A beautiful day calls for a beautiful beer does it not? Before the cold spell, before the rain and ugliness, before the threat of murder hornets, a nice, beautiful day spent doing yard work, grilling, relaxing, and doing the like – requires a delicious, zesty, tasty, cold brewski. And what better one to do it with than Blue Hippo by Boneshire Brew Works.

I had discussed doing the Pink Hippo on the blog before, back at the time of my review for ‘This is the Way‘ by Broken Goblet. Pink Hippo was a delicious beer, and its cousin (or sister, or brother, or step-sibling) is just as delicious. (Actually, I think it’s probably the better of the two so far in this series by Alan.)

Boneshire Brew Works is my closest ‘watering hole brewery’, and that is certainly no disrespect to Boneshire Brew Works or the hard work of brewer Alan Miller. (Non-quarantine) The cozy atmosphere of the brewery leads it to be the small town drinking pub for a lot of people. Myself, D. Scott, A. Parys, J. Doncevic, and many others included. Karl Larson (ihackbeer) also was a part-timer brewer for them. Its a great place to hang out, chat, listen to some wonderful live music, and drink some of the finest and most delicious beers in the Central PA area.

Of course right now with the quarantine, nobody is really hanging out in there, but I still love stopping in there for some 4packs (to go) and talking with Jason and Alexis (obviously safely from six feet or more away). (Bonus note people – right now, more than ever, even when stopping in at breweries just to grab a 4pk to go, leave a tip for your bartenders. Their still there, working, at a reduced rate right now due to closures of the indoor seating, and their still doing lots of work behind the scenes. We need to stick together and help each other out. …steps down from soapbox….)

As usual, I jibber jabber and ramble before getting to the beer review, so lets cut the crap and get right to it with this bright and delicious zesty beer.

Beer: Blue Hippo
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This is beer 2 in our Hippo series, where we brew with loads of fruit. Blue Hippo is brewed with insane amounts of Blueberry and Tahitian Lime. Strong lime aroma and flavor rounded out with ripe blueberry.

As you can see from the various pictures, this is just a beautiful beer. It has a reddish (slight pinkish hint) to purple hue. Little bits of floaters / pulp one can see when poured from an unrolled can. It is certainly carbonated, it is a fruit beer afterall, and doing some possible refermenting, so definitely keep this cold, drink it fresh, and drink it quick!

Aroma is fun with this one. Its got definite tartness from blueberries and you get a good whiff of that out the gate, and its called the lime as well. It smells carbonated, with the bubbles tickling your nose as you take in the nose of this (and yes, I understand that doesn’t sound ‘technical’ or ‘correct’, but you can tell, and smell, and taste carbonation, thats my stance anyway). It smells like a ‘spritzer’. This is just a fun beer from the appearance and the aroma, before you even get to the taste of it. Sometimes you just ‘know’ when a beer is going to be good, when they just look fun, and you can’t wait to drain that glass.

This is certainly a case of this. This is such a great relaxing day beer. And at 5% it is completely crushable. Both a great sipping beer, and one you’ll finish in no time flat, its fantastic for all day. A Senators game, a college baseball game, your daughter’s softball game (shhhh, no one is telling), or mowing the yard, or suntanning, or sitting out to read (one of my favorites), this is just perfect for it. This tastes very similar to a spritzer, just like its smell. A fruited spritzer, unlike the white wine ones. The zest level on this thing is off the charts, but with a great tartness and slight funk from the blueberries. This is the right kind of blueberry taste; not too tart, not too funk, just right. Perfect middle ground on the blueberry flavor, and with the Tahitian lime zest and flavor, it gives it a fantastic kick to it. Mouthfeel is fine, no off flavors, just nice tartness, no cloying, no sweetness. Its not a true sour, it just has a bit of a tartness and the zest kick. At 5% you can drain the first, drink the second, and start on your third and not even feel a thing, perfect for the summer. (When its not snow squalling in May that is!) This is just a wonderful, well made, well crafted, and delicious beer. Probably better than Pink Hippo, which itself was very good. I highly recommend grabbing this while its still available at the brewery, and if you live close, they’ll even deliver it!

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 4.2 (as of 5.9.20).

You can order online through Boneshire Brew Works’ website at: Boneshire Through Square.Site. Or check out their official webpage: Boneshire Brew Works.

Still rolling through May pretty strong. Make sure to wish your mom a happy mother’s day tomorrow. Make sure you avoid all this cold and the snow squalls. And keep washing your hands, practicing social distancing, etc. I want to be able to have at least SOME fun this summer, and go to events like the Ffej of July and brewfests at Lititz or Lancaster or the make-up dates for the RenFaire or AC Brewfests.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

By now I’m sure you are all sick of your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even by text or phone or SnapChat or WhatsApp or Zoom or Flim-Flam-Floom or Blue Milk or Bantha Fodder or whatever telling you “May the Fourth Be With You” or some such ‘garbage’ or nonsense right? Maybe you don’t know the difference between a Dianoga and a Ronto? Or remember that the green Nautalan Jedi Master that attacked Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious in Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was Kit Fisto (c’mon…. with a name like that how couldn’t you remember him?), or that the Prune Face guy from Return of the Jedi when they attack the Bunker on the Endor moon was Orriamarko…… Maybe sportsball is more your thing. Either way, pro-Star Wars or anti-Star Wars, or Luke-Warm (ah, see what I did there?) to Star Wars, there is still good beers to be had about Star Wars or similar nerdy things.

So as any reader here to the blog will know, I am a huge Star Wars nerd. Starting back to when I was in 6th grade. Over at a sleep over a friend had Star Wars cards (Decipher’s SW:CCG – Star Wars Customizable Card Game) and he taught me to play. This led me to fall in love with Star Wars by watching the movies, and got me going to a local card shop called Omnidon’s in Hummelstown. This is where I ended up meeting friends D. Scott and R. Dibeler and a whole host of other people too numerous to even begin to list.

As I grew older, I watched the Original Trilogy (OT), the Special Edition Original Trilogy (SE-OT), the Prequel Trilogy (PT) and reading a list of books longer than I have time to type out here. (Authors like Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Matthew Woodring Stover, James Luceno, etc, etc, etc.). I even named my youngest daughter Mara (those who know – will know).

Flash forward to Disney buying the franchise, and at the time my oldest daughter was 7. I was ecstatic to get to watch new Star Wars movies with her in theater. In preparation we watched episodes 4 (A New Hope), 5 (Empire Strikes Back), and 6 (Return of the Jedi). We saw Episode 7 – The Force Awakens in IMAX at the Whitaker Center. She was hooked. She loved Rey, she loved BB-8 (she was already hooked by Star Wars, already loved R2-D2 and Chewbacca and Yoda). Over the years we saw Rogue One and The Last Jedi in theaters as well, and even Solo before it went to Netflix. (Last day possible in theater to see that one). Sadly, her love for the saga waned a bit after The Last Jedi (she’s not alone there), so we didn’t see Episode 9 – Rise of Skywalker in theater. But, that is part of our “May the Fourth” today – getting to watch it on Disney+ (uploaded to the streaming service today).

Fun trivia fact: my oldest daughter was featured on TV at a Phillies game (Star Wars night). She wore her Rey costume to the game and they had her dance with the Phillie Phanatic and some of the 501st Legion (cosplayers) who were there dressed as Rey, Stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, Vader, Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke.

…So…. whats all this got to do with beer right? Well, yesterday, me and my oldest two daughters made the trek down to Gettysburg to Fourscore Beer Co. For the weekend they were doing a Star Wars themed menu, including the release of ‘Wookie Monster’, a 9% oreo cookie stout; as well as food items – Sarlaac Fries (french fries, beercheese, and cole slaw on top), as well as Mynock Gravy and Biscuits (chipped cream rib-eye gravy and butter biscuits), as well as a cherry tomato and mozzarella salad. We stopped; and I got a food item of each (Lily got the Sarlaac fries and loved them, Olivia-Grace got the salad and ate it as we did the Auto-Tour, and I got the Mynock Gravy and Biscuits – fantastic). Unfortunately, the Wookie Monster was sold out. (As you can imagine, that was going to be a big feature of today’s blog post). [Sigh]. I did get a crowler of the Mango Marshmellow Jahmba. Can’t wait to crack that open and devour it. I’ve yet to have had a bad beer from them.

Here on the blog however, I have done several beer reviews of geeky, nerdy, Star Wars, and other similar movie franchises. Pop cultural references always plays a big role in a lot of breweries beer names and even branding.

My most recent Star Wars themed beer (and beer review) was the above mentioned ‘This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For‘.

This was an absolutely amazing 15% Imperial Double Stout by Fourscore Beer Co. Easily a contender for Top 10 (New) Beers I’ve had for this year (granted; this year will probably see me drink less NEW beers than previous years just due to everything going on). The Untappd Description reads: “Brewed with a British Maris Otter base, loads of malted oats and a variety of roasted and crystal malts with a touch of lactose. Heaps of peanut flour were used in the whirlpool and the wort was racked onto a ton of marshmallow fluff prior to fermentation. More marshmallow is added at the end of fermentation along with peanut butter powder. Huge aromas and flavors of fresh peanut butter and marshmallows straight from the bag. A rich malty base of caramel and chocolate tones carry the flavors to the finish. Brewed with Founders Club member Eric Acumen.” If you like peanut butter beers; this will definitely be right up your alley. There is still bottles for sale at Fourscore Beer Co (as of 5.4.20). To read my full review of it, click here: “Beer Review: This is Nut The Fluff You’re Looking For“.

Another fun beer I did a review of was “This is The Way” by Broken Goblet. Another Star Wars themed beer, though this time based off the hit Disney+ show ‘The Mandalorian’ rather than from the movies.

Jokingly calling it a ME-IPA (Mos Eisley IPA) rather than NE-IPA (New England IPA) Broken Goblet made one delicious IPA, be a ME-IPA or NE-IPA or whatever you want to call it. This is a juicy, tasty, easy drinking IPA. No bitter bite, slight creamyness to it, nice flowing beer. You can read my review of it here: “Beer Review: This is the Way“.

And where would I be if I didn’t mention Equilibrium’s “Moon of Vega”. If we’re talking Star Wars, we have to talk Space Balls! If you only ever see two space or sci-fi parody movies (and so far, you only really need to see these two) it best be Space Balls and Galaxy Quest. Anything else is inferior.

Moon of Vega is a collaboration NE-IPA by Equilibrium Brewery and J. Wakefield Brewing; and they absolutely nailed this out of the galaxy. This was a super tasty, delicious NE-IPA that was creamy, hoppy, juicy, dank, and all the things you look for in a NE IPA. A 4pk of this just wasn’t enough. As you can see, I had this during one of our podcasts for “So A Mexican and A Scott Walk Into a Bar…” a podcast ran by some of The Extended Beer Thrillers family – D. Scott and Esteban. To read my beer review of Moon of Vega click here: “Beer Review: Moon of Vega“.

Below is a list of the Star Wars related podcasts we did for So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar… (I’m featured on all of these). (Warning, language is Rated R and might not be safe for work.)

• Esoteric Antics: The Mandalorian
• Esoteric Antics: Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian Wrap-Up
• Rise of Skywalker: Commentary Track

Don’t worry, there will be plenty more Star Wars podcasts in the future, I guarantee that!

Star Wars announced some big movie and TV show news today too. Taika Waititi is to direct his own feature film for Star Wars. This is super big news. Click the following news article link from Star Wars (dot com) to read more: Taika Waititi to Direct, Co-Write new Star Wars Film.

While not a Star Wars beer, I did enjoy reading a Star Wars book and drinking a wonderful beer in the nice sunny afternoon earlier. The beer was Blue Hippo by Boneshire Brew Works (look for a review of that soon) and the book is Star Wars: Rebel Rising by Beth Revis.

Sorry I didn’t have a new Star Wars beer to review for this, I hope you all still enjoyed the article. Let me know in the comments what your favorite Star Wars themed beers are (or even ones you’ve seen, heard of, or drank). I’m off to watch Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ with my daughter. Cheers, and May the Fourth Be With You. Always.

-B. Kline