” that she makes them and not me.

Today – Sunday – was certainly no less busy than yesterday was. We woke up early with Scarlet, went out to eat at our favorite local breakfast spot – Bill’s Restaurant – and then we went to the Hershey Blue Barn and donated blood. (See our Instagram for pictures.)

After this, we went to Amy’s work, and in the rain unloaded the U-Haul full of stuff from yesterday’s walk event. And then before I knew it, it was time for work. At the end of work I scooped up another one of Darby’s cupcakes, grabbed another gingerbread cookie for Amy, and grabbed her a 4 pack of the Master of Pumpkins for tonight. Amy made excellent bacon cheeseburgers for us for dinner, wrote this great article, and then promptly passed out. So she’ll get to see this article in the morning.

(And speaking of our Instagram, we have hit over 700 followers on it. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and see what Amy, Ben, and Josh are up to.)

The Beer Thrillers on Instagram

B. Kline

For More Information on Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

According to Untappd, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing is a regional brewery with 148 unique beers listed (despite them nearing scratch 500). They have nearly 2.3 Million ratings and as of 9.24.23 have a global average rating of 3.79. Their Untappd bio reads:

“Founded in Pennsylvania in 1997 by brothers John and Chris Trogner, Tröegs Independent Brewing is driven by a sense of adventure and curiosity. Our brewery has been built by family, friends and kindred spirits who share a love of great beer. Together, we all make Tröegs. You might know our Perpetual IPA, the best-selling IPA in Pennsylvania. Or the dark, malty and crisp Troegenator. You may have come across such iconic beers as Nugget Nectar or Mad Elf in your beer travels. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to try one or two of the hundreds of experimental Scratch Series beers we’ve brewed over the years. Whether you’re already a member of our extended family or you’re just getting to know our brewery, there’s always something new to discover with Tröegs.“

Amy’s Column Series

Since getting back to writing for the blog after a short hiatus, Amy has started up a weekly column style writing for the blog. You can find these articles here:

(And please take a moment to fill out Amy’s survey on her ‘Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles‘ column.)

Thank You For Reading

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Best Brunch Ever (Beer Festival – May 14th, 2022)

B. Kline — Thu, 12 May 2022 17:30:00 +0000

Best Brunch Ever by Fueled by Hops

The Best Brunch Ever

Think about the perfect brunch… picture it in your head. Do you have it? Well, you’re wrong. Because THIS…. THIS here, is the Best Brunch Ever. From the brainchild of Fueled by Hops that brought you the beer festival all about cookies, comes the beer festival all about brunch. Ryan Galiotto is the head of Fueled by Hops a Pittsburgh based (online) beer community. If you love brunch, and brunch themed beers, and everything to do with brunching, this one hundred percent seems the beer festival / brew fest for you.

Fueled by Hops

Fueled by Hops was originally a Facebook group community started by Ryan Galiotto, and has expanded from there. From their “About Us” page on their site:

Fueled by Hops. was founded in March 2019 by Ryan Galiotto at his living room coffee table (which doesn’t exist anymore, FYI).

What started out as a Facebook group with 8 members has quickly grown to become:

Podcast: Ryan’s Story into Craft Beer

They are certainly a big and growing community in the PA beer scene, specifically and especially in the Pittsburgh area.

A Brunchy Good Time

This brewfest looks amazing, and absolutely likes a blast for all to attend.

You can see the guys talking about it on their live podcast from their Facebook page last night here: The Unfueled Show – The Best Brunch Ever.

Their event page overview:

“This Spring, we’re coming back with another beer festival to help you shake off the winter blues. On May 14, we’re taking over the warehouse at Hop Farm Brewing in Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh) and hosting a beer festival to celebrate brunch beers and bacon (lots and lots of bacon!)More details to follow! Tickets on sale soon!”
Best Brunch Ever (Event Page)

Just a few hours ago on the Fueled by Hops Facebook group page, Ryan made this post:

For you all coming to Best Brunch Ever, I want to take a second to tell you how your ticket purchase has impacted the local community.
First, a big chunk of everything we’ve sourced for this event was purchased locally from small businesses. This is becoming increasingly more challenging, but we always try to buy local first.
Our printing and signage was handled by PGH Print Ship in Etna. The folks are TOP NOTCH for printing services. All of our ice was purchased from Mastro Ice near Greenfield (I believe that’s the neighborhood at least). We worked with all small, local breweries and businesses in creating the collab beers for this event. We hope that these beers continue to be sold in taprooms beyond the event and drive business to the local establishments involved.
Without getting too deep in the weeds on comp, I can say that we are paying what I believe to be the highest rates in the industry to the breweries coming to help offset their expenses. We do not ask for donations. We do not try to get lower prices. We believe breweries should be fairly compensated for their product.
We chose all small, local restaurants to serve food at the event. While we had the opportunity to include bigger names, we opted to think small.And lastly, our event workers are all paid, not volunteers. With that said, this is going to be one heck of an event. Be on the lookout for more surprises and event announcements over the next few days. We’re no where near done surprising you.Cheers, yinz!
Ryan Galiotto

Brewery Line Up

Some of the breweries involved

Breweries that will be attending the brew fest:

412 Brewery
Abomination
Abjuration
Acclamation
Arboretum Trail
Bash Brew
Beat Street Brewing
Cushwa
Four Points
Fourscore
Full Pint
Hitchhiker Brewing
Hop Farm Brewing
Logyard
Magic City
Monday’s
Other Half
Old Thunder
Prototype
Tattered Flag
Union Brothers
Urban Artificat
Yah Brew!

This is a fantastic line up of breweries with a diverse selection from across Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and other areas. (Two being near us here in Dauphin County – Tattered Flag and Justin Hoak [head brewer of Tattered Flag]’s new venture – Yah Brew!). (As well as the Prototype Brewery and Meadery which doesn’t have a definitive location yet.)

For More Information

Promotional Materials for The Best Brunch Ever

For more information you can check out these various sources:

Thanks For Reading

This looks like an absolutely insanely fun brewfest. They have two sessions. Unfortunately its in Pittsburgh (a five hour drive for me) and is on the same day as my 5K in Hummelstown for their food pantry – The Hummelstown Hunger Run. So I won’t be able to attend.

If anyone is attending, let me know in the comments how it was. Can’t wait to hear from you all! Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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

Best Brunch Ever

Beer Review: Sunny Side Up – Bacon (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

BKline — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 03:35:00 +0000

Sunny Side Up – Bacon by Pizza Boy Brewing Co.

Sunny Side Up

Sunny Side Up has been a staple of Pizza Boy since…. well, since as long as I can remember; and therefore a staple of the Central PA (Harrisburg – Hershey) beer scene. It is a fantastic stout and showcases how Pizza Boy could always make a really good (albeit rarely made) stout.

Sunny Side Up is a regular / semi – regular beer from Pizza Boy that they make, and is often one of the ‘come home to get’ beers for many who moved away (similar to how Nugget Nectar, Mad Elf, and Nimble Giant from Troegs is).

I’ll post the Untappd description here, since the version I’m reviewing here (Sunny Side Up – Bacon) doesn’t have a description.

Sunny Side Up:

Sunny Side Up – Little Amps! Double Coffee Stout is our rich, smooth oatmeal imperial stout brimming with locally sourced coffee from Little Amps coffee roasters in Harrisburg, PA
Untappd: Sunny Side Up

As you can see from the link, as of 11.15.21, regular Sunny Side Up has a global average rating of 4.16.

Pizza Boy has released a ton of different variants over the year, from hazelnut, to chocolate, to one off firkins, to pumpkin, to all different kinds, and this is no different. Though the ABV for this bacon variant is a bit higher than most of them, and certainly higher than the original (original is a 9.6%; the Bacon wash variant is 11.9%).

Beer Review

Sunny Side Up – Bacon (by Pizza Boy Brewing Co)

Beer: Sunny Side Up – Bacon
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Stout – Coffee
ABV: 11.9%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Pizza Boy, also known as Al’s of Hampden, has been one of the staples and giants of the greater Harrisburg area brewery / beer scene. Along with Troegs Brewing and Appalachian Brewing Company, they were the ‘originals’ or ‘OGs’ (as the hip cool young kids say nowadays) of the Harrisburg beer scene. Their Untappd description is low-key and simple:

“A brewery inside a pizza shop. Pizza. Beer. Happy.”

They have (according to Untappd) 295 unique beers (I wanna say its far more than that in their history, but we’ll go with the stats given), with (as of time of writing this – on 11.15.21) 644,984 ratings, 99,695 of which are unique; for a global average rating of 3.88.

I personally would say they are primarily known for IPAs (typically hazy), sours (think Permasmile, etc.), and stouts like Sunny Side Up and all of its variants.

This was a variant that I was very eagerly looking forward to getting to try and so glad I did. So let’s break it down and discuss this. (As always, I break it down going by paragraphs as such – aroma, visual, taste.)

Cracked open the can, poured it out, and you get a wonderful aroma of roasty notes from the coffee, dark heavy stout smells, and a bit of a greasy bacon hint. The bacon and the cooking pan smell is definitely the most subtle to this, as the coffee aroma certainly overpowers it, along with your typical malt and stout and roast notes from a good dark heavy stout.

Visually there’s not a whole lot to say other than what you can see from the picture. It looks as if it could be coffee other than the beautiful head it has to it; which is a nice small ring, maybe a quarter of an inch, with varied bubbles, and left nice lacing. The head was an off white, slightly tannish hue, and lasted til first sip. The stout itself is a deep, dark ocher, or as I often say on the blog “as black as Razor Ramon’s hair” or “black like the abyss we all stare into”. Take your pick.

Taste I think is where your mileage may vary on this one. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this beer and it is one hundred percent a good beer. There’s zero off flavors, there’s zero wrong with it. Why I say the mileage may vary, is on the bacon flavor. I’ve talked to a few good friends who had it, and the person who I drank this with, and we all had different opinions and thoughts on how much the bacon flavor came through. To be honest, when I hear ‘bacon flavored’ in beer, I’m a bit skeptical right out of the gate, wondering how its going to translate and how they are going to make it work. I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t come through too strong. You get the coffee, you get the malt, you get the stout, you get some booziness, (especially with its 11.9%), but I don’t get a ton or even a lot of bacon flavor. More like a whiff of it, like its there, barely hanging on the fringes. I think the bacon comes through a bit on the back – end and the aftertaste. (I burped after drinking it, and I could taste a bit of bacon on the burp, so I suppose it has to be in there somewhere, unless I was over thinking my burp, which is always a very good possibility.) There is a sweetness to this that I don’t recall from the original Sunny Side Up (which I always thought tasted more bitter – though it has been several months since I’ve had the original). This could be from the greasy ‘wash out’ of the bacon in the beer, I don’t know, but it has a nice taste. I enjoy the flavor of this very much, I think like I said above, that the bacon flavor mileage will vary for many, though it seems overall people are saying its subliminal or subtle or minimal rather than being stronger or too strong. If you want to enjoy a good, strong, high ABV stout, this is still certainly a fantastic choice and you can’t go wrong with that.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 11.15.21)

Other Pizza Boy Reviews

Here’s a few other Pizza Boy beer reviews we’ve done:

Thanks for Reading

As always everyone, thanks for reading. This was a great stout to finish my day on, after a 10 hour day working the craps table, followed by errands to Home Depot and Target, and then having to run an errand and go to the bank for my ex-wife, this was a nice relaxing end of my day (while re-watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode from Sunday) and finding out my one fantasy football team barely edged out the win by .84!

Thursday and Friday is going to be a big trip for us. We’re running down through Maryland, over into Delaware, and up into New Jersey and then through Philly before heading home. So be on the lookout for big stuff coming out of this trip. And make sure to be checking back in daily here at the blog. News on the street is, our new writer may have her first post up tomorrow, so be sure to check that out!