5th Anniversary Celebration

This past weekend marked the 5th Anniversary for Boneshire Brew Works. All weekend they had a big ‘bash’ of a celebration, from Friday – October 29th, through Sunday – October 31st. I got to stop out for a lunchtime visit on Sunday, and got to try out the brand new stout series – “Shire Stouts” by Alan (head brewer of Boneshire Brew Works). I also got to try the Caucus Race 10 and the Fall Hippo (shown above in my Mug Club 2021 Mug).

International Stout Day

Today is International Stout Day; so what better day to post my review of this delicious tasty flight of stouts? You can actually read about International Stout Day here – at StoutDay.com: International Stout Day. There’s a lot of information on the site, but here’s a quick blurb from the ‘About’ section:

Erin Peters – aka The Beer Goddess – is the founder of International Stout Day. The global holiday was created by the beer writer in Southern California in 2011. It soon became a worldwide celebration; online, in breweries and bars worldwide.

#StoutDay will be celebrated for the 10th year, on Thursday, November 4, 2021.  Just like wine vineyards tell the story of the people, the weather, the land and its history, beer, too, tells a story of the land, of the people and the brewers. Having a day dedicated to a beer style really has just accelerated the excitement in the craft brew circles as more learn about the intrigue regarding its history and the variety that the craft beer industry has to offer.

Stoutday.com (About International Stout Day)

Also, if you check into any stouts today on Untappd, you’ll even receive a specialty badge for your troubles. (Woohoo…. do we have any badge collectors and hunters who visit the page? I guess they still exist, I dunno.)

The Shire Flight

Ok, lets get into it, but first, a quick word about the flight. This is a new stout series at Boneshire Brew Works. Its not variants of LazaRIS which Alan has done in the past, this is a new stout with various variants of it to start off with. This flight consisted of French Toast, cinnamon bun, hazelnut, and coconut.

Ok, onto the reviews:

French Toast Shire

Beer: French Toast Shire
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Stout – Pastry
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Right off the bat, hit the ground running hard on this one. Huge maple aroma and french toast deliciousness from the first whiff. This smells like a snow day Tuesday morning with mom off work, and your school closed, and mom’s in the kitchen making breakfast.

Appearance is going to be pretty similar with all of the beers in this flight. The head / foam of each beer might look slightly different, but for the most part, each beer has the same appearance. (And given that each is a variant of the other, thats how it should be.) These are standard looking stouts; Razor Ramon hair black, like a black maw, something that Nietzsche would tell you to avoid looking at.

First sip is straight up tasteeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! Its like drinking liquid french toast. Very heavy maple flavors, subtle bread and sugar, lovely backburner of a stout behind it all. Full bodied, there’s a lot to love about this beer. Its a light but tasting heavy stout, nothing disadvantageous about that. Nothing cloying, nothing off flavored, nothing that sticks out as being unnatural or unwanted in the beer. You are getting all the flavors you should want, and all the flavors that are intended in a ‘french toast stout’. This is exactly as it should be. This might be my favorite of the flight (and I’m saying that post – having all of them; not just saying that right at the onset). I will definitely be needing to come back and give this a full mug try and get to really delve deep and enjoy this bad boy.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.12 (as of 11.4.21)

Cinnamon Bun Shire

Beer: Cinnamon Bun Shire
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Stout – Pastry
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Aroma for this bad boy is very heavy cinnamon. You can smell the cinnamon bun big time on this one. Right out the gate you get a nose of cinnamon followed by some bready and then the stout underlaying it all. This is certainly a very aromatic series of stouts – which they should be and is one of the great thing about stouts, aromatics work so well with them, and you get such a strong array of smells and aromas with them.

Just like the above stout, this looks like the abyss (didn’t Nietzsche warn us about them?), and it definitely stared back. This one had a bit more of a head to it than the French Toast one (a small slim foam crest to it). All in all it looks like a good healthy stout.

This one comes at you strong, fast, and heavy with the first sip. A blast of cinnamon right up front. A bit overpowering it, it wallops you right away. It doesn’t give as much of a bread or bready taste as I was looking for, or even a bit of a glaze / sugary taste that I expected (the bun and glazing of ‘said’ cinnamon bun). Still overall, its certainly a wonderful stout; just a bit overpowering on the cinnamon. So if you don’t mind cinnamon (or even better yet – if you really like cinnamon) then this is definitely up your alley. This isn’t really to take anything away from this stout, its definitely really good, just a bit strong on the cinnamon.

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.93 (as of 11.4.21)

Hazelnut Shire

Beer: Hazelnut Shire
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Stout – Pastry
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Aroma for this smells like a typical stout, with a hazelnut added bonus. This might be the least aromatic of the four, but still very aromatic. That was the fun thing about this flight, you could put all four in front of someone blind, and let them take a whiff, and they could easily tell which was which.

This one looks a lot creamier (and oh yea, its definitely a lot creamier than the others). It has just a shinier, creamier look to the beer, almost as if it were a nitro. It also has a little brown ring of foam head (more tan than pure white) with small little bubbles. Still stout typical – Razor Ramon hair black.

As if with appearance, this is a very creamy beer. A nice smooth, creamy stout. This is one of the chief things about hazelnut in stouts (or hazelnut stouts, or however that should be phrased), it just gives the beer a kind of nice, creamy, near nitro like taste, appearance, and flavor to it. Hazelnut, Coconut (as we will see in the next beer), and chocolate tend to be very popular additions to stouts, and all three flavors tend to stick well with the body of the beer to create a lovely flavorful beer. This is certainly proof of that. This is a nice, tasty, delicious stout, that has the wonderful body feel and taste of a stout, with the nice creaminess of the hazelnut, and hazelnut flavors, and overall just a fantastic beer on par with the other two of this series.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.01 (as of 11.4.21)

Coconut Shire

Beer: Coconut Shire
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Stout – Pastry
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Another ‘nut’ stout…. except its not! Oh, coconut, you imposter, you fake out. Like the others, you get a lovely coconut smell right out of the gate on this aromatic stout. Coconut can be a wonderful smell and it always seems to work so well with stouts; I think the heavy body of the stout gives it a great body to add ontop of with the aroma and flavors of coconut. I’m typically not a fan of coconut outside of stout based beers (coconut candies, milk, etc, all taste horrible to me).

Appearance is just as we’ve been describing with the above beers – basically this entire flight. Razor Ramon hair black; the abyss that Nietzsche warned us black; stout black. Jet engine fuel black. Etc. etc. etc.

The last of the flight, and it doesn’t disappoint. (None of the flight did, not a single bad beer in the batch.) The coconut is a bit more subtle in flavor than it is in aroma on this. Out of all four of the flight, this one gives you the better true taste of the base stout underneath the variants. You still get the coconut in it; it’s just a bit more muted and subtle than the variants in the other stouts (especially the cinnamon in the cinnamon bun stout). I like that with this one, letting you get a good strong stout, with the coconut flavor, rather than a strong flavor with a pinch of stout. This all works into a really good stout. Just as with the others, there’s nothing cloying, nothing unnatural, no off flavors or anything bad with this. A wonderful mouth feel, a nice clean stout and coconut taste, and a good finish, no lingering taste or aftertaste, and nothing to detract from the beer itself.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.02 (as of 11.4.21)

Overall

Overall this was a downright delicious flight. (The Fall Hippo and Caucus Race 10 I had with them were also very good.) As of last checking Boneshire Brew Work’s (Derry Street location) menu list on Untappd, all of these beers are still on, so if you haven’t had them yet, you can still get in and check them out. (I last checked the menu list last night at around 10PM – 11.3.21 – so things might have changed since.)

I would highly recommend all four, either as a flight to try and taste them all out, or if there’s a particular flavor you really wanna try, grab a pint of it. This was a fun flight and added a great new list of beers for the 5th Anniversary Celebration. Hopefully we’ll see more of the ‘Shire’ Stout series in the future.

Other Boneshire Brew Works Articles

• Pigtoberfest 2021
• Boneshire Brew Works Expanding to Second Location
• Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary Celebration
• Beer Review: Pigtoberfest
• Beer Review: S’Mores LazaRIS
• Beer Review: Iscariot
• Beer Review: Tried and True (Mango)
• Beer Review: Dillston
• Beer Review: The Hog
• Beer Review: Harrishire
• Beer Review: Sunburst
• Beer Review: Road Less Traveled
• Beer Review: Blue Hippo
• Beer Review: Good Walk Spoiled
• Beer Review: Long Tongue Liar (Barrel Aged)
• Beer Review: AuZealand 2.0
• Beer Review: Caucus-Race 6.0
• Beer Review: Pandemic Pils
• Boneshire Brew Works Celebrates Their 5th Anniversary

Thanks For Reading

As always everyone, thanks for reading. And day four of November is complete, and we are still at it with at least a blog / article post a day. Make sure to check in tomorrow to see what tomorrow brings! Get out there and enjoy your international stout day, grab a lovely stout, kick back, and relax. Cheers!

-B. Kline

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Its now been a week since I’ve returned from my trip (my last day of my vacation and trip was last Saturday – November 14th, 2020; and today is now November 22nd, 2020). Each night I posted a quick recap of each day, and you’ll be able to find the links to that at the end of this article, as well as the links to the full articles as well.

I was debating how I wanted to do this, if I wanted to do them daily, with a new article for each day, or if I wanted to break it up into two or three day chunks (like day one through day three being one article), or just one giant article with all seven days in one. I’m not sure whats best, but I last second decision, I’m doing them as daily articles, and might do one long combined one as well (just copy and paste of the seven articles into one with some added post-scripts) for ease of readers who prefer one larger article.

I can’t easily break into geographically, because I go from Pennsylvania through West Virginia into Ohio, to Indianapolis, back to Ohio, jumping into Kentucky, to West Virginia, back to Pennsylvania – with days in between each state, so doing it geographically wouldn’t work; so I was left with just doing this chronologically.

For those of you used to my beer reviews and other articles, these travelogues are more rambling, more stream of consciousness remembrances of my trips and how they transpired. I keep things chronological, and I remember and recall them in order of how they happened, but I’m more prone to digressions, discussions of what happened, and I do a little less editing, so some of this might seem like rambling, or like George R.R. Martin writing a feast. But hopefully, you find it entertaining, and at least enjoy the read.

Firstly, an overview of my trip. I was given six days off – Monday through Saturday (with my natural days off work being Thursday and Friday; so I was really given Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday – four days off). I called off Sunday (day one of this trip) to give myself a full seven days off. Ironically, due to having to ‘quarantine’ when returning, I got myself an extra ten days and it turned into a seventeen day vacation. But I’ll get to that later, probably at the end of the whole series.

Work has been hectic with vacation days due to how COVID-19 and the shutdown / lockdown and quarantine earlier in the year screwed up pretty much everyone’s vacation days. Once coming back we weren’t allowed vacation days or even PTO / requested days, and once they posted when vacation days were allowed, everyone jumped on them before I could even get to it. Despite being top twenty seniority, I was low man on the totem pole due to not signing up right away.

So, I was only given four days off rather than the standard week (whatever your week is, since we have different weekend off days). My plan was to drive out to Indianapolis, to be at the Vonnegut Museum and Library, on November 11th, Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day, Kurt Vonnegut’s birthday. And then drive back home. I wanted to stop out and do some hiking trails on the way out and back. And hit up a lot of breweries too of course. Planned hiking trails were Hocking Hills in Ohio, 1000 Steps Trail in Pennsylvania, and Ohiopyl in Pennsylvania.

I am not much of a driver, not a huge fan of it. Not really a big fan of driving for an hour just to get somewhere, and I think its one of the main reasons I’ve never been a huge traveler or even brewery jumper; I mean, I’ve hit every brewery near by, but unlike these guys in some of the beer groups and beer trading groups and such on Facebook / Twitter / etc, I’ve never been the most willing to drive an hour and a half to a brewery just to pick up a four pack (or a ton of four packs and mule them back) and then turn around and drive an hour and a half back home. The breweries I’ve visited were usually a result of being in the area for some form of vacation, trip, etc, especially when I was married and with my daughters. Go to the beach, hit a brewery in the area. Go to the Crayola Factory, hit a brewery in the area. Etc.

But, now that I am single (…hey ladies….) and divorced, and by myself, I have found I’ve been driving a bit more. Could be the single-ness and being by myself, could be COVID and having a lot more free time this year, but I’ve found myself driving an hour to go find a hiking trail and walking a hiking trail, like going to Pinnacle Overlook and Pulpit Rock in Hamburg, and then stopping at 1787 Brewing (check out my Hamburg Travelogue for more on that).

Last year, I had taken my daughters, just me and them, out north and west in Pennsylvania. Going up to Elk Country, to Kinzua Bridge, to Pittsburgh, to Bushy Run, and Johnstown, and back home. Was a way to escape and get away from the divorce that was beginning and happening, and the separation that wasn’t separating (hard to really call it a separation when she asks for the divorce and still stays in the house and lives in the same house for a while), and we had a wonderful time. You can check out those stories in the travelogue section as well. So this trip was going to follow a similar pattern, but instead of having with, it was just me. Not even my faithful canine companion Leela. Just me. On a six – now seven – day trip out to Indianapolis and back.

I did very little mapping for this, and did a lot more of the ‘winging’ it variety. Looking up some places in the morning / night before at hotels, and figuring out what I wanted, where I wanted to go, what I wanted to see and what I wanted to do. Typically I tried to break up my driving so I never drove more than an hour and a half at a time, and I would hit a small walk path or hiking trail or a brewery, just something to break up the monotony of driving, especially once you get into Ohio where its just all flat land.

Realizing that just Monday and Tuesday would probably not give me enough time to get to Indianapolis and hit some hiking trails, and do some drinking at breweries, I called off work Sunday, and started my trip a day early. I had to go to the Hershey Library and drop off some books, and so my trip started pretty much where it will end. Rubber Soul Brewing for a quick snack breakfast and wake up, then Hershey Library, and then on the road. Rubber Soul is right in town (Hummelstown) and will be the beginning and end to this trip, to give you some indication of my trip.

The above map shows you my first day’s trip and travel. Rubber Soul to Hershey Library, to Thousand Steps, to Juniata Brewing Company, to Ghost Town Trail, to Levity Brewing, and then right next to Levity (right across the street) was the hotel I spent the night in.

I typically tried to find a hotel / motel right (a block or two, or three at most) from the brewery I was last visiting, for many reasons, time, travel, safety, etc. Figured it was the best idea and limited issues that could pop up.

So, after dropping off books I had to drop off at the Hershey Library, I was on the road, about an hour or so to get to the Thousand Steps trail.

The parking lot / area for this hike path, is right along the highway. You pull off into a parking area and pull into parking spaces, and then walk about forty to fifty feet to the trailhead right alongside the highway. It was a gorgeous day, and I must say, I got extremely lucky for my entire trip. The first several days were the hottest, warmest, sunniest days of November that I can ever recall in my thirty five years of existence in Pennsylvania. The place was packed, so while everyone immediately went up the stairs, I turned left and took the Standing Stone Trail (North), which connects with the Thousand Steps trail.

This was a relatively simple trail, just at high altitude, and was off the beaten path of the Thousand Steps trail (which is primarily what everyone comes for). Didn’t pass a single soul on this two – three mile trail (a back and forth trail). Once back to the crossing with the Thousand Trails, I then went up the stairs.

I thought I was in shape. Really, not…. well, not “in shape” in shape. But at least not, dying any second, morbidly obese, shape either. Thirty five, I walk my dog a lot, I hike, I lift weights, but…. a thousand stairs / steps up, is pretty damn brutal, I won’t lie. I felt it. I think I gained one of those “booties” everyone is always talking about getting, just from walking up all the stairs.

My favorite quote, was, around the ledge, at I believe it was just over the 400 step mark, a rather rotund younger boy (probably 10 – 12) huffing, and puffing, leans against a tree, and says: “Thank god…. I’m never gonna do this again!” To which his dad then proudly points out that they are kind of at the halfway point. The look of pure dread and despair that crossed that poor boy’s face…. oh my.

These were all the pictures I took on the Standing Stone Trail, the Thousand Steps Trail, the various overlooks at the top, and the Dinky Shed at the top. (Its a large gallery, so you can either space your way through it or skip it.) (Yes, let this be your warning, that these travelogue posts will be including lots of pictures, and thankfully none of me, but lots of nature, waterfalls, lakes, parks, and of course… beer.)

While at the top, my internet kicked back in my phone, and as all the notifications and texts and everything pinged and pinged and came in, it was while sitting there at the top, that I got the notice that Alex Trebek passed away. I obviously never met him, and he never knew me or heard of me, but, I did grow up watching Jeopardy with my father, with my grandmother, and he always seemed like a person and a spirit that made the world better for having him in it. This is an unfortunate loss, to many, but he did fight, and he put up a good hard fight in the battle against Cancer. Hopefully some day we will defeat it, but in the meantime, its a fight that a lot will take on, and its not an easy one.

All told, my hiking was about 6 miles, and by the time I made it back to my car (where I nearly got hit by a dude flying on the highway, because I had to walk around a large SUV that didn’t want to fully pull up into their parking space) my legs were pretty tired. Nearby was Juniata Brewing Company, so that was my first brewery stop of the trip (outside of counting Rubber Soul at home).

This was a very nice location. Small, with a nice outdoor seating area. They had their own hops growing by the picnic area where you sat. And they did flights (which is my preferred method when traveling and trying new breweries for the first time). I got a flight of five.

My flight consisted of:

• Standing Stone Stout
• Rowdy Viking
• GAPA IPA
• Oktoberfest
• Raspberry Wheat

Beer: Standing Stone Stout
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Other
ABV: (None Listed)
IBU: (None Listed)
Untappd Description: A delicious stout brewed with Huntingdon’s own Standing Stone Coffee.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Raspberry Wheat
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Wheat Beer – Other
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 15
Untappd Description: Lightly tart, slightly sweet. A good springtime companion!
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.78 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Oktoberfest
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Marzen
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 25
Untappd Description: A classic marzen with light toasted and roasted flavors and a slight bitterness. Dark amber in color.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.96 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: GAPA IPA
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Black / Cascadian Dark Ale
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 40
Untappd Description: This Black IPA balances caramel notes and a slight rye spice with the resinous aroma of Chinook hops and a pleasing bitter finish. Collaboration brew with Our Culture Brewing out of Atlanta GA.
My Untappd Rating: 3.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Rowdy Viking
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale – American
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 20
Untappd Description: A honey brown ale: malty, roasty, with a dry finish. Notes of honey and floral hops.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 11.22.20)

On Untappd, Juniata Brewing Company is listed as a Micro Brewery from Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. They have 22 unique beers, 1,100 ratings, and an average rating of 3.89. They have no description on the site.

After leaving Juniata Brewing Company, I drove to the Ghost Town Trails at the Hoodlebug connection. Apparently, this is much more of a bike path and trail than it is a walking path, especially at this conjuncture – if you want to see anything. It was also starting to get a bit darker (one of the problems about this trip being in November, was that by 4:00PM it was becoming dusk, by 4:30PM it was near dark, and at 5:00PM it was completely dark). There is a lot to see on the Ghost Town Trail, old abandoned buildings and such, but not where I walked. I walked the path for about 2-3 miles, and did the loop of the playground, and went back to my car.

After this, I drove up the fifteen or so minutes to Indiana and visited what was a wonderful brewery. Top three breweries of my entire trip, and in all of my travels, probably a top ten brewery I’ve visited (total, out of all the countless breweries I’ve visited) (thus far).

I absolutely loved my time here, had two wonderful flights, got to talk to Eric, who was a fantastic bartender, and as it turned out, was a co-owner, who even sent me on my way with some free beer. (Without even knowing about my blog, after my flights, and when I was leaving, he was asking me what my favorite beer from the flights were, and I told him, and he gave me a can of it to go.)

Eric was top notch, talking to me, coming by to check on me, asking about my trip, the book I was reading, etc. I cannot recommend this brewery enough.

Firstly, I’m not a foodie, I’ve mentioned this several times here on the blog, food is an afterthought to me. Much to the chagrin of many of my fellow brewery travelers, who go to visit breweries just as much for the food as they do the beers. (Deuene being a prime example.) But, these Yolo Dogs from Levity, are absolutely phenomenal, and if you are ever at the brewery, they are a must buy. Two hot dogs, covered in bacon, beer cheese, scallions, onions, and a ton of potato chips, go perfectly with two flights of amazing beers. You can’t go wrong with that.

I had gotten two flights, watched the Dallas – Steelers game, which being near Pittsburgh country, I was inundated with Steeler fans (ugh…. as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, coming out to Pittsburgh and through the area is always rough, especially football season), read my book about the President’s office (The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson), and enjoyed amazing food and drinks.

My flights included:

• ICFC Straight Red
• Hoodlebug Brown Ale
• Headlamp Stout
• Knock and Howl (2019)
• Debacle Doppelbock
• Haze Frehley
• End of Haze
• Punky Bruiser

Levity Brewing Company (according to Untappd) is a brew pub in Indiana, Pennsylvania. It has 65 unique beers, with 34, 226 ratings and a global average rating of 3.76. The Untappd description for the brewery reads: “Levity Brewing Company is a small brewery and pub in Indiana, PA-about an hour east of Pittsburgh. We aim to brew clean, crisp, and dry examples of style and bring a diversity of beers to our community. At any time we offer a variety of IPAs, kettle-soured fruit beers, oak-aged wild beers, etc, etc, etc..”

Beer: ICFC Straight Red
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Red Ale – American Amber / Red Ale
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 18
Untappd Description: This soccer club amber ale – initially developed for the Indiana County Football Club – is an easy drinking but flavorful pick me up after the big game. Lovely amber, bready, nutty, crisp. Toss one back with your team, the competition, maybe even the referee.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.64 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Hoodlebug Brown Ale
Style: Brown Ale – American
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 34
Untappd Description: This easy-to-love beer is loaded with caramel malts and is gently hopped. Well-rounded, great with your dinner, not too filling. This beer has hit a sweet spot with our customers making it one of our best sellers. Named after the Hoodlebug Trail – a popular rails-to-trails path right next to the brewery. And a portion of sales are donated to trail maintenance!
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.76 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Headlamp Stout
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.9%
IBU: 53
Untappd Description: Just like the coal mines under us in Western PA, this beer is deep, dark, and complex. Cherry cordial sweetness shines through the dark roast and chocolate creating a fascinatingly rich, desert-like beer
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Knock and Howl (2019)
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: American Wilde Ale
ABV: 7.3%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Our wild brown ale aged in well used bourbon barrels. Roasted oak and cherry pie on the nose. Sour cherry and caramel candy flavors with a Concord red wine finish
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Debacle Doppelbock
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Bock – Doppelbock
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)
My Untapped Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.52 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Haze Frehley
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 42
Untappd Description: Hazy, juicy, grapefruit flavors out of this world. If you like IPA’s you are sure to enjoy this one. Bravo, Citra, & Mosaic, hops. You can smell the big tropical grapefruit aroma a mile away.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.79 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: End of Haze
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Sabro and Moutere hops are our secret weapon to defeat the powers of darkness invading our world. Combined, they hyper-blast out a fruity, tropical, citrus beam of pure energy.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 11.22.20)

Beer: Punky Bruiser
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Porter – Baltic
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Baltic Porter is a lager that’s smooth, clean, and delicate from a long cool fermentation. Plum floats perfectly with the dark chocolate, and toffee flavors, but never overpowers.
My Untappd Rating: 4.5
Global Untappd Rating: 3.66 (as of 11.22.20)

Overall, both Levity and Juniata Brewing were great breweries. Levity Brewing gets my nod for being my favorite of the two, and Punky Bruiser gets my gold star for favorite beer of the day. Out of my hiking for the day, I really enjoyed the Thousand Steps trail. Was a beautiful trail, hard, but not impossible, with amazing, gorgeous views at the top.

I almost forgot to mention, that, I ran into a group of hikers all in various brewery / hop logo attire (shirts / hoodie), and I was wearing my Boneshire Mug Club shirt, and we were talking about Boneshire Brew Works, and the one was saying he had a roommate who worked there, and the woman was saying how she kept going back to their tent at the Gettysburg Brew Fest they went to. I had ran into the brother-in-law of Matt Trevan, a bartender at Boneshire Brew Works, when I went to Hawk Rock (you can read about that in the travelogues section).

After leaving Levity, and talking to some bikers (cyclists), and Eric, and Nathan the other bartender, I made my way over to the Wyndham across the street, got my room for the night, and promptly crashed. I believed I started watching some of the Sunday Night Football game, and I can’t even recall who it was, if it was the horrible Tampa Bay / Saints game or if that was the Monday night game, I don’t even remember, because I was soon fast asleep.

The next update on this series, will take me into Pittsburgh and to Washington, and then day three begins my trip into Ohio.

I hope you enjoyed this. You can read more about the individual days in quick recap form below, and you can read and see the many other travelogues I’ve done. You can also check around the site for beer reviews, brewery reviews, brewery news, brewer interviews, and what have you. Please comment, follow, and subscribe, I always love hearing from you guys.

Thanks for reading, and please stay safe out there everyone, as we get near the Thanksgiving season, this has certainly been a trying and difficult year, hopefully everyone stays safe for the holidays, and we all make it to 2021 safe and sound.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis – Full Articles:

• Day One: Thousand Steps Trail, Juniata Brewing Company, Ghost Town Trail, Levity Brewing
• Day Two:
• Day Three:
• Day Four:
• Day Five:
• Day Six:
• Day Seven:

The Trip to Indianapolis – Recap Articles:

• The Trip to Indy
• The Trip to Indy – Day One Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Two Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Three Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Four Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Five Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Six Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Seven Recap
• Recap and Stats

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

• Going on the Road
• The Trip: Day 1 Recap
• The Trip: Day 2 Recap
• The Trip: Day 3 Recap

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

• A Road Trip to Rickett’s Glen
• The Trip to Rickett’s Glen

Monocacy Battlefield Road Trip:

• Impromptu Two-Day Trip to Frederick Maryland
• Road Trip to Monocacy Battlefield (June 19th – June 20th, 2020)

Visiting Reading Pennsylvania:

• A Visit to Reading
• The Birthday Trip to Reading Pennsylvania – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

A Road Trip to The PA Grand Canyon:

• Visiting Wellsboro PA and the Grand Canyon

Hiking Hawk Rock

• Hiking Hawk Rock and Visiting Liquid Noise Brewery

Hiking Pinnacle Trail and Pulpit Rock

• Hiking to Pinnacle Overlook, Pulpit Rock, Visiting 1787 Brewing and Schaylor Brewing

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania:

• Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania – Pour Man’s Brewing, Black Forest Brewery

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse:

• Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse in Shippensburg Pennsylvania

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

• Brewery Touring York and Hanover PA
• Brewery Hopping – 12.27.19
• Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg – 9.6.19

My Article for Breweries in PA:

• Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

• Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

• A Sneak Peak at the New Rubber Soul Brewery in Hummelstown
• A Brewery Tour of Mellow Mink
• Brewery Review: Battlefield Brew Works
• Brewery Review: Cushwa Brewing
• A Trip to Gettysburg and Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Road Trip Snacks (Panther Island Brewing)

Also, be sure to check out some of our other beer reviews in recent history:

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)
• Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)
• Beer Review: I Voted Today (Tired Hands)
• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Shallow Grave (Nitro) (Heretic Brewing)
• Beer Review: The Growfather (Stickman Brews)
• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, 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!

Out of work and waiting for my car to be fixed (dropping 515$ on new brakes, lines, etc), what to do… what to do…. Oh I know… go enjoy some great food and a flight of beers, because…. why not?

So thats exactly what I did. I found myself with two hours to kill, a good book in my hand, and an appetite for both food and beer. And in the Hershey area there is a lot of options to pick from while waiting out a car repair. Seeing as how its been a while since I had been in Iron Hill (other than picking up their release of the Black is Beautiful beer) I decided to stop in and try out a flight, since I was sure there’d be new beers I haven’t tried yet. And luckily there was. One of which was one I had been waiting to try – Dutchboi.

Firstly, as I’ve said many on times here on the blog, I am by no means a foodie, but I still would like to take the time to mention the food. It was extremely delicious. Out of all the things, at least with the COVID restrictions of requiring me to ‘have’ to buy food with my beer, at least its making me / letting me try some delicious foods at places like Iron Hill, or Troegs, or The Englewood, etc; where otherwise I would be just ordering my beers and skipping on the food entirely.

But, let me say, this chicken sandwich (and the fries) were absolutely delicious. Half of it filled me up, and I saved the other half for another night. Wonderful beer that went really well with my beers….

Which is why your here, so lets get to it and discuss my flight of beers!

Beer: Brambleberry
Brewery: Iron Hill (Hershey)
Style: Farmhouse Ale – Other
ABV: 4.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Well, not a whole lot to go on with this, no description, the notes on the menu said it was a “farmhouse saison, slightly funky, slightly tart, but full of flavor”. And that was about it. So…. quick spoiler – this was sadly my least favorite of the flight. I was hoping for a berry flavored saison, but didn’t quite get that. This is what Wikipedia has to say about brambleberry (under the page heading of ‘Bramble’): “A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus Rubus, which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries.^[1] “Bramble” is also used to describe other prickly shrubs such as roses (Rosa species).^[1] Bramble or brambleberry sometimes refers to the blackberry fruit or products of its fruit, such as bramble jelly.^[2]

In British English, bramble usually refers to the common blackberry, Rubus fruticosus. R. fruticosus grows abundantly in all parts of the British Isles and harvesting the fruits in late summer and autumn is often considered a favourite pastime. An especially hardy plant, bramble bushes can also become a nuisance in gardens, sending down strong suckering roots amongst hedges and shrubs and being particularly resilient against pruning. Many consider R. fruticosus a weed due its tendency to grow in neglected areas and its sharp, tough thorns which can be hazardous to children and pets.^[3]” (Source: Bramble.)

This doesn’t seem to fit that mold too much. Color is what you typically see in a saison or tart sour. But not a fruited sour or anything like that. No black coloring or anything to resemble a blackberry; this looks exactly like your typical farmhouse or farmhouse ale or saison. Wheaty, light golden to yellow color. Small amount of head to it, but with a taster that’s nothing to truly discuss because by the time of pour and its brought over and with the smaller pour size, heads and foam can be definitively off from what would be a normal pour.

Smell has that farmhouse yeast smell, that tart, funky, ‘off’ to some people, ‘on’ to other people smell. It has a crisp nose to it that you can pick up on immediately. Not a whole lot else to say on the smell, there’s no berry, no fruit odors, just the wheat and yeast smell.

Taste is…. well… its crisp. It is smooth. But it has kind of a bite to it. A funky, weird, tart but not the normal farmhouse or saison tart, kind of an off tartness to it. Like a bad berry tart funkyness, but not fully that bad or off. Like some blueberry beers where it gets the funky blueberry rather than the fruity – tart blueberry, but not quite to that full level. It has a definitive lingering taste to this that isn’t pleasant but isn’t completely unpleasant, more or less just kind of ‘ugh’. Nothing is completely horrible about it, but nothing is completely great about it and bordering past the ‘good’ into a category of just ‘do not like’ due to the aftertaste and all around weird funkyness / tartness to it. I wouldn’t say its a bad beer or a poorly made one, but just off, and not my cup of tea or style so to speak. I do love Farmhouse Ales and Saisons though, so this was a bit disappointing because of that.

My Untappd Rating: ***
Global Untappd Rating: 3.69 (as of 8.25.20)

(A Different picture than the above, apparently I only took the flight picture for the first two drinks)

Beer: Blueberry Yum Yum
Brewery: Iron Hill (Hershey)
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: 5
Untappd Description: This kettle sour uses blueberries, graham cracker pie crust, vanilla beans, and lactose to trick your taste buds into thinking you’re drinking a fresh pint of blueberry cobbler.

This was much better. Much, much, much better. Definitely enjoyed this one.

Color is spot on for a fruited sour, especially any heavy in one of the major berries (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry). It has that purplish beautiful glow, incandescent one might say. Light foamy head, nice bubbles, pop, almost like a champagne type pop to it.

The nose is wonderful, tart, blueberry, fruited sour smell. You know exactly what you are getting with this. A great finishing flourish of vanilla, some bread crumb, and a hint of something more, something earthy – ish, something more than just the fruit and vanilla but not bread. Hard to pinpoint on that, but it detracts nothing from the aroma or the beer.

This starts off fully vanilla and blueberry then tapers off into blueberry only real quick. It has the very heavy fruited sour vibes to it, which is perfect and just what I wanted out of this, especially after appearance and smell. The vanilla fades away quickly, and leaves you with the tart but not too overly funky blueberry, which is where this really shines through. Full blueberry flavor with just the hint of bread crumbs and vanilla at the end. If you like bright, full, tasty blueberry tartness, then this is exactly what you are looking for it. Not really funky, not the over ripe blueberry, but the ‘just right’ ‘ just ripe’ blueberry tartness that really brings out that wonderful flavor – that I know personally, I love, not sure about everyone else, but I prefer the ‘tart’ blueberry over the ‘funky’ blueberry. From talking to a lot of people, that seems to be the preferred, but I’m sure there’s some who enjoy the more ‘funky’ blueberry tastes than the ‘tart’ blueberry tastes. To each their own. But I certainly loved this brew and would highly recommend it to any sour or tart lovers.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.63 (as of 8.25.20)

Beer: Dutchboi
Brewery: Iron Hill (Hershey)
Style: Stout – Other
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: One off cask aged stout. Cinnamon, vanilla, serano pepper

This was the one I was most looking forward to with my flight. I had seen the Facebook and Instagram posts with the whoopie pies being mashed in, so I was certainly intrigued. My Pennsy Dutch side of me was all kinds of intrigued.

Color is the stout maxim; dark, black, cold, like my soul and heart (ask around, they’ll tell you). Or, as my personal saying is – “black like Razor Ramon’s hair”. Take that as you will, and depending on your level of interest in Scott Hall or wrestling you’ll understand it. But, this looks like any other stout really. Black, light foam head, in a taster glass, could almost be beer or coffee or motor oil, who knows. (These are all just jokes and not knocks on the beer or stouts; they just don’t typically have too much variance in color.)

Aroma kicks things off and separates this from other stouts. Definite notes of ‘whoopie pie’ on this. Vanilla, cinnamon, bready, with hints of the oak cask system used. I didn’t really pick up any pepper. Once again, going back to Wikipedia, this is said about the serrano pepper: “The serrano pepper (Capsicum annuum) is a type of chili pepper that originated in the mountainous regions of the Mexican states of Puebla and Hidalgo.^[1] The name of the pepper is a reference to the mountains (sierras) of these regions.^[1]” (Source: Serrano Pepper) I didn’t really pick up any hint of heat or pepper or anything (either smell or taste, which we’ll get to in just a bit).

Taste is delicious on this. Its got all that dark heavy stout flavoring you love (if you love stouts) but its not too heavy and high ABV like some stouts (eyes up Weyerbacher). At 7.5% its in the same tier and level as Perpetual IPA by Troegs Brewing (7.9%). So this isn’t going to be killing you but will be leaving a good buzz (on a full pour). The oak cask comes off with this nice, lending it some darker notes, but it also has a slight airy, fluffy, creamyness perhaps the ‘whoopie pie’ part of it. There is a bit of the creamy vanilla that makes this smoother, but there is some bite, perhaps thats the pepper but I attributed it to the cinnamon. I don’t think any one flavor is overly powerful and overrides the other, more of a nice gentle blending that leaves this a very good and tasty stout. This would probably be better as a bottle, than a taster or even a can or crowler, with a good pour into a glass. But I certainly still enjoyed it.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.9 (as of 8.25.20)

This brings us to the final beer of the flight, and as it turns out, my favorite of the flight. (Perhaps a surprise, perhaps not a surprise. I was anticipating liking either the Dutchboi or the Blueberry Yum Yum more, but I’m also a big fan of bourbon stouts and heavy stouts too…. so I guess this wasn’t really a surprise in hindsight.)

Beer: Bourbon Chocolate Stout
Brewery: Iron Hill (Hershey)
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 10%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

It is interesting, looking over the Untappd reviews for this, it seems to jump from people giving it 1 cap reviews to four or five cap reviews, and not a whole lot of wiggle room on their reviews. Either a hate it or love it beer I suppose. Personally, I enjoyed it. Perhaps its not for everyone, perhaps its the very heavy bourbon notes, or the bitterness, I’m not sure, but we’ll get to all that.

As always, this looks, acts, and more importantly… again… looks… just like a duck —- err, I mean, a stout. Dark, black, velvety, creamy possibly looking, slight foam head. Black as the night.

Aroma is strong bourbon, light chocolate. You get a definite nose of bourbon right out the gate, and then you get some of the chocolate, some bready earthy tones, and a bit of a dark, rich, bitter smell that is probably the chocolate coming back through.

Taste is where its going to jump on people. Strong, very heavy strong, initial bourbon bite and very alcoholic taste right out of the gate. Like drinking a strong Weyerbacher barrel aged stout, this jumps right in at you and grabs you. Some might say its too strong, or too bourbon, or too alcohol, but I definitely enjoyed it. I think it tapers off pretty steadily after that initial sip (perhaps its just me getting used to it, not sure), but it leads off into the bittering of the chocolate, like baker’s chocolate, and this might be off putting to some people too. This isn’t a creamy Hershey’s like chocolate, this is more of the baker’s chocolate, bitter, but with that still characteristic chocolate taste. The bourbon flavor I think blends nicely with that bitterness, but that could possibly be ‘too much’ for some people. It does clock in at 10% and you certainly taste and can feel it, so it does have a strong, over powering feel and effect as well. Certainly more of a sipper than a guzzle or quick drink. And at a full glass that would be the best approach, especially with its 10%.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.51 (as of 8.25.20)

Welp, that was my delicious flight and food. Got the car back, and just a mere 515$. The upcoming days should be interesting, on Thursday (8.27.20) will be my 35th birthday (officially old / half my lifetime / mid-life crisis / one foot in the grave / gaining speed down the hill) and me and my buddy will be heading out to West Reading / Wyomissing / Reading area to hit a few breweries. So look for that in a future post. You can read about it a bit here: “Visiting Reading.“

Saturday I will be attending The Englewood’s beer release, they are finally having their own beers on tap, and will be checking that out. So be on the look out for a review of their beers (most likely in a multiple beer review like this). I was out there before on the day they opened, which you can read here: “A Taste of Englewood“.

You can read a past beer review of Scrooge IPA by Iron Hill if you are still in the mood to read about Iron Hill Brewery and their beers in Hershey PA.

As always, lots of good stuff coming here to the blog, so be sure to like, follow, subscribe, and do all that fun stuff so you can read all about whats going on!

Cheers and see ya all at some point soon!

-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

So yesterday was just kind of one of those days. Long day at work. Went directly to Tattered Flag and had me a flight. Spending the night at a veteran owned brewery with several veterans who work there, on Veteran’s Day sounded like a fantastic idea. For veterans they were doing free burger or half rack of ribs as well as a beer, and they just put on tap a bunch of veteran / military themed beers brewed along with two other veteran owned breweries in the area – Cox Brewing Company and Newfangled Brew Works.

The flight I had was Tattered Dreamz (collab with Wolf Brewing Co.), Twin Mount .50, Government Overspending 2019, Seven.Point.Six.Two and then this stout – 556 Stout by Cox Brewing Co. The collaborations each got headlined by one of the breweries: Twin Mount .50 is Newfangled Brew Works first, with collab credits to Tattered Flag and Cox Brewing, Seven.Point.Six.Two is credited to Tattered Flag with collab credits to Newfangled and Cox, and the 556 Stout is credited headlined by Cox and collab credits to Newfangled and Tattered Flag.

This review will be centered around the 556 Stout. Tomorrow I will likely be doing the full flight review (and will link to this; and have this link back to that; so if you check this article out in two-three days you’ll see a link to the flight article).

I will break out a spoiler and say this was my favorite of the bunch. The whole flight was really good though, with a great Belgian, a couple wonderful IPAs, and a good high ABV sour as well. Its just that this one blew me away the most and thus why I’m giving it an individual review.

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

For those who don’t know, and I haven’t had a chance before this to do a Cox Brewing Company (CBC) review, here is some basic background info on them:
Cox Brewing Untappd
Cox Brewing FaceBook
Cox Brewing Twitter
Cox Brewing Website

Their Untappd page lists them as having 90 unique beers, 6,505 ratings, and a global rating of 3.68. Their bio on the page reads: Cox Brewing Company (CBC) is a veteran-owned brewery located in Elizabethtown, PA in the village of Rheems.

They are a must-stop see at every Renaissance Faire brewfest and Littitz Brewfest. At the Lititz Brewfest they even sponsor to have a home brewer who they selected at the home brewer’s portion of the event to come brew for a day with them. The owners are great people and are very active in the home brewing community and are big help to many home brewers in the area.

So let’s get into this delicious beer.

Appearance is dark black like a good normal stout, with nice lacing, and a good head. The head is thin white with porous bubbles that are spaced and varied. The lacing lasts on the glass and the look stays the same under light.

Aroma is a good caramelized stout. Heavy malts, nice aromas, you get mostly the heavy malts and a caramel sweetness to it.

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.

My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: (None yet. Unfortunately there’s only been 8 total ratings, so obviously too soon to get a global rating.)

I certainly can’t recommend this beer enough though. Make sure you find your way to Tattered Flag, Newfangled Brew Works, or Cox Brewing Company, where it will be on draft at all three of these locations. This is an amazing beer. Some even got to try it as a sampling at the 717 Armory yesterday, a very cool thing and another collaborator with the breweries on these beers and making Veteran’s Day so positive for many veterans in the area.

We here at The Beer Thrillers want to thank and salute all veterans who have served, and have given the biggest sacrifice possible, as well as to all those who still serve our country and defend its ideals and people. We thank and appreciate you for all you have done, for all you do, and for all you have given and sacrificed. Thank you.

Please make sure you venture out and support these great veteran owned breweries. They deserve it, and you deserve some great beer, so check them out.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

Following the ‘For the Love of Beer‘ book panel discussion at Mid-Town Scholar, and dropping off my books at my car, I walked the block and a half over to The Millworks brewery. It was getting late but if I was in the area I couldn’t pass up on stopping in at a local brewery, and its been quite a while since I’ve been to the Millworks. I think the last time was sometime last year with D. Scott after we hit up ZeroDay Brewing.

Toting my For the Love of Beer book just got at the panel discussion I took a seat at the bar and ordered myself a flight. With a good and diverse tap list, that rotates regularly, nearly all the beers on the tap were ones I haven’t had yet, but these four particularly caught my eye. And as a bonus for this blog post, I’ll be doing a review of the Single Hop #11 that I had at the Mid-Town Scholar book panel discussion. Though that one will be pretty brief as I was more sipping while they were discussing and not really putting a whole thought process into the beer itself (like its aroma, appearance, etc.).

Starting off with a dark stout after a good two hour session in a bookstore sounds like the perfect idea to me.

Beer: People’s Imperial Stout
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Stout – American Imperial / Double
ABV: 9.8%
IBU: 60
Untappd Write-Up: Dark, smoky flavor with a little hoppy kick. Strong and a good sipping beer.

Appearance is a very dark hue, perhaps not quite Razor Ramon hair dark, but pretty bleak and black. Even for a sample glass it had a nice foamy, creamy head with good lacing, good bubbles.

Smell is malty, some roast notes, some caramel notes, but a lot of malt characteristics on the nose. With a good inhale you can pick up some smokeyness to it, and a subtle note of the hops.

The flavor on this is very nice, its a dark heavy, roasty, malty, lightly smokey stout, its heavy, feels heavy, but there’s also a bittering at the end from the hops that has a bit of last-second punch to it. This makes it for a nice fall bonfire type beer that you can sit around a fire with friends and slowly sip at while staying warm under the blanket(s). This deserves a full pint rather than just a sample but sadly I didn’t have the time to revisit the beer after my flight.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.84 (as of 10.5.19)

One of a few beers on the taplist that is PA Preferred, meaning the majority of the ingredients come from Pennsylvania farms or dairies or gardens or what have you. (Can be anything from vegetables, to trees, to dairy, to meat, to honey, to anything edible and produced within Pennsylvania.)

The Millworks is very big on “from farm to table” which is very important to helping sustain local communities, local farms, local jobs, as well as helping the environment (less road travel time, less fumes and emissions, less waste, less carbon footprint, etc.). The ingredients tend to be better as well this way, fresher, localized, non processed, and the feel-good factor of helping local community rather than bigwigs from who knows where.

Beer: PA Pine Farmhouse Ale
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Farmhouse Ale – Saison
ABV: 5.1%
IBU: 20
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)

I really enjoyed this, its a bit of a unique take on the saison and farmhouse ale styles, and it was very delicious. Wish there was an ingredient list or something on Untappd to read up on the process behind it or what all ingredients were Pennsylvania farmed and from where.

Appearance is light in color, typical for saisons and farmhouse ales. Fizzy with a slight bubbled head to it. Light golden, clear, and see-through.

Aroma is straight up pine, as if I was standing under a pine tree in winter. Nose walloping pine smell. Some notes of spices, but not really sure what, the pine smell is so overbearing that the spice notes are very minute and hard to pinpoint, I think some coriander, perhaps a bit of orange peel, but nothing too remarkably distinguishable.

Taste is delicious. Very heavy pine, but with a nice tart / funkness that comes with the typical farm house ale / saison. Not a sour but just a light refreshing tartness that complements the pine more than anything else. With taste I could pick up orange peel though minutely, but it was more apparent in taste than in smell.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.74 (as of 10.5.19)

New England #6 IPA from the Millworks, one must assume there is a New England #5, a New England #4, a New England #3, etc. To be honest, I don’t know, but Untappd will provide the answer…. and huzzah there is, six different variants, named from New England #1 all the way to New England #6 (though one was a Double New England IPA). They all looked to be relatively the same ABV, though some do have a write-up provided, this one had no description. This is the latest iteration of this process.

Beer: New England #6 IPA
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: (blank)

Appearance seems to be a bit mixed on this. I had the gentleman to my left drinking this as well in a pint glass. His had a very turbid almost whitish hue to it, very unfiltered. Mine, in the sample glass has a orange juice colorization, but also very unfiltered. Certainly nothing see through or clear about this, its completely hazy (haze for days) and a little bit of floaters and sediment due to the unfiltered process.

Aroma is a typical New England IPA juicy hop bomb. All kinds of hop notes assaulting you and combining into a juicy melody rather than a bitter one. More citrus forward and nothing earthy about these hop notes.

Taste is spot on for New England IPAs. Very juicy, very dank, very flavorful and very hop flavorful. You get notes of zest, citrus, and the juicier varieties of hops rather than pine, or spruce, or grass, or earthy notes, and nothing bitter. No ending hop kick or anything from this as well.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.88 (as of 10.5.19)

Decided to end my night and my flight on a refreshing, tart, delicious blueberry gose. As I’ve said in some previous reviews, like the one for Edmund’s Oast Blueberry Sour – blueberry beers can be hit or miss with me. Luckily this one was a hit.

Beer: Blueberry Gose
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 3
Untappd Write-Up: Tart ale brewed with Blueberries and sea salt.

This is just a pretty beer, like other sours, goses, and berry fruited beers, it has a purplish / violet appearance to it. Under the right lights or with the right lights shining through it it has a sparkly cranberry juice like appearance.

Aroma is very blueberry. Pretty much nothing else distinguishable about the smell or aroma, just pretty much a tart smelling blueberry-ness to it.

Taste is very delicious. Its tart, its refreshing, its enjoyable. Soft and not cloying to the tongue and the blueberry flavor is the right kind of tartness with no funkyness or off flavors or bad sour flavors and notes that some blueberry beers get. Gose is a good style to work with blueberries in as they complement each other nicely. The sea salt in this probably adds to the tartness but its not enough to be noticeable or pick up (easily or by me anyway) on tasting.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.72 (as of 10.5.19)

BONUS TRACK: Turn over to side B of this cassette for a bonus track!

Ok, since I had it at the Mid-Town Scholar for the book panel discussion, and then went to Millworks afterwards for a flight, I might as well review it in here, can’t hurt right? So its a five-beer review instead of four. No one’s making you read…. you can easily stop right now if you want…. Or…. you can read on!

This was so new I had to make the Untappd listing for it myself when I checked it in during the book panel discussion (actually did the add-in and check-in just before they started, so I wasn’t multi-tasking, sorry to disappoint).

They’ve been doing a single hop series of IPAs at The Millworks using a variety of different hops in just single-style. The previous one was Huel Mellon (#10), they’ve also done Eukanot, Azacca, Mosaic, Calypso, Amarillo, etc.

Beer: Single Hop #11 – Citra Hops
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6%
IBU: (None Listed)
Untappd Write-Up: Single Hop Series. Citra hops.

I’ll give a brief and quick rundown and breakdown of this. Its a New England style IPA and its very tasty. Appearance is hazy and typical for NEIPAs. Its juicy looking, its dank looking, its unfiltered, and its hazy.

Aroma – I took a quick whiff of it as I got to my seat, and its definitely a citra beer (duh obvious, totes!). Meaning its very citrusy, zesty, fruit style hop. No earthy or bitter smells to this.

Taste was very good, pleasant, nice enjoyable tasting NEIPA. I enjoyed it while sipping on it listening to the panel discussion. Nothing off about it, no off flavors, nothing bad, no aftertaste, etc.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: Well, there’s been a total of 7 check-ins to this, and one is mine, so there’s no global rating yet for this. (As of 10.5.19)

If you are downtown Harrisburg, make sure you stop in and check out The Millworks. Its a beautiful brewery with fantastic beer offerings, and a great food menu that any foodie (or any person who eats) will enjoy. Well worth the visit. Make sure to check out the numerous art galleries and see all the beautiful artwork of local artists as well!

-B. Kline

Up bright early to leave Clarion as intrepid explorers on a mission. Started the morning hiking the McConnell’s Mill Creek paths as well as checking out the Grist Mill and Covered Bridge there, as well as the Kiddoo Falls. From there, the first stop as far as breweries go, occurred in a small borough outside of Pittsburgh called Zelionople. Here we stopped at ShuBrew, enjoyed a large ice cream sandwhich and a flight. Then we moved on.

We next traversed Fort Pitt and used the Duquesne Icline to go up to Mount Washington and back down, getting caught in a brief thunderstorm before checking out two breweries in quick succession.

First, was Cinderlands Beer Co.

Beautiful place, and absolutely packed (5:30 on a Friday afterall). Sadly, I am neither millenial/hipster enough nor beautiful enough myself to stay in a place like this with so many gorgeous people for too long.

So from there, we went to The Church Brew Works, which is a stunning brewery, notable because it is a former church that has been turned into a brewery.

After discovering these two great breweries we traversed Pittsburgh, checking out St. Anthony’s Chapel, Forbes Field (Outfield Wall still standing) and the Mary Schenley Plaza and the Memorial Fountain.

Our last stop, was right down the road from our motel, in Delmont.

Standing room only when we first got there (930 at night), Yellow Bridge Brewing was packed. Live music draws them in Delmont right off the highway… that… and the absolutely fantastic beers. After enjoying a pizza and a few beers, we traveled two minutes down the road to our motel and promptly crashed.

Now for day 3 to start, which will bring us to Bushy Run Battlefield, Johnstown Dam Memorial, Allegheny Portage, and Flight 93 Memorial, as well as the breweries Stone Bridge Brewing and Olde Bedford Brewery.

-B. Kline

August Road Trip Series:

• Going on the Road
• The Trip: Day 1 Recap
• The Trip: Day 2 Recap
• The Trip: Day 3 Recap

This is going to be a very quick recap of Day 1 of the trip. Sorry I’m not getting to write a full comprehensive post detailing the breweries, but I will be writing up a review of each brewery in due time. Internet is spotty and trying to get this done, plus, doing a vacation trip with three girls all under the age of 12 by myself, doesn’t leave much time for writing up blog posts.

So suffice to say, here’s the quick Day 1 Recap:

Started off going to Elk Country Visitor Center (saw no elk, but did see a chipmunk), then we stopped at Straub Brewery. From there we went to Kinzua Bridge. After Kinzua Bridge we went into the town of Kane and hit the brewery of Logyard.

Much to my astonishment there was a brewery right next door, Twisted Vine Beverages, so we stopped there as well. (It was literally two buildings over in a row of buildings that all pretty much connected.)

We then drove to Clarion River Brewing (which is two minutes from the Motel 6 in Clarion that we are spending the night in). Unfortunately, the websites I used for information on the brewery listed the closing time as 10PM but when we got there at 9:40PM the brewery was closed (lady inside putting the chairs on the table, though there was still people at the bar, the doors were locked). So we missed out on Clarion River Brewing, but did get an extra 40 minutes in the luxurious Motel 6 of Clarion…..

Now onto Day 2 of our trip which will begin at McConnell’s Mill Creek and work our way into Pittsburgh before finding us going towards Bushy Run for day 3!

-B. Kline

August Road Trip Series:

• Going on the Road
• The Trip: Day 1 Recap
• The Trip: Day 2 Recap
• The Trip: Day 3 Recap