Black Flag Brewing Co - The Beer Thrillers

Beer Review: Let the Haze Flow Through You (Black Flag Brewing Co.)

B. Kline — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 12:53:50 +0000

Let the Haze Flow Through You by Black Flag Brewing Co. (with collaboration from Pherm Brewing)

So We Find Ourselves Here Again

So, we find ourselves yet again here at another Wednesday (well, technically its 11:45PM on Tuesday night and I am writing this up to start it up to finish early in the morning on Wednesday before I go to work) – and so – that means its time for another Star Wars beer review.

I debated which one to pick for this week’s episode. I was going to originally do Tall Tales Brewery’s ‘Wookies and Cream’ that we just recently had our on trip through Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. (Which you can read in the following: Big 3 Day Weekend, Big 3 Day Weekend: Friday Recap, Big 3 Day Weekend: Saturday Recap, Big 3 Day Weekend: Sunday Recap). But I decided on this… primarily though so I could get my Legos out again for a fun little photoshoot.

I do wish I had the Duel Aboard the Death Star II set, but sadly I don’t. It is one I’m looking to get soon. So this smaller Cantina set that they released, and the Desert Skiff with Sarlacc set will have to do for the photoshoot unfortunately.

Star Wars Wednesday

Since December 29th (2021), when the first episode of ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ premiered, I have been doing a Star Wars themed beer every Wednesday to review. Starting with BoBull Fett by Bolero Snort, which included us driving all the way out to New Jersey to pick it up that day.

You can read the past Star Wars Wednesday Beer Reviews here:

“Thank The Maker” (please hear that in Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO voice) that plenty of brewers seem to be nerds and Star Wars geeks too, so there is no shortage of Star Wars themed beers. You can check out the end of this article to see the full multitude of nerdy beers we’ve reviewed, as well as some book reviews, and other articles also.

And as per tradition with some past articles, I will present here a few YouTube video tie-ins with the show for everyone’s interest (and if there is anyone out there that cares about the show and wants to know a bit more about them). These videos are not mine, but I think some might find them worth the small time spent to watch them.

Star Wars Explained: Episode 4 Easter Eggs

The Danish National Symphony plays The Mandalorian Theme Song

Star Wars Explained: Who Else Might Appear in The Book of Boba Fett?

The Book of Boba Fett

I’m not going to go too heavy into thoughts and opinions and comments I want to make on ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ this week. (Or for this beer review anyway.) I started this article rather late on Tuesday. Had a friend over, had dinner, spent some time, and had some beer (Double Nugget Nectar and F*ck 2021 as Well), then after my friend left, I cracked a can of this for the review. Typically I write these articles up for the most part on Tuesday nights, wake up early (like 4-5AM) to watch the episode (it always drops at 3AM EST on Disney+), and then finish up afterwards.

And yes, I just finished watching the episode. But… I don’t really want to go into it, because I do kinda want to watch it again before making some comments on here, instead of just my gut reaction thoughts on it.

So lets move on and get to the beer review:

Beer Review

Let The Haze Flow Through You by Black Flag Brewing Company

Beer: Let the Haze Flow Through You
Brewery: Black Flag Brewing Co.
Collaborator: Pherm Brewing
Style: IPA – New England / Hazy
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: 35
Untappd Description: This Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo, Idaho 7 hopped hazy IPA is a collab with our good friends Pherm Brewing! Soft grassy melon is complimented by the oat heavy body and Idaho 7 dankness. Expect a cloud of haze to carry you home on this one!

Lets start with some background information on Black Flag Brewing Co. They are firstly a top tier brewery in Columbia MD that is a blast to visit and have been quickly moved up to the top of my list. They also lean in heavy on the nerd brand and do a lot of nerdy themed beers and beer names. According to Untappd they are a micro brewery and have 443 unique beers with over 160,000 ratings (as of 1.26.22) and have a global average rating of 3.87.

Their collaborators on this beer is Pherm Brewing. According to Untappd they are a microbrewery from Gambrils MD. They have 93 unique beers and just over 15,000 ratings and a global average rating of 3.95 (as of 1.26.22). Their Untappd description reads: Pherm Brewing Company was founded by friends based on their love of art, live music, and quality beer. We are beyond excited to have you all out for a beer and to enjoy our unique event space. Our Intent Is For Your Delight!

First had this on a trip to Columbia MD a while back and stopping in at the Black Flag brewery as part of a flight. Picked up a four pack of it to go. Glad to be able to try it out of the can as well.

Right from cracking open the can, this is a citrusy, juicy smelling beer. This is a wonderful smelling New England IPA. Soft aromas, no hop bitterness on the nose, you get gentle soft notes of citrus, melon, rind, and a bit of tangerine.

Appearance is a pretty slightly less than bright orange New England IPA look. Hazy, turbulent, but not sediment heavy. While definitely not see through, it’s nothing like a frothing storm, just cloudy and a bit hazy (with… a side of force lightening?). Also just look at that great head in those photos. Big soft pillowy cloudy head.

Oooh boy…. the haze does flow through you on this bad boy. With just a hint of crackling evil and talk of unlimited power, this New England IPA is completely on point and delicious too. It is juicy, it is fruity, it is soft, and it is delicious. This is enough to turn anyone to the Dark Side and get them force choking people and force lightening your number two’s son. (Especially if it came with a kick ass dark cloak and robe.) Immediate notes of citrus hit you as you take your first sips of this, followed by notes of melon, rind, and a wee bit of tangerine. Some soft notes of slight earthy hops, a small bit of grass and pine, give it a soft balance around all the fruit tastes. Big time fan of Black Flag’s IPAs, and this is proof why. Just tremendous flavor and a very robust and full IPA. Knocking the New England style right out of the Death Star on this one. This is worth having clones of your body left over on Exegol for a stupid future storyline involving your clone kid’s daughter that was hidden from you and trained by Luke… oh…. I went off on a tangent there…. my apologies…. Moving along….. This is very soft, tasty, nothing bitter, nothing cloying, a really good mouthfeel, and a wonderful smelling beer. The carbonation, the head on the beer, the lacing on the glass, and the look of the beer are all great. Big taste and big flavor, nothing off putting, nothing off the flavor profile, and no horrific aftertaste. Just a great brew all around.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 1.26.22)

So Your a Nerd Huh?

So…. your a nerd huh and love to read about nerd and pop culture themed beer reviews do you? Well, we got the beer reviews for you then. Check them out here:

Star Wars:

Rick and Morty:

Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Space Balls:

Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)

The Simpsons:

Back to the Future:

Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Scrooged:

Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

A Christmas Story:

Pro Wrestling:

Matrix:

Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

Seinfeld:

Other:

Book of Fett Man

So whats everyone’s thoughts on the show so far? Five episodes down, and only two to go. Are you enjoying it? Living up to expectations? Big fan or disappointed? Let me know in the comments or on our social media platforms!

Mara’s Birthday

I’d like to close with a quick shoutout to my youngest daughter turning 9 years old today. Mara Ariel was born in a blizzard but with a warm heart that has been a love-bug and a social butterfly ever since. Named after Mara Jade from the old Star Wars EU canon (first Hand of the Emperor, and later Luke’s wife). You can actually see her in the background of the photo on my beer review for Sunburst by Boneshire.

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading everyone. Hope you all enjoyed reading this review and I hope the cold months find you all staying warm. Until next time,

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you!

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Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Co.)

BKline — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 16:52:10 +0000

Airing of Grievances by Black Flag Brewing Company in Columbia Maryland

Happy Festivus

Happy Festivus everyone! Its finally here!

Happy Festivus

Its always a joyous time of year, to get together with friends, and family, and celebrate Festivus! December 23rd is the day to honor the rest of us, with the best holiday thats ever happened – Festivus. Its the time to spend with family, friends; to gather around your table and enjoy a small feast, set up an aluminum pole with a good strength to weight ratio, and to air all of those grievances you’ve had with everyone… before you select one person for your feats of strength.

So grab your aluminum pole, get your friends together, air your grievances, call H&H Bagel and tell them you’re on strike, and await a Festivus miracle – because who knows, you might be called out for the feats of strength and you might need it.

Airing of Grievances

What are some of your grievances you need to air? With family and friends? Or with the beer industry? Or with life in general? COVID-19 is still getting a large share of my grievances in 2021. Especially this new Omicron variant. Human beings are definitely getting a large amount of my grievances as well. The craft beer’s misogynistic worldview that is slowly changing (but not fast enough) is a large grievance for many in the industry (myself included). The lack of diversification. Etc. Etc. Etc.

So what are yours?

Black Flag Brewing Company

Black Flag Brewing Company has been on my radar for a long time now. Known for using pop cultural and nerd culture references for a while, they first hit my radar when they did a Final Fantasy series a while back, particularly their ‘Black Mage’ beer. We first got to check them out back in October when we did our travels through Columbia Maryland after the Brewfest for MS.

You can read more about our travels that day here: Going Hysteric Through Columbia Maryland – Brewfest for MS, Hysteria Brewing Company, Sapwoods Brewing, and Black Flag Brewing.

So leading up to this week, we had a couple of choice places to go and get some ‘Festivus’ or ‘Seinfeld’ style beers. Second Sin Brewing in Bristol released a Seinfeld themed beer – “Cherry Seinfeld”. And Icarus Brewing released a Feats of Strength stylized beer called ‘Treats of Strength’. And of course, Black Flag released ‘Airing of Grievances’. I did the online ordering of Icarus Brewing Company’s ‘Treats of Strength’ along with their Festivus glass – and it got delivered to a friend’s cousin’s house. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get it from them until after Christmas break. But don’t worry – we’ll definitely be doing a review of it.

What we decided to do, was go do a tour of Maryland again. Which you can read here: Ambling Around Annapolis Rocks, Frederick, and Columbia Maryland: Annapolis Rocks, Attaboy Beer, Idiom Brewing, Steinhardt Brewing, Smoketown Creekside, The Brewer’s Art Tavern, and Black Flag Brewing.

I also got to pick up the new Star Wars themed beer – “Let the Haze Flow Through You” while at Black Flag as well (though, the other Star Wars themed beer – “This Isn’t the Haze You’re Looking For” was sold out), so it was certainly a double win, and a wonderful trip. (I can guarantee you will see a beer review of that on the blog as well, don’t you worry.)

But enough preambling, let’s discuss the brewery itself.

The back wall at Black Flag Brewing Company

Black Flag Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Columbia, Maryland. (An hour and 30 to hour and 45 minutes south of Harrisburg Pennsylvania.) According to Untappd it has 432 unique beers with a total of 157,180 ratings, and a global average rating of 3.87 as of 12.23.21. They have no brewery description listed on Untappd.

They are known for a lot of unique and nerdy beer names, such as ‘Nerd Herder’, ‘Black Mage’, ‘Airing of Grievances’, ‘Z. Morris’, ‘K. Kapowski’, ‘Let the Haze Flow Through You’, etc. They definitely have a ‘geeky’ or ‘nerd – chic’ (or ‘geek – chic’ or whatever cool modern hipster naming they use nowadays) vibe to their brewery. I’ve gotten to get to the brewery twice now, and have enjoyed all of the beers, and definitely dig the vibe. The first time we went was a late Saturday night, and loved sitting at the bar, and the second time we went was on a Thursday during the dinner hours and got a table and it was a jumping full bar. Both were great experiences, and both times we left with beer to take back to PA.

Beer Review

Alright, alright, arlight. Lets finally get to the beer review… its why you’re probably here anyway right?

So lets do it then!

Airing of Grievances by Black Flag Brewing Co.

Beer: Airing of Grievances
Brewery: Black Flag Brewing Co.
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 9%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This amped up version of our classics gingerbread stout features deep chocolate and coffee notes inherent to the malt build with a robust addition of nutmeg, gingerbread, and milk sugar to give ample flavor.

This smells like you just kicked over and stomped on some poor little kid’s gingerbread house. Or you just bit the head off your little sister’s gingerbread man and play – acted like it had no head and was now a headless zombie wandering around the countryside looking to zombify the townsfolk on Christmas morning…. ….not that I would ever have done anything like that. Just saying…. But anyway, yes, the aroma on this bad boy is strong nutmeg, strong cinnamon, strong stout notes,

Appearance is a dark black, a Nietzsche ‘staring into the void’ black, a ‘Razor Ramon hair’ black. Black as my ex-wife’s soul black. (Oooh… that might be a bit too dark, huh? Maybe thats somebody’s grievance to air this year… aha! See how I segued that right back to the beer? Boom! Nailed it…. moving on….) This is a dark, creamy looking stout, with a very full heavy brown to tannish head. The bubbles are varied and interspersed, and it left lovely lacing down the glass. Even when I had it as a taster in the brewery it had a lovely head to it, and looked overall creamy.

This one is gonna hit you strong and hard and fast with that nutmeg and ginger and cinnamon. You are getting a hammer to the face Thor style with strong waves of gingerbread house goodness. It might be a bit too intense for some, and it is a bit heavy. There’s also a bit of a coffee bitterness to this that underlies it all as well, so that really seems to kick up the ante on the ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg, making this a bit strong for some. The milk sugar does add a creaminess to this, a light, softening to it, but the nutmeg, ginger, and coffee really hits hard and strong and powers through it. The stout base is very good, its strong, and its a heavy hitter, but at 9% its not too powerful as to kill you on the booziness or make your head swim. There is nothing cloying or too sweet, nothing off putting, and the mouthfeel is just right, a heavy dense beer with no papery watery-ness to it. There’s no off flavors or anything off putting. No horrible aftertaste, but you will get strong ‘ginger burps’ from this (and possibly even hiccups as my friend did). This is the perfect beer to cozy up to on a cold Festivus night after you’ve defeated the weakest family member in a feat of strength, and you’ve aired all of your grievances with everyone, and finally kicked them all out of your wretched home, to get to sit down and relax. Possibly watch the newest Matrix movie on HBO Max (which will most likely get added to your grievance list for 2022), or watch the Thursday Night football game, or just avoid all human contact due to the Omicron variant running rampant. No matter how you celebrate Festivus this year, this would be a welcomed addition to it, as its a terrific and wonderful stout. I imagine it would pair perfectly with cookies and hurt feelings (due to the grievances being aired). Just make sure that pole has a strong strength to weight ratio. As you might need it if you kill a four pack of these bad boys on your own.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.79 (as of 12.23.21)

Lets Celebrate

So what’s everyone doing today to celebrate Festivus? I’m wrapping this article up (11:29AM), and will soon be heading out to finish getting the last second stuff for my daughter’s stockings. (Already got their gifts, have no fear, I won’t be reaching for a doll, and fighting a man for it, and coming to the conclusion that there has to be another way…). What brewery or beer shenanigans is everyone getting up into?

In the meantime, enjoy some of these Festivus related GIFs. (I had to include them in the article. Had. To. Just. Plain. Out. Had. To. Its like a law or something. Seinfeld and Festivus by extension was made for GIFs at a time when there really wasn’t even GIFs. Oh, to go back to the 90s and watch Seinfeld again as a young teen and fall in love with it, before the internet was what it is now. Back in the days of AOL dial-up sounding like a beached whale getting stepped on, or before AIM and leaving some kind of ridiculous ‘BRB’ message, etc.)

Anyway, I present to you some Festivus GIFs:

Its a Festivus Miracle! A bunch of Festivus related GIFs!

Icarus Festivus

For those curious about the Icarus Festivus beer I mentioned earlier – Treats of Strength – my friend’s cousin has picked it up, along with the Festivus glass. They will be returning after Christmas, so I should be able to get my grubby little hands on it sometime before the new year, and will hopefully have a review of it up before then. (Crazy to think that just tomorrow will be December 24th – Christmas Eve – already, and after that Christmas, then a week until News Year Eve / New Years Day).

Anyway, here is a picture Icarus Brewing posted today to celebrate Festivus:

Icarus Brewing – Treats of Strength

Want More Seinfeld?

Want more Seinfeld? (Don’t we all! And obviously Netflix did considering the huge deal they signed just to have it on their network!) Want to know some background history on Festivus? Well here you go.

This is an article from Mental Floss about 9 things you didn’t know about Festivus:

9 Grievance Worthy Facts about Festivus You Might Not Know About (Mental Floss)

Our review of a Seinfeld related beer:

Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)

Happy for Christmas, or are you a Scrooge? Here’s two more Christmas themed beers we’ve reviewed:

For More Pop Culture / Nerd Culture / Popular Beer Names

Looking for more interesting beer names? References to something obscure and different? Well, we’ve covered plenty here on The Beer Thrillers. Check them out below:

Star Wars:

Rick and Morty:

Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Space Balls:

Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)

The Simpsons:

Back to the Future:

Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Scrooged:

Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

A Christmas Story:

Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)

Pro Wrestling:

Matrix:

Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

Seinfeld:

Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Other:

Thanks For Reading

As always, thank you everyone for reading. Do you have comments, suggestions, questions? Airing of grievances? Issues with the blog? Is the site working good? Something you’d like to see us review, write about, read, etc? Let us know in the comments section here on the blog. Also be sure to check out all of our social media pages (listed below).

I’m heading out to do some last second Christmas shopping, and to celebrate Festivus. I would like to wish everyone a very happy holidays, a wonderful Happy Festivus, a Merry Christmas, and everything else. I should have a post tomorrow night that will be Christmas related (you’ll have to wait and see!). And I’m back to work on Christmas day, but I might be posting something in the morning. Who knows. We’ll see.

Until then, I hope you are able to defeat your challenger(s) in the feats of strength today, so you can end Festivus.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Airing of Grievances (taster at the brewery, and can at home)