Boneshire Brew Works Anniversary - The Beer Thrillers

Beer Reviews: French Toast Shire, Cinnamon Bun Shire, Hazelnut Shire, and Coconut Shire (Boneshire Brew Works)

BKline — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 21:20:17 +0000

Flight of Shire Stouts at Boneshire Brew Works

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.

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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Boneshire Brew Works is Celebrating it’s 5th Anniversary

BKline — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 14:44:37 +0000

Boneshire Brew Works is celebrating its 5th anniversary all Halloween weekend at their brewery on Derry Street.

Five Years

It’s hard to believe that Boneshire Brew Works is already celebrating their fifth anniversary – it honestly feels like they’ve just opened their brewery on Derry Street in Rutherford, Pennsylvania. It feels like they were just having their soft opening, sitting at the bar chatting with Alan, Alex, and Carson. And then the second day of their soft opening weekend, standing at the wall, because it was so jam packed that there was nowhere else to even stand.

And they’ve certainly come a long way too from that first soft opening day. They’ve added a second brewery – Boneshire at Soma – they’ve introduced numerous flagship favorites (like Green Machine, Testify, their LazaRIS series, the Caucus-Race series, etc.), they’ve changed the inside of their building, added food (pizzas finally!), and even survived and weathered the COVID-19 pandemic.

So its fantastic to see them still growing, still expanding, and getting to celebrate their fifth anniversary. This weekend looks like it’s going to be a blast!

Let the Party Begin!

As per yearly tradition on / around their anniversary time – Boneshire Brew Works throws a weekend party celebrating their anniversary. This year it will be Friday October 29th, 2021 through Sunday October 31st, 2021. What a perfect time to end the party – Halloween Night!

As their Facebook post reads:

Can’t believe it has been 5 years! Help us celebrate the 5 years of shenanigans starting next Friday, October 29th through October 31st. Join us for Mexican LazaRIS release, plus French Toast, Cinnamon Bun, Coconut, and Hazelnut Stouts! Food specials – Cheese Steak Pizza, Reuben Flip, and Mexican LazaRIS Chili!
Boneshire Brew Works – Facebook

Looks like quite the lineup of LazaRIS variants! Mexican LazaRIS, French Toast LazaRIS, Cinnamon Bun LazaRIS, Coconut LazaRIS, and Hazelnut LazaRIS. All sound super fantastic! (Especially – personally – looking forward to the French Toast and Cinnamon Bun ones.)

On top of this, there will be some excellent food options – Cheese Steak Pizza, Reuben Flip, and even Mexican LazaRIS chili!

And of course, this wouldn’t be a party without some live music! On Friday from 6PM to 9PM ‘Lil Brother Band’ will be in the brewery jamming out, and on Saturday from 6PM to 9PM it will be Nate Myers rocking the brewery. Be sure to check out both of them.

Its Always a Great Time

The anniversary celebrations at Boneshire Brew Works is always epic and a great time. So be sure to stop in and check it out. Past years have been amazing just as much, and I know this year’s will be too. There is so many good beer options (not just stouts – lots of other styles like IPAs and Sours as well), as well as food options, great music, and one of the most laid back and fun atmospheres. So be sure to check the party out.

Links to Bone Shire Brew Works Articles

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out our Instagram to follow along with our beer travels. Also be sure to check out the site, between beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, book reviews, board game reviews, hike travels, and more, there’s bound to be something of interest.

Stay safe, and cheers, hopefully I’ll see you at the 5th Anniversary Celebration!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)

BKline — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 20:51:00 +0000

Pigtoberfest by Boneshire Brew Works

In honor of Boneshire Brew Works celebrating their fourth anniversary tonight, I’ve decided to wait a day or two to do the final of the streaming session’s beer reviews, and instead put this review up. Also, earlier I threw up a throwback post of our beer review of This is The Way (by Broken Goblet) due to today also being the premier of Season 2 of The Mandalorian, on our Facebook page. Which, do yourself a favor, and watch it. (As soon as you finish reading this review.)

In a year where everything has happened from plagues to fires to Oktoberfest being cancelled in Germany, its great to get to celebrate Boneshire Brew Works turning 4 tonight. And its great to be celebrating it with what looks like a fantastic tap list. (I have four new ones to try out on the tap list I see.) They have, what I will have to do a review of – primarily because Alan (head brewer / co-owner) said he would never make – a smoked pumpkin bear (Gourd Damnit) as well as two new English Curse variants (one with Graham Crackers and one S’mores) – as well as a variant he’s done in the past – English Curse with Hazelnut. As well as several of their regular offerings – English Curse (regular), Tried and True, Devil’s Burden. Also, a new IPA is on the tap list – Slight Miscalculations (Mango). Interested in checking that one out as well. So, definitely a lot of great beers to try, come on out tonight and check them out. They are celebrating their 4th Anniversary all weekend.

At the end of the article, I’ll put up some of the links to our other beer reviews, and some of the news articles about Boneshire Brew Works we’ve done, like their expanding into a second taproom in Harrisburg (soon-ish).

But for now, let’s dive into this brewski.

Pigtoberfest by Boneshire Brew Works

Beer: Pigtoberfest
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Festbier
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Behold the finest Festbier this side of the Rhine. Prost!

Its hard to see from the picture because of the mug club mug, but the beer looks every bit of a cross between a marzen and a festbier. Whereas marzens tend to be more amber, festbiers tend to be a bit more on the golden side of the scale. The two styles can slightly start going towards each other (some marzens could be a bit lighter, some festbiers could be a bit darker), but typically, marzens are more amber, and festbiers are more golden. This is a bit of a mixture, it has some slight darker looks to it, but mostly golden. Perhaps the mug is distorting my view of it too, so there could be some of that, it might be lighter than I’m thinking it is, or giving it credit for. There was a slight foamy, creamy head that dispersed relatively quickly.

Aroma is bready, heady, with some spices thrown in. There’s some honey notes to it, but mostly the fall spices and the bready notes come through the most. A bit of brown sugar perhaps to round things off, hard to pinpoint it exactly.

The taste is locked on for festbier. You have your honey, your dough, your fall spices, your malt, your bread, your brown sugar, all to give it the various complexities. The complexities for this work in conjunction with each other, so its great. Sometimes a beer can be too complex or have too many ingredients, and it just doesn’t work. Here, you don’t have too many ingredients, but you do have differences and complexities, and they work together and work well. There is definite notes of honey, dough, spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, brown sugar and the malt for sweetness. There is a breadyness to it from the dough and the malt, the honey and sugar and malt give it some sweetness, and the spices give it a bit of a fun, interesting kick. This is a wonderful and great fall weather beer, and will be great tonight on their anniversary, with the rainy, dreary, damp, wet, cold weather. This will taste just right and warm you up perfectly. Make sure you stop in and try it, along with the other goodies Alan has going at Boneshire Brew Works tonight.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.82 (as of 10.30.20)

Like I said above, this whole weekend Boneshire Brew Works is celebrating their 4th Anniversary of being open. So please, come on out, support local beer and breweries and local hard working families, and drink some delicious beers.

Some Boneshire Brew Works articles:

Maybe I’ll see you out there tonight, I’ll most likely there around 6:30-7PM. Cheers!

-B. Kline

You can also see some of our other beer reviews here:

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!

Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary Celebration

BKline — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:35:00 +0000

The 3rd Anniversary Celebration banner on Boneshire Brew Work’s Facebook page

Its time to celebrate, its time to party! Its been a wonderful and amazing three years for Boneshire Brew Works; who are celebrating their rd Anniversary this weekend. Starting Friday and going into Saturday they are having a celebration to commemorate their three years of brewing.

It kicks off tonight (Thursday, 10.24.19) with a “run” and a firkin of their Tiramisu LazaRis from 5-9 with 1$ off drafts. This event sponsored by the Harrisburg Beer Runners is a preliminary kickoff to the weekend festivities. The patio will be all day and night today, Friday, and Saturday (weather permitting).

Alexis preparing to tap the Tiramisu LazaRIS firkin

The weather is supposed to be beautiful tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday, so take full advantage of the patio, and should be a beautiful night for a run up (and down) the hills. The patio is located directly in front of the Boneshire Brew Works storefront where the old parking spots were (don’t fear, there is still plenty of parking spaces to go around).

Boneshire’s new patio out front

There is several picnic areas, a large space to hang out and drink at, and cornhole set-up. There is also water dishes for dogs (or cats I suppose) and pets are welcome.

Boneshire Bew Works’ poster for their big celebration

As Boneshire Brew Works mentions and lists on their Facebook page, its been a busy week for them, with the celebration being the capper to the week. Their Facebook page listing shows events for the week as such:
* Monday: D and D with Hobert and Megan
* Tuesday: Brewery Bingo with Jared
* Wednesday: Trivia with Alexis
* Thursday: Happy Hour and Firkin
* Friday: 3rd Anniversary Kickoff with Music w/Jason Carst

Definitely sounds like a busy week, but just a normal week for Boneshire in some aspects. Its always been a busy brewery with lots of happenings and events and things to do, but its also just a fantastic place to sit back, relax, and hang out with friends (either indoors and / or now outdoors).

One of the key components of this celebration is the music. A few live music acts to help down those beers. And they are:
* Friday: Jason Carst – 7 – 9 PM
* Saturday: Nate Meyers & The Aces – 1 – 4 PM

All wonderful music acts and all definitely ones to check out.

Pumpkin LazaRIS

But lets talk about the beer. Thats what we all are really coming there for right? Well, they’ve been a bit tight-lipped about their special “one offs” and beer releases, but there has been a few rumors circulating.

The biggest leading rumors for beers on tap are LazaRIS themed. The big one being a pumpkin or pumpkin spice variant (that was released once before). There’s been several very popular variants of the LazaRIS over the years. All beloved by the Boneshire regulars (sometimes affectionately referred to as Boneheads); some of these variants were: coconut, chocolate, blood orange, vanilla, and many more.

Red Charlatan

Another rumor is the possible return of the fabled Red Charlatan. A definite must try and one of the best sours in the south Central PA area. If this is coming back, you can darn well bet I’ll be in line for that first thing.

Make sure to check out their Untappd page on your phone (or the desktop site as well; though I think its easier to do this on the mobile app) and select ‘alert all’ so you get all the updates on their tap list changes, as well as events coming up. This is a great way to keep up to date on what the current tap list is at the Boneshire Brewery.

Hopefully we’ll see you out, I know me and J. Doncevic will be there Friday, and possibly even Saturday after I get off of work I might stop in again. This is always a great weekend every year at Boneshire and a pleasure to be around so many craft beer loving enthusiasts in the area. Check out the Tiramisu firkin tonight and definitely try out whatever beers they put on tap tomorrow and Saturday, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Flight of various LazaRIS varients

So please make sure to stop out, enjoy your time, and have fun, drink responsibly, and make sure to tip your bartender. Jason, Alexis, Jared, Owen, Shawn, etc, all do a fabulous job. Make sure to give a tip of your hat to Alan for making the great beers, and seek out Carson and Alex as well as I’m sure they’ll be in the area. All do a wonderful and fantastic job at Boneshire Brew Works and all deserve lots of credit for all the hard work they do.

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Boneshire Brew Works Anniversary - The Beer Thrillers

Beer Reviews: French Toast Shire, Cinnamon Bun Shire, Hazelnut Shire, and Coconut Shire (Boneshire Brew Works)

5th Anniversary Celebration

International Stout Day

The Shire Flight

French Toast Shire

Cinnamon Bun Shire

Hazelnut Shire

Coconut Shire

Overall

Other Boneshire Brew Works Articles

Thanks For Reading

Boneshire Brew Works is Celebrating it’s 5th Anniversary

Five Years

Let the Party Begin!

Its Always a Great Time

Links to Bone Shire Brew Works Articles

Thanks For Reading

Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)

Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary Celebration