Bottle - The Beer Thrillers

Sweet ‘n’ Savory

AmyMWolfe — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 16:07:47 +0000

Being Able to Find the Perfect Mix of Sweet and Savory Feels Like a Miracle

Being able to find the perfect mix of sweet and savory feels like a miracle. This necessarily doesn’t mean that it must include something spicy but that is always an option.

I’ve been told recently that spicy doesn’t have to be scary, so be daring with me if you tend to shy away from the heat. But I won’t be doing that this evening, ha!

Homer drooling over a hamburger

I’m writing on here about paring foods from time to time. One thing I get stuck on is either find flavors that are matchy or find flavors that are complimenting but different. One random night after work. Ya know, when your exhausted but just need some sort of nourishment. We grabbed Pillar of Beasts from 3 Floyds Brewing at West Connection Beer Vault (we had picked this up in a mix a six, alongside several others, including the recent pumpkin beers I had with Grandma SueAnn) to have with burgers and onions from the grilled and garlicky sauteed green beans.

It. Was. Amazing.

I legit wasn’t picking this out on purpose. It was an evening where we grabbed beer and some food to shove down our tired gullets to try to make it through the week. First of all; barleywine. It’s a favorite so we knew we couldn’t go wrong. It was the perfect combo of sweet and savory. The flavors mixed so well until I realized they were all gone.

This comes rocking in at a 13.7% ABV according to Untapped. This definitely qualifies as a BIG DAMN BEER! #BDB

Homer Drooling over beer and food

Pillar of Beasts has a 4.21 overall rating (on Untappd) and is described as “Our latest Barleywine Ale brewed with Salted Caramel, vanilla beans, and cocoa nibs then aged for 12 months in bourbon barrels. Taste the scrumptiousness.” You can see our post on Instagram about the beer here: Pillars of Beast – The Beer Thrillers on Instagram. (Please be sure to give us a follow on Instagram. Thank you!)

Pillar of Beasts by 3 Floyds Brewing with dinner

Pairing the sweet barleywine with a savory burger and garlicky green beans was one of the best decisions I’ve made since I decided to date the creator of The Beer Thrillers.

Drink More Beer!
- Amy

Amy’s Column Series

Thank You For Reading

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MAPS OF BREWERIES

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The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of August 2024.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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Pillar of Beats by 3 Floyds Brewing (photo courtesy of Untappd)

Toppling Goliath to Release Naughty Temple

B. Kline — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 13:12:10 +0000

Toppling Goliath to Release Naughty Temple

Introducing Naughty Temple: an amber-colored ale aged to perfection in whiskey barrels. This bold craft beer boasts an impressive 12.9% ABV and will be available in 22oz bottles. Stay tuned for release details!

Exploring Toppling Goliath: A Craft Beer Giant

Toppling Goliath Brewing Company, located in Decorah, Iowa, has made a significant impact on the craft beer scene since its founding in 2009. Renowned for its bold and innovative brews, Toppling Goliath has garnered a loyal following and numerous accolades. The brewery’s commitment to quality and creativity has set it apart, making it a must-visit destination for craft beer enthusiasts.

One of the standout beers from Toppling Goliath is the King Sue Double IPA, a powerful and hoppy brew that showcases the brewery’s expertise in hop-forward beers. Another fan favorite is the Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout, a rich and complex beer aged in bourbon barrels, which consistently ranks among the best stouts in the world. These flagship offerings, along with a rotating selection of seasonal and limited-edition beers, ensure that there’s always something exciting on tap at Toppling Goliath.

In addition to its impressive beer lineup, Toppling Goliath is known for its vibrant community engagement and support of local events. The brewery’s taproom in Decorah is a welcoming space where visitors can enjoy fresh pours, brewery tours, and special events. Toppling Goliath’s dedication to both its craft and its community has solidified its reputation as one of the top craft breweries in the United States.

Thank You For Reading

If you like this article, please check out our other many articles, including news, beer reviews, travelogues, maps, and much much more. We greatly appreciate everyone visiting the site!

Cheers.

MAPS OF BREWERIES

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

Beer Review: Grace (Boneshire Brew Works)

B. Kline — Sun, 08 May 2022 12:37:00 +0000

Grace by Boneshire Brew Works

Happy Mothers Day

Lets first start this off with doing a big shout out to all the mothers out there. We wouldn’t be here without them. (Quite literally.) So we here at The Beer Thrillers acknowledge and congratulate all the mothers – we know its not easy. (Ask my mom, she would gladly tell you horror stories of raising…. not me of course, my sister. I was an angel. Perfect child. Clearly the favorite. My sister on the other hand…. *shivers*.)

The flowers at Grammy’s grave

Every year around this time my grandmother’s peony bush blooms out front. So I cut off some of the flowers, and cut off some similar flowers (this year I cut a few branches of the dogwood and some azalea flowers) and took them out to grammy’s grave. Peonies bloom around early – middle of May and don’t last super long, but have wonderful beautiful flowers and a great aroma. You can read more on them here at Wikipedia: Peony. (Quick fun fact: The peony is named after Paeon [also spelled Paean], a student of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing. In Greek mythology, when Asclepius became jealous of his pupil, Zeus saved Paeon from the wrath of Asclepius by turning him into the peony flower.)

Yesterday we celebrated Mothers Day at my parents house and I brought my girls over. As per tradition whenever we all get together, we typically play some form of board game or card game. The girls love Organ Attack so we played that with my mom.

Playing Organ Attack with the girls and their MawMaw

Organ Attack was created by the writer of The Awkward Yeti, Nick Seluk. I reviewed one of his comic books here: Book Review: The Heart and Brain (The Awkard Yeti) (by Nick Seluk). The card game is fun, and gets my daughters all in a fiery mood fighting each other to remove and eliminate their organs. It is a fun game, that does help the girls learn a little bit about anatomy (like what diseases target what organs, what the organs do, etc.). There is some awkward moments though, like giving my mom cancer – something that she has survived three different forms. But in true champion and warrior form, we turn it all into jokes and my mom laughs, especially when she got to play the Medicine card on it and remove it. She even joked that it was easier than chemotherapy again.

All in all, mothers day was a lot of fun (well technically Mothers Day Eve, but it was our mothers day). Can’t beat a day spent with family, playing games, delivering flowers, little things like this in life is what’s nice. Like Kurt Vonnegut would say quoting his uncle (Bernard Vonnegut): “If this isn’t nice, what is?”

Boneshire Brew Works

(Pigtoberfest by Boneshire Brew Works)

Anyone familiar with the blog knows that Boneshire Brew Works is my local go to brewery. Its about four minutes from home and all but within walking distance. (Rubber Soul is another, also within walking distance.) Needless to say we have covered many beer reviews by them: Sunburst, Pigtoberfest, Dillston, Harrishire, Fall Hippo, Blue Hippo, AuZealand 2.0, Tried and True (Mango), Caucus Race 6.0, The Hog, Long Tongue Liar, Pandemic Pils , Iscariot, Road Less Traveled, Good Walk Spoiled, S’Mores, LazaRIS, and reviewed the flight of Shire variants; we’ve also covered them in various news articles: Boneshire Brew Works Celebrates 5th Anniversary, Pigtoberfest 2021, Boneshire Brew Works Expands With Second Location, Boneshire Brew Works Celebrates 3 Years, Brewery Hopping – 12.27.19, and Breweries around Harrisburg Area (2019).

Soooo….. yea….. I would say we’ve covered quite a few of their brews here on the blog.

And all for good reason – they make some really wonderful beers. Grace (this beer) included. So when I heard they were releasing a special barrel aged beer – and that it was named Grace – I couldn’t slap my money down fast enough for this beaut. It was first released for sale for us mug club members, and then went on sale to the public after that. It was 20$ for the bottle.

From Untappd – Boneshire Brew Works is a microbrewery from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They have 189 unique beers. They have 41,401 ratings with a global average rating of 3.84 (as of 5.8.22). Their Untappd description reads: “Welcome to Boneshire Brew Works. We are located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Derry Street. Soon you will be able to have our beer and sodas throughout Central Pennsylvania, as they are already flowing in our tasting room. Follow us for updates on beer releases, events, and brewery happenings through your favorite social media site.”

Beer Review

Grace by Boneshire Brew Works

Beer: Grace
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Wild Ale – American
ABV: 7.5% / 6%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Description: We brewed this beer several years ago and put it to sleep in American Chardonnay barrels with 2 strains of Brettanomyces. This beer is very complex with orange marmalade, subtle coriander spice, dry oakiness, heavy Brett funk and slight sourness.

This is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful beer. Lovely in appearance, aroma, taste, everything, it just nails it. As per always with my beer reviews, I do it in the order of – appearance, aroma, taste. (Or at least I try to remember to do it that way. No guarantees.) [But have no fears, for this review I am.]

Starting off with the appearance – like I said, its beautiful. Its got a light reddish golden like hue. It has a very striking resemblance to some wines of the lighter scale. its fluorescent in a way, and completely clear. No sediment, no floaties, no deposits. Nice carbonation, slight small head that retains for a fair bit.

Aroma is an interesting mix of wine, Belgian, saison, and a mixture of other notes. Notes of the coriander spice, the grape, the oak, and lots of the chardonnay, gives off the heavy wine like impressions, but the coriander spice and the Brett aroma also gives off strong Belgian and Wilde Ale / Saison impressions as well; making this a wonderfully complex beer.

This is a deliciously tart, mildly puckering, wine like beer, designed for a classier age (not like those blasters they use in uncivilized times). It is a gorgeous looking beer, looks very wine like, and has just a wonderful appearance straight from the bottle to the glass, and undoing wax sealed bottles is always fun. (Really, there’s gotta be an easy way to unseal waxed and sealed bottles, but I haven’t found it yet.) The carbonation on this was nice, and the overall appearance is a medley of wine and Belgian styles, so I dig that. The bottle says its 6% ABV, but the Untappd listing for it says its 7.5%. This has a very complex overall taste to it. Its got a lot of wine attributes and tastes; you get a heavy dosage of oak, grape, Brett, funk, tart, with a dryness, and then you get some subtle notes of coriander spice, orange and orange marmalade, The tartness and dryness to the beer really holds it up well and keeps the medley of different flavors in a very nice sipping beer; this is a perfect dinner beer to share with someone over a nice course meal. This isn’t mean to be a sessionable or poundable beer that you have with your buddies while watching the Phillies blow another game or something similar, this is meant to be a lovely dinner beer, with candlelight, nice music, steak, mashed potatoes, garlic green beans, etc. Thats what makes it so enjoyable too, knowing the work and craftsmanship that went into this beer, making it such a delicious, well rounded beer, adds to the overall enjoyment of the beer itself; knowing that it was worked on hard, that it was barrel aged, that time was spent on this beer, all adds to its overall quality and flavor. Its the small enjoyable things like this – knowing that someone cares about their work and craft – that makes the moments and beer like this so much better. All in all, the flavors work so well, the aroma is lovely, the appearance of the beer is wonderful, and everything about this beer is just great.

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.95 (as of 5.8.22)

Grandma’s and Mothers

Its so nice to get to celebrate Mothers Day and thank my mom for all she has done for me, for my girls, for my sister, and as a teacher all she has done for everyone else. My Grandma (Grammy) Grace was just as much a mother figure helping raise me as I grew up, and so was my Great Grandma – Florence Speck. All three of these women are / and were – such tough as nails ladies, who never gave up. My great grandma passed away at 99, after a long fight of dementia and alzheimers, my mom has survived several fights against cancer.

Its a nice nod to my Grammy that I got to do a beer review with a beer with her name. I think she would have been tickled pink by that. I got to do one for my Great Grandma as well – Florence by Hill Farmstead. I know she would have laughed about that, she loved stealing my dad’s beers when he still lived at home with them and going to college.

So let me just say one last time – Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there who are doing such a wonderful job.

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading everyone. I know this was a bit of a longer winded review, but nice thing is you can always just scroll by my extra crap and get right to the beer review if you’d like. I tend to meander, my apologies for that. I do enjoy everyone indulging me though on all that, especially a beer like this.

I hope you enjoyed the review, and if you have any comments, questions, or anything else, let me know in the comments or contact us through the contact page or e-mail us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. We love to hear from you all!

Thanks for reading, Happy Mothers Day, and cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

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Beer Review: B-52 Belgian Dubbel (Bottle-Conditioned, 2017) – Cox Brewing Company (CBC)

joshdoncevic — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 21:21:25 +0000

It’s winter here in PA, and making it more apparent than ever that it is that time of year is SNOW. On the ground. Actual white, powdery, cold, SNOW. The fact that the temperature has plummeted into the lower 30’s is just the icing on this very chilly cake. With projected depths of 24″ in places, it’s time to settle in and ride out this “Snowpocalypse”. However, at the time of writing this, we’re sitting at modest 2″ just after 5pm. As with the colder months, glasses of heavier and thicker alcohols must be filled, if only to trick the brain into thinking we’ll get warmer. Stouts are typical and almost expected this time of year, but I’m not one to always follow the trend. Winter Ales exist for a good reason, though the subject of this review goes a step further. I’m especially referring to Belgian beer styles. Dubbels, Tripels, and Quads are among those heaviest of hitters. Three beer styles that can range anywhere from 9-15% and still come off impossibly smooth and delicate. Just don’t try to stand up too fast…or at all if you’ve had more than one. Perhaps then it seems fitting that I suggest you sip those styles of beers on a “night in” when you’re able to get regrettably pants drunk and don’t have to be seen or heard from at any local venues or watering holes. Wait…this is 2020, so what the heck am I talking about?! Let’s crack open a bottle and find out.

The mighty B-52 Stratofortress

Just before we crack on, I would like to set the scene a little. The beer that I am about to write a review for is the better part of three years old. Because of that, I am going to elaborate more than normal as this is decidedly not an IPA and as such, deserves a little more time and effort spent waxing philosophic. You’ll want to strap in.

The Beer

Beer: B-52 Belgian Dubbel (Bottle-Conditioned, 2017)
Brewery: Cox Brewing Company (CBC)
Style: Belgian Dubbel
ABV: 7.7%
IBU: 10
Untappd Description: A smoked Belgian Dubbel, bottle conditioned one year before release and aged with raisins.
Enjoy In: Tulip, Snifter
Enjoy At: 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit or 30,000ft

The last dram

The Review

It’s 2017 and a friend of mine has asked me to join him and his father at a small brewery in Rheems, PA. Back then I had never heard of Cox Brewing Company, much less tried any of their beer. However, it’s local brewery and I’m more than willing to check a new place out. We pull into an industrial and farm looking part of town and up to what appeared to be a hole in the wall. The kind of place that only those that were “in-the-know” frequented. And there we were, walking into a crowded and cramped garage that was abuzz with conversation. The whole time I was wondering just how good the beer was, but after the first sip, all doubt fled through that same garage door and I began enjoying myself. Spent a few moments scanning the chalkboard menu and spotted something very interesting. I was going to choose by name, and then I noticed the style. WOAH! “Dubbel” Now there’s something you don’t find very often. While being very happy to see the style, I have to admit I was still a bit of a sceptic. My personal experience with US brewed Belgian styles has been a bit spotty at best. Not many breweries seem to be able to replicate the unique taste found in Belgian beers. So naturally, I did what any beer nerd would do: I ordered a pint. I remember being very glad I was sitting down as much fresher versions of the flavors I’ll depict later washed over me. I enjoyed it so much that I vowed then and there that I would be back to buy two bottles, because only a fool would buy one. I returned a week later, making good on my promise. One of those bottles was had two years ago, and thought it unlikely that it would get any better.

Fast forward those two years and I finally popped the cork on the last bottle that had been sleeping in my cellar ever since. It doesn’t feel like it’s been three years, but with the way 2020 has gone, time is a mere construct, and a fickle one to be sure. Regardless, after carefully coaxing the cage and cork from the glass bottle, the sound of bubbles frothing and bursting echoed forth from the long neck to the tune of a Geiger counter. The effects of the beer contained within wasn’t quite so nuclear, though it will blow away the day’s stress or the frigid temperatures outside. This is a sipping beer in much the way that relaxation and a comfortable lounging chair are the quintessential furnishings of an in home get-a-way. The bottle reads 7.7% but with the way it drinks, you’d swear it was hovering just above the mid 5% range. Either way this beer doesn’t wash down the throat like either of those as it slips easily beyond the tongue and tonsils (if you still have them), down the esophagus and into a waiting stomach. Tickling your nose isn’t the sensation of bubbles popping but the rich, almost candied essence of raisins toiling and rising with a very mild and light smoke. And now to look at the gentle fluid now occupying space in your vessel of choice. A gorgeous, deep ruby red hue briefly accompanied by a coarse, thin, light brown head that evaporates shortly after being poured. Open the hatch, over the gums, and bathe your tongue in liquid bliss, as the taste buds pull out sweet notes of the raisins your nose sniffed out, laced with a subtle, yet comfortable smokiness. The concept might sound a little weird at first, but I assure that this combination not only works, it’s downright delicious. For having such heavy flavors and notes, this is a beer that disappears from your glass and you’re left wondering where it all went and why it’s all gone. Don’t stand up. Allow me to repeat myself a little louder: DO. NOT. STAND. UP. Not only will you likely stumble if you’ve downed the bottle yourself (which I may or may not have done in this case), but you’ll ruin the cozy, warm feeling you’ve likely built up while reclining in your favor chair. Allow the rich flavor to linger and envelope you as you sink deeper into that recliner. Relax and let your mind wander. Oh for that last sorrowful dram of sweet release, how does it linger. A slow flavor evolution that ends with hints of milk chocolate. Odd? Yes, but given that raisins appear in the flavor profile, chocolate only bolsters the thickness of this flavor. This was well worth the wait, so perhaps I should be happy there was snow as I would have left this one to age even further. Prost!

Only proper glassware will do

My Untappd Score: ****-1/4
Global Rating: 4.21/5 (as of 12/17/2020)

PROST!

J.Doncevic

Beer Review: Haze Charmer (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)

BKline — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 15:03:28 +0000

Haze Charmer (in bottle) by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing, at The Mill in Hershey before the Seinfeld Stand-Up Show at the Hershey Theater (March 6th, 2020).

I debated this morning on which beer to do next. I have a few on the ‘docket’ from Friday. At Funck’s, while waiting for my daughter’s ballet class to end, I had Icicle by New Trail and their Cinnamon Barrel Aged Sticky. Both of those are ones I want to review. Also, I don’t normally do flagship beers; or full yearly releases and stuff. And thats what Haze Charmer is – its Troeg’s first new yearly in four years. But, I wanted to do a beer from Friday, and wanted to do tie it in with Seinfeld, so I figured the more recent beer I had before going. Plus, lets me do a bit of promotion for The Mill as well as handle a popular buzz-worthy beer (the Haze Charmer). I don’t normally like to do back-to-back beers from the same brewery; so I might break up the New Trail beers. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the Sticky and then Tuesday try one of the California beers to do, then Wednesday do Icicle.

I do like to help promote local businesses and restaurants when I can; so helping out both Troegs and The Mill is kind of a win-win. And since Haze Charmer is pretty darn good, it’ll make for a good beer review. Especially since there’s a fair bit of history to do with this beer, since like Nimble Giant and some of their other beers its started off life as a scratch beer and gone through several iterations before becoming the beer you might be drinking right now.

Troegs Brewing promotional piece for Haze Charmer (photo from Troegs Brewing)

Upon its release, this certainly got lots of media attention. Hitting all kinds of news outlets, beer blogs, beer sites, from everything from little blogs to big news sites (locally). PennLive, NewsBreak, MyBeerBuzz, BrewFinder, BrewBound, TheFullPint, etc, etc, etc. So needless to say, it’s gotten a fair amount of buzz. For good reason too. I’ll provide some links to their various sites at the end of this review – though be forewarned, I’ve come to discover most of them are just the exact same article; basically a written press release by Troegs and then copied and pasted by the various media outlets. (If you take note on this blog, I do my own news articles, I don’t like doing press release copy and paste jobs.)

My primary source for information on this beautiful beer comes from the Troegs Blog itself. Where they discuss its process a bit more in-depth (though they don’t list which exact Scratches this was, I’ve done some digging, and think I can piece it together.) Using on Untappd, I searched Troegs Beers and filtered it for “PALE ALE” and selected Newest to Oldest. And based on logos, and descriptions of “hazy pale ale” I think I’ve broken down its chain of scratches:

* Scratch 404 – Scratch 404 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale #6
* Scratch 403 – Scratch 403 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale #5
* Scratch 401 – Scratch 401 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale #4
* Scratch 399 – Scratch 399 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale

There’s also a few other scratch pale ales:

* Scratch 398 – Scratch 398 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale #2
* Scratch 397 – Scratch 397 – Dry-Hopped Hazy Pale Ale
* Scratch 396 – Scratch 396 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale
* Scratch 393 – Scratch 393 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale (Azacca, Comet & Idaho 7)
* Scratch 390 – Scratch 390 – Amarillo Fresh Hop Ale
* Scratch 374 – Scratch 374 – Oat Pale Ale (w/ Azacca, Citra & Denali)

Going back further, there is even more scratches. There’s also the Trail Day Pale Ale they released in 2019, that I reviewed. I also reviewed Scratch 396 – Dry Hopped Pale Ale; as part of a flight and beer review I did a while back as well. So looking back over those, you get a semblance of an idea where they were going with the creation of this new Haze Charmer. According to Untappd Troegs has 33 Pale Ale – American beers, 5 Pale Ale – Belgians, and 1 Pale Ale – New England variants. The New England was the precursor for the Trail Day Pale Ale that they released in cans: Scratch 380 – Trail Day Dry-hopped Pale Ale.

Most of their listings are the non-specific; Pale Ale – American Ale. Which is the typical default standard setting for pale ales (made in America). Though, with the “haze” and the “flaked oats” and stuff of a few of these pale ales, they could fall under the category of “Pale Ale – New England”, so its interesting to see that they have just one listed that way.

Haze Charmer bottle / can label and brewing notes. (Image originally courtesy of Troeg’s website, this version came by way of MyBeerBuzz through Troegs.)

I love how Troegs’ lists what hops, oats, grain, yeast strain, etc, that they use in their brewing process. Gives homebrewers some ideas of how to make their own near-clones and gives you a look at the process, a peak behind the curtain if you will. So let’s first take a look at the hops included in this beer.

Hops included are: Comet, Azacca, and Idaho 7.
First up on our list is Comet:

“Comet’s flavor profile rests heavily on a strong accent of grapefruit. It does feature solid bittering capabilities and traditionally brewers considered it best suited as a bittering agent for American-style lagers. Recently however, there has been a surge in its use as a dry-hop in ales and IPA’s.” (Hopslist – Comet)

Next up is Azacca:
“Even with its high alpha acids, Azacca still works well as a dual-use hop, giving off a pleasant mix of tropical fruits kissed with citrus. On the palate it’s particularly spicy, with mango, pineapple and some pine and tangerine-esque qualities. It has also been likened in nature to some New Zealand-bred varieties.” (Hopslist – Azacca)

Last is Idaho 7:
“Idaho #7 hops are known for their piney, tropical, fruity, citrusy, earthy, and floral flavors and aromas. Typically used as an Aroma/Flavor hop with high alpha acid levels and average cohumulone content. Its strong hop character makes it ideal for IPAs, APAs and any other hop forward beer.” (MoreBeer – Idaho 7)

Now we’re starting to piece together this beer. Getting an idea of how it ticks. We’re going to skip over the yeast involved, primarily because there’s not much to discuss. And for homebrewers its not something they can really do anything with. The label lists the yeast strain as “DIPA Ale”, meaning their in house Double IPA strain. It is important to point out that their using a Double IPA yeast strain rather than a regular IPA yeast strain, so their using a strain able to handle a higher ABV and hop usage (even though Haze Charmer only clocks in at 5.5% ABV).

Moving to the grains, they list: Pale Malt Oats and Unmalted Wheat.

For Pale Malt Oats, Deer Creak Malt House has this:
“Pale Oats are versatile with plenty of character for Saison or Pale Ale recipes. Also well suited to add body and mouth-feel to Stout, Porter, and IPA recipes” (Deer Creek Malthouse – Pale Malt Oats)

Northern Brewer has this to say about Unmalted Wheat:
“This is raw wheat kernels that haven’t been malted – perfect for some traditional styles like Wit and Lambic. It adds a ton of mouthfeel and provides a very cloudy finished beer in a Wit or Hefeweizen. A multi-step or decoction mash is recommended.” (Northern Brewer – Unmalted Wheat)

I think we got a good idea what kind of beer we have now. We’ve broken down the scratch beer process to get from Point A to Point B; we’ve taken a look at the ingredients – hops, yeast, grain; now its just time to actually sit back, drink it, and review it!

Haze Charmer by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing at The Mill, in Hershey PA

Beer: Haze Charmer
Brewery: Troegs Independnt Brewing
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: Haze Charmer emerges from a soft, swirling cloud of oats and unfiltered wheat. Vigorous dry-hopping adds a second phase of Haze, propping up the oils of El Dorado and Citra hops. Each step delivers notes of juicy pineapple, fresh grapefruit and candied peach balanced by a hint of white pine and low bitterness. We taste: juicy pineapple, fresh grapefruit, candied peach, hint of white pine.

Firstly, let me say this paired wonderfully with The Mill burger and fries. Love my hamburgers rare, and this was practically still mooing. Good delicious bloody, where I need the fries to soak up all the grease and fat and blood. Delicious! (And yes, I know I’ve said on here time and again, how I’m not a foodie, but when I do eat, I EAT.) Definitely try out their burgers sometime if you’re ever in the Hershey area. Fantastic. Great fries too.

Anyway, appearance for the beer is pretty spot on for a hazy, danky, New England IPA. Except its a pale ale, and not “technically” considered a New England Pale Ale. Pouring this from the bottle to glass at the bar, it takes on a beautiful bright orange hue. Almost yellow, but definitely golden. Its bubbly, got a great fluffy super well carbonated head. Good bubbles, various sizes, good lacing, great carbonation, great color.

Aroma is fantastic too. Out of the bottle and into the glass, you get strong notes of the fruity hops involved. A lot of pineapple hop notes, peach, a hint of mango perhaps, some grapefruit – juicy not tart, sweet, not tart, with a bit of a foresty earthy musky hint underneath all of these great strong fruity hoppy notes.

This just tastes like a wonderful beer. And thats where this beer really shines, and where all beers either fall or live up to its standards, not by appearance and color, and smell and aroma, but by taste. Yes, we first eat (and drink) with our eyes, but the flavor, the taste, determines how much we love or like or hate a beer. But have no fear… you won’t be hating this one! This is juicy, straight delicious juicyness. No bitterness, nothing detracting or taking away from the floral and fruity hop notes. Juicy grapefruit, rather than tart grapefruit, juicy peach, with kind of a carmalized candyness to it, kinda like those peach ring fruit gummies, pineapple in spades, a hint of earthy musky, forest, perhaps pine or cedar, something like frosted tips, perhaps vanilla. There is certainly a smoothness to this. There is no off flavors, nothing detracting from this, its just a smooth sweet, juicy, delicious, tasty beer, that goes down quick. And at 5.5% there is no massive buzz or anything to this. Could easily kill a six-pack of this myself while watching a game, and come summer time this beer will be even more delicious sitting out on a patio or after mowing. And six-packs of this at Sheetz and such are only going for 11-13$. Can’t beat that price at all!

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 3.8.20)

After my father and I finished our meal at The Mill, we went to the Hershey Theater, and saw Jerry Seinfeld do his stand-up comedy. Mario Joyner was his opening act. Both guys killed it, was a fantastic show. But in a typical Seinfeldian bit, my dad and I didn’t even sit next to each other. My dad doesn’t buy or do anything online, so he went to the actual box office to get tickets. Well, by the time he got there, they were practically sold out, but had two tickets remaining… just in different sections. So, my dad got the tickets because… well, tickets are better than no tickets. Overall, it was a great show. His Pop Tarts bit was probably my favorite, followed up by maybe the horse bit. Mario’s bit on why the GPS is great was also really good.

My view of the stage – Row C seat 9.

Mario Joyner – Hershey Theater – 3.6.20

Jerry Seinfeld -Hershey Theater – 3.6.20

Finally, a last shout out to The Mill in Hershey. Fantastic food, great servers and bartenders, and a beautiful restaurant. Located close to the Giant Center, Hershey Theater, etc. Pretty good selection of beers as well (nothing crazy, but better than just Coors and Miller). So be sure to check them out if your in the area.

This definitely turned out to be a much longer review than intended, but I like it. Hope you all did too. Look for some New Trail beer reviews coming up. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and click the subscribe and like buttons here on the blog.

Slainte!

-B. Kline

Haze Charmer at The Mill

CITATIONS and SOURCES:

Beer Review: Scarlet Sunrise – Blackberry and Blueberry (Mellow Mink Brewing)

BKline — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 15:58:54 +0000

Scarlet Sunrise Blackberry and Blueberry by Mellow Mink Brewing

If you thought The Beer Thrillers were done with the Mellow Mink content, you’re wrong. At the end of our visit on January 2nd, Matt cracked open a bottle of this for the three of us to share and devour, and savor, and savor and devour we did!

I think the picture above is pretty good, but even still it doesn’t do the beer justice for how aesthetically pleasing it looks. Let alone how tasty it is.

While getting to sit down with Matt and Josh and discussing the barrel aging and bottling that Mellow Mink Brewing does. Matt here is Dr. Lambic, Mr. Matt Miller, Doctorate, head brewer, bottler, part-owner, and genius of Mellow Mink Brewing in Mechanicsburg PA. If there is one thing this man knows (and there is plenty, don’t worry) its sour beer. He knows more about the various yeasts and strains and “lactobacilus” and “saccharomyces” then I know things in general – in total. So it was a complete treat to get to sit down with him, enjoy one of his perfected creations, and listen to him talk about how it was made, why it was made, why this or that ingredient was used, how the aging was done, why this barrel or that, etc, etc. All the while getting to sip on this exquisite drink.

So with enough of an adieu (since I wrote all that above, I can’t say with no further adieu, because I did give plenty of adieu), let’s break down this gorgeous beer:

Beer: Scarlet Sunrise – Blackberry and Blueberry
Brewery: Mellow Mink Brewing
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 4
Untappd Write-Up: A blend of sour red ales aged for 12 months in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels refermented on Blackberries and Blueberries. Naturally carbonated and conditioned in the bottle.
Notes: Bottle Conditioned, Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Lactobacilius

So after getting to tour the facility there at Mellow Mink, Matt had us sample some untouched barrel projects, and then we went to the finished product. This made for a fantastic cap to the night.

Appearance is beautiful, rosy red, effervescent, glowing, sour fruited look alike, but richer, deeper, more full bodied look. You can tell it was aged, you can tell it has a ‘wine’ backbone to it due to the barrel aging, and you can tell it was conditioned for a while. You can see that this is not merely a regular fruited sour, but one that has been labored over and loved over. It just glows and looks beautiful straight from the pour. Great carbonation, great appearance.

Aroma from this is everything you want from reading the bottle. Your nose immediately picks up the blackberry, the blueberry, the Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrel, you get the dryness, the muskyness, the earthy undertones, you inhale and get even more dry stone fruit notes, the blackberries and blueberries jumping in again. Just a wealth of fantastic aroma notes assaulting your nostrils in one great blending.

Now, this is definitely not one to gulp, to quaff down, to chug. This is a beautiful sipping beer. Not surprisingly given how it was made and prepared, you drink this like wine. You sift it, you sniff it, you sip it, you sift it, you swirl it, you savor it, you slowly, devour it. You let it roll around on your tongue, you let it slide to the back of your throat and enjoy the taste. You don’t rush this at all. Its dry, complex, and full of wonderful tastes, textures, and its just so well made that you appreciate every last drop of it. You get deep dryness from this, you get earthy notes, musky notes, you get heavy stone fruit, you taste the wine, you get overpowering blackberry, you get slow building blueberry, you get a tartness but not a complete sourness, the tartness going hand in hand with the dryness. It all culminates in a fantastic and delicious beer that fully embodies what Matt is striving to do at Mellow Mink – make fantastic beers. And that he does, in spades twenty times over.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.26 (as of 1.25.20)

Started this article yesterday morning (Friday, 1.24.20) but had to leave for work, and immediately after work took my daughter Lily to the Hummelstown Winter Fling. Which was an absolute blast and I might do a quick write-up on that. Tattered Flag, Spring Gate, Howling Henry’s, BrewDog through the Warwick Hotel; were all there as well as the Warwick being open for sales. Ffej was playing drums for the Julia Schreiber band and it was a blast hearing them nail some Rush songs in Neil Pert’s memory.

I’m wrapping this up just in time to go to work, where immediately afterwards I’ll be rushing to Marysville for the second day of the Grand Opening at the Liquid Noise Brewery, with head brewer Brad Moyer. Can’t wait to check out what he’s got going on, his home brewing stuff has been phenomenal. So definitely be on the look out for that write-up soon after.

To read up on the Mellow Mink Visit me and Josh did, you can check that out here. We had an absolute amazing time hanging out with Matt Miller and Cole and recommend everyone check out Mellow Mink Brewing.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

November Recap

BKline — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 00:04:57 +0000

November was certainly one interesting month! The Beer Thrillers pumped out an incredible volume of blog posts – 34 in total. From four different people. Two being brand new writers for us. Myself – B. Kline – I pumped out 30 blog posts, one per day. It was quite the adventure, quite the journey. My blog posts averaged 1016 words per post, and there was 30 from myself alone, from beer reviews, brewery reviews, news, tidbits, events, and all kinds of things in between. From a large host of locations, from beers in bottle, draft, and can, from several new breweries, and many old standby’s of the blog. And just like I challenged myself to do a new blog post each day, I had also challenged myself to drink a new beer each day (new as in new to me, and a unique beer to myself), so this was certainly a very interesting, challenging, and fun month.

Some days the blog posts were easy. Other days not so much. Some days I had the blog post done at 7:30 or 8AM… other days I’m struggling to get the blog post done, and wrapping it up at 11:58PM.

I never truly felt like I had burnt myself out…. until I came to doing this recap blog post. Thats why its now December 7th and its getting posted; when this was meant to be posted on December 1st. And I still don’t think I’m ‘burnt out’. I think its a case of ‘start-up issues’. The hardest part about any blog post is starting the blog post. Like writing anything, the hardest part is the beginning, is putting ink to paper, or to type those first few words. So, as the time stretched from December 1st… to December 2nd…. to December 3rd…. I hesitated and procrastinated more and more, and this post went further and further by the wayside. So for that, and for the fact that the blog as a whole hasn’t had a single post in December, and no new blog post in a week, I apologize. For those of you who were looking forward to this recap posting of my “November NaNoWriMo Challenge”, I apologize. And yes, I know I’m not REALLY doing a NaNoWriMo, and I know I’m not using the term correctly.

But this is the recap post, and it is finally going live. I apologize for its tardiness, but hopefully you will enjoy it all the same.

I met all three of my self-set hard challenges for November, and fell short of a soft-challenge for myself. My hard challenges were: 1) One new blog post per day, 2) One new unique beer per day, and 3) One 1-mile or more walk per day. These challenges I completed. (Figured the 1-mile or more walk would counter-balance the fact I was drinking every day.) The soft challenge I failed was hitting my 10K steps per day. And I only failed that one day…. ironically the second day of the month. I only got 8.8K steps that day, mainly due to a friend gathering and party and having gone to it right after work.

But you all don’t really care about the challenges, and just want to see the recap right?! So here’s whats going with that. I’m going to make a list here of the dates (November 1st, November 2nd, November 3rd, etc.) as headings, and then underneath it, list the different blog posts we posted that day (mine, J. Doncevic’s reviews, AJ’s Default Brewing post, and the guest writing blog post by Let Us Drink Beer). I will also list what new unique beer I had each of those days (or in the cases of some days, ‘unique beers’). So lets to it!

NOVEMBER 1st:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Pumpkin Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

Pumpkin Spice Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)
Catchin’ Feels (Tattered Flag)

Pumpkin Stout by Newfangled Brew Works

NOVEMBER 2nd:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

Rose Cider (Wyndridge Farm)
Blood Orange Cranberry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
Strawberry (Delp Brother’s Home Brewing) (Friend’s Homebrew at the party)

St. Thomas by Pizza Boy Brewing Co.

NOVEMBER 3rd:

Blog posts:

Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Fields Collective)

Unique Beers:

Wicked Watermelon (Redd’s Brewing Company)

Walker Station Stout by Pretoria Fields Collective

NOVEMBER 4th:

Blog Posts:

Multiple Beer Reviews: Sogni D’oro, Wastin’ Daylight, Market Research, Peach Novelty, Oktobock, Lucky Cat Lien (ZeroDay Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)
Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)
King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Flight of beers from ZeroDay Brewing

NOVEMBER 5th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

Wicked Black Cherry (Redd’s Brewing Company)

King Sue by Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.

NOVEMBER 6th:

Blog posts:

Beer Review: Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

Wicked Apple (Redd’s Brewing Company)

Intergalactic Warrior by Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.

NOVEMBER 7th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: S’Mores LazaRIS (Boneshire Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

S’Mores LazaRIS by Boneshire Bew Works

NOVEMBER 8th:

Blog posts:

Unique Beers:

Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

Ghost 782 by Adroit Theory

There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants by Westbrook Brewing Co. and Edmund’s Oast Brewing

NOVEMBER 9th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)

Unique Beers:

Schwarzbier (The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery)

Secret Machine – Key Lime and Tangerine by Dewey Beer Co

NOVEMBER 10th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

Broken Heels by New Trail Brewing Co.

NOVEMBER 11th:

Blog Posts:

Unique Beers:

Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag)
Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works)
Government Overspending (2019) (Tattered Flag)
Seven. Point. Six. Two. (Tattered Flag)
556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company – CBC)

Adjective Animal by WISEACRE Brewing Company

Colonization by Adroit Theory

NOVEMBER 12th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )

Unique Beers:

Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

556 Stout by Cox Brewing Company (CBC)

NOVEMBER 13th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

Alcatraz Sour Apple (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner by Crosstown Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 14th:

Blog Posts:

Multiple Beer Reviews: Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag), Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works), Government Spending 2019 (Tattered Flag), Seven.Point.Six.Two (Tattered Flag), 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Veteran’s Day flight at Tattered Flag

NOVEMBER 15th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Unique Beers:

Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)
Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

Alpha Abstraction Volume 8 by Wild Leap Brew Co.

NOVEMBER 16th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

Birra di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

Double IPA by Newfangled Brew Works

NOVEMBER 17th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

Syndicate City Sour Peach (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

Lager by Newfangled Brew Works

NOVEMBER 18th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Birra Di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Birra di Levante by Levante Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 19th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beer:

Great American Apple Pie (Stout Brewing Co.)

Tickle Parts – Passionfruit by Levante Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 20th:

Blog Posts:

Multiple Beer Reviews: Mechanicsberry, Bargain Black IPA, Embers Remain, Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

Mechanicsberry (Appalachian Brewing Company)
Bargain Black IPA (Appalachian Brewing Company)
Embers Remain (Appalachian Brewing Company)
Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

Beer flight from Appalachian Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 21st:

Blog Posts:

Default Brewing

Unique Beers:

Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)
Nitro Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 22nd:

Blog posts:

Beer Review: Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)

Unique Beers:

Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)
NVP (Nitro Series) (Breckenridge Brewery)

Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter by Fonta Flora Brewery

NOVEMBER 23rd:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

Newfangled Pils by Newfangled Brew Works

NOVEMBER 24th:

Blog Posts:

Unique Beers:

Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Gotta Get Up to Get Down by WISEACRE Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 25th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Unique Beers:

Crowd Control (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Paradise Lost by Southern Prohibition Brewing

NOVEMBER 26th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Unique Beers:

Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery(

Moon of Vega by Equilibrium Brewery

NOVEMBER 27th:

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery)

Unique Beers:

Scratch 394 – Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
Scratch 395 – Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
Scratch 396 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
Mad Elf 2019 Vintage (technically not a ‘new’ beer, but my first of this year’s vintage) (Troegs Independent Brewing)
Coco-Nator (non-scratch version) (Troegs Independent Brewing)

Citraquench’l by Heist Brewery

NOVEMBER 28th: (Thanksgiving)

Blog Posts:

Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Azathoth by Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company

NOVEMBER 29th:

Blog Posts:

Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)

Unique Beers:

Not My Style, Might Rate Anyway (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
Visions of Yesterday (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

My sampler flight from Troegs Independent Brewing

NOVEMBER 30th:

Blog Posts:

Official BBQ & Burgers: Pizza Boy Secondary Location
Five Must See Breweries When Visiting Atlanta (Let Us Drink Beer)

Unique Beers:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Gose (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

The food spread at Official BBQ and Burgers, with a beer from Pizza Boy Brewing Co. (Visions of Yesterday)

Reformation Brewing (photo courtesy of Let Us Drink Beer)

Whew, what an exhausting month November was. I think part of the reason it took me so long to get the energy to do this recap post, was knowing the amount of formatting involved and the photos…. and now that the challenge is over, a malaise kind of settled over me. Like my job was completed. I started this post this morning before work, and had to finish it now after an extra hour or so of work on it this evening. I still want to put in some statistics of the month, for the blog, and for myself, and will most likely come in and do the edit for that later tonight or tomorrow. I will also add the tags and categories. But for now, I just want to get this live and up on the internet. Its 7PM and this is long overdo.

I would like to thank my contributors and co-authors on this blog for making this month (and all the time in general) go so well, and for providing so much help, fun and entertaining blog posts to read, and for helping so much with the blog! Thank you J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (Default Brewing), and Let us Drink Beer Blog. My blog post for Let us Drink Beer’s blog will go live tomorrow and I will provide a link here for that in the statistics edit I will do. In the meantime you can read their post about their upcoming additions to their blog here: Let us Drink Beer: Exciting Additions Coming Soon!

Cheers and I hope you all enjoyed all of our blog posts in November. Heres to the rest of 2019, and then on to the future, 2020, and the next decade!

-B. Kline

EDIT:

Some statistics from the month here at The Beer Thrillers:

Blog posts:

Unique authors:

4
B. Kline, J. Doncevic, AJ – Default Brewing, and Let Us Drink Beer

Visitors and Views:

2,767 Unique Visitors
6,293 Total Views

Twitter Followers:

95
(Goal was 100, just missed it)

FaceBook Followers:

Most Vewied Posts:

Breweries reviewed/beers of their’s reviewed:

Boneshire Brew Works
Tattered Flag
Newfangled Brew Works
Cox Brewing Company
Adroit Theory
Troegs Independent Brewing
Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Levante Brewing
WISEACRE Brewing
Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
Southern Prohibition Brewing
Heist Brewery
Toppling Goliath Brewing
Dewey Beer Co.
ZeroDay Brewing
The Millworks
Appalachian Brewing Company
Crosstown Brewing
Fonta Flora Brewing
Westbrook Brewng Co.
Equilibrium Brewery
Pretoria Fields Collective
Wild Leap Brew Co.
New Trail Brewing

Styles:

IPA
Double IPA
Black IPA
Brown Porter
Stout
Pilsner
Lager
New England IPA
Belgian Dubbel
Sour – Fruited
Sour – Other
Fruited Beer
Gose
Sour
Belgian Strong Dark Ale
Pale Ale

Some personal stats for me:

Unique Beers:

Total Beers:

Breweries Visited:

Boneshire Brew Works
Tattered Flag
Troegs Independent Craft Brewery
ZeroDay Brewing
The Millworks
Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location
Newfangled Brew Works
Appalachian Brewing Company

New Restaurants/Bars:

The Gin Mill
Official BBQ and Burgers

Again, thank you all for reading. This post has now been updated with tags and categories. Please leave a like, a comment, and please follow us!

Thank you everyone!

Cheers!!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Salted Caramel Imperial Moo Hoo (Terrapin Beer Co.)

BKline — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 01:45:00 +0000

Salted Caramel Moo Hoo by Terrapin Brewing at Ted’s Bar and Grille

So let me start off by apologizing that this is a bit late, I had drank this last Tuesday, and meant to write-up the review on either last Wednesday or Thursday, and its been sitting in my ‘to-write’ / ‘draft’ area of the blog for several days now. Half finished, half written. I have several blog posts in this stage currently, and since I have off starting now til Saturday morning, I’m hoping to get them written up and posted. Some of these are beer reviews, brewery reviews, beer events, and even beer news. I have the Midwest Coast Brewing post to go live as soon as they greenlight it (the head owner / brewer was getting married this past weekend, so that postponed things a slight bit).

So I apologize for the delay, but moving forward, lets get this blog up, and then we can work on them from there. I’ve also been informed by J. Doncevic that he’s going to be coming out of his long sabbatical and posting a beer review tonight. What will it be? I’m not giving away any hints, so who knows! Take your guesses now and see if you’re right!

Last Tuesday after getting out of work at 6PM, and with some time to kill before having to go to the Winner Circle Saloon and the American Grille for the fantasy basketball draft that some of my coworkers do, I found myself traveling down Rt. 22 and thinking of where to stop for a beer before going to the draft. So… I wound up at Ted’s Bar and Grille.

Ted’s Bar and Grille is located on Rt 22 (Allentown Road) and is primarily a sports bar, but its also kind of a restaurant, craft bar, wing joint, all kinds of things in one. They usually have a pretty decent selection of craft beers (and of course domestics) on tap, as well as a pretty extensive bottle / can selection. Nothing super amazing top shelf or “whaler” status, but plenty of good beers from PA, MD, NJ, NY, OH, and other larger breweries like Bell’s, Founder’s, etc. Its a nice bar with a good patio and a good selection of beer. Its located at 7300 Allentown Blvd Harrisburg, PA (Route 22 between Harrisburg and Grantville). It is a verified location on Untappd so you can check out their taplist and can / bottle selection.

So looking down their bottle and can selection, I found something that caught my eye – Salted Caramel. Always a favorite, and something I always enjoy, even from larger breweries like Genesee’s Pilot Series one I had a few years back courtesy of my sister who lived up in Rochester at the time. It came in a bomber bottle and was a bit more expensive for it, but nothing crazy so (7.50$ at the bar for a bomber bottle isn’t bad at all really). So to while away the time before the draft I ordered it and a glass and sat and relaxed and enjoyed.

Look how delicious this looks.

Beer: Salted Caramel Imperial Moo-Hoo
Brewery: Terrapin Beer Co.
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double Milk
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: Salted caramel milk stout

Not the most inspiring or interesting Untappd write-up, but at least there is one? Shrug. Either way, this is a completely enjoyable beer that doesn’t really need a write-up before you drink it up.

Appearance is dark black, nighttime black, Razor Ramon hair black, jet engine fuel black, no moon out midnight black, Cruella DeVille’s heart black. I think that’s enough descriptors for the darkness of the beer. Moving on to the head, it has a rich brown foamy head, with lots of interspersed and varied bubbles.

Aroma is a mixture of sweetness and some bitterness. You can smell cocoa, like cooking chocolate, as well as the caramel. You smell vanilla, but you also get notes of some bitterness, like salt perhaps or some hop characteristics or notes. I don’t quite know how to describe a bitterness smell for this, but it is present, sadly my words are lacking I suppose (or perhaps just not as good at understanding my nose as I thought I was).

This has a wonderful texture and mouthfeel. Its heavy and thick, but not cloying or clinging to your tongue. Its not problematic and it has almost kind of a grittyness to it, perhaps due to salt perhaps due to something else, not quite able to put my tongue on it (aha!), but it has a varied and interesting texture and complexion to this thats very interesting.

Taste is fantastic. Its a mixture of rich salty caramel, vanilla sweetness and sugary-ness, as well a lovely stout. Theres some hop notes of bittering at the end, and you get some bitterness from cooking chocolate (or so it seems), but the true stars of the beer – the salted caramel really stand out, and provide a fantastic flavor profile for this. This is certainly a sipper, not something to be quaffed down quickly or easily. The 8.5% slowly creeps up on you, and since its a bomber it’ll get definitely get you there by the end of the bottle.

I certainly thoroughly enjoyed this and would love to have more for cold nights or fall autumn nights around a bonfire with friends. Terrapin Beer Co. is from Maryland (as the name suggests) and so anyone in the PA/MD area should be able to locate their beers. They have a pretty impressive range of various beers and styles that are pretty good.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.91 (as of 10.16.19)

Be on the lookout for J. Doncevic’s post tonight / tomorrow, as well as a TON of blog posts from me all day Thursday and Friday. It’ll feel like a flooding after the recent drought of posts. So enjoy!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Rye for an Eye (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

BKline — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 03:45:00 +0000

Rye for an Eye, a Barleywine by Southern Prohibition Brewing Company, out of Hattiesburg Mississippi.

It has been a long and tiring day, so I’m sitting in bed, doing a fantasy draft, watching the Chappelle special, and drinking an entire 22oz bottle of barleywine by myself. Welcome to being 34!

This was part of the beer mail package, and being a huge barleywine fan, I figured I’d save it for my birthday and plow through it. So thats exactly what I’m doing. And damn is it good!

This is going to be a quicker, breezier blog, than the previous ones in recent history (like yesterday’s), mainly because I’m starting to get tired, its the long end of a birthday, and I figure it’d be nice to write a short, succinct beer review, rather than a long one dragging on about all kinds of other things.

Beer: Rye for an Eye
Brewery: Southern Prohibition Brewing
Style: Barleywine – American
ABV: 8.8%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up:
Big rich malt flavors interwoven with a heft dose of spicy rye. Notes of caramel, fig, and spicy pumpernickel bread are balanced by a punch of Simcoe and Centennial hops. Finishes with a smooth malt goodness with a slight grapefruit and pine bite.

This is a wonderful barleywine. It poured beautifully brown and then filled in nicely and with a terrific head. The aroma is rye with notes of spices and smelled heavenly.

The flavor is right on for a barleywine. It is exactly a barleywine, and it feels heavy, boozy, and honestly feels and tastes like it should be a 10%+ minimum, but only clocks in at 8.8% which is shocking. Still a bit on the heavy side (especially solo’ing a 22oz) but its not as high as the taste would lead you to believe.

The flavor is very heavy spice, malt, rye (obvious by the name). There is a bit of a late punch by the hops that adds a nice flourishing touch.

Definitely worth seeking out from Mississippi for this gem!

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.86 (as of 8.27.19)

Keep on sippin sumpin!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Kettle Sour Series (Raspberry) (Natchez Brewing Company)

BKline — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 01:55:49 +0000

Natchez Brewing Company’s Kettle Sour Series – Raspberry, bottled and sent from the source.

A bit ago on the local trades forum at The Beer Advocate as well as a trade forum on Home Brew Network, I set up a few ‘locals for locals’ trades. The home brew network one was is a ‘pay it forward’ style one (I send a package, and then I’ll get a package from the next guy, who will send it to him, in a chain). The beer advocate trade was a local for local, the person I traded to living in Mississippi had access to Parish, Southern Prohibition, and Natchez.

My beer mail packaged I received last Wednesday on the 14th after coming home from Antietam.

My package contained two 22oz bombers from Southern Prohibition, Ghost in the Machine by Parish, Bloom by Parish, two Reve coffee stouts from Parish, a kettle sour from Natchez, and Good Vibrations (can) from Southern Prohibition.

I traded some Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag, and Troegs beers. Now its time to catch up on all these great beers I haven’t had yet before, from breweries I haven’t had yet.

Decided to start light and work my way in, with the Natchez Kettle Sour Raspberry. Since it was a super hot, muggy, night here, and I had a long day working the dice table and then stopping at the library, I figured, a nice, tart, refreshing sour would be the perfect place to begin. And it sure did!

A nice refreshing, tasty tart beer on a hot evening night in August.

So as you can see, after I got home from the library after working a long hard day, I decided to enjoy myself by reading and tasting a fantastic fresh raspberry sour. I even started this beer review (and finishing now that its gotten dark and the crickets are chirping, and thankfully all the mosquitoes are done sucking me dry of my blood, who needed that anyway?).

Beer: Kettle Sour Series – Raspberry
Brewery: Natchez Brewing Company
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)

According to Untappd, Natchez Brewing Company is a microbrewery from Natchez, Mississippi. They have currently produced 68 unique beers for a global Untappd rating (as of 8.19.19) of 3.68. Their earliest posted beers on Untappd are dated 4.12.14 and consisted of four beers (a porter, a blonde wheat ale, a pale ale, and an IPA).

This is a Kettle Sour, and as the bottle says its part of a series (Untappd lists different variations); this particular one – the raspberry one – was released on July 2nd, 2019. The bottle lists it as a Berliner Weisse but Untappd has it listed as a Sour – Fruited.

Pouring it, it looks exactly as a sour and tart berliner weisse should look. Light, gentle, fruity colored, see through, and with a good carbonation and fizz. The color is a nice light amber color.

Aroma is very fruity, very raspberry and berry perfumed. You can hear the fizz and crackle of the head popping as it starts to subside.

The taste is wonderful, refreshing, tart on the tongue and the palate, nice gentle raspberry berry flavors and overall refreshing taste. Nothing lingering or off, nothing to disrupt the nice gentle sippable and session crushing ability of the brew. And at 4.5% it’d be easy to sit around a pool or to mow and to crush a six-pack of these bad boys.

This has definitely made me interested in looking up other Natchez Brewing Company beers, as well as look forward to the rest of my beer mail (Southern Prohibition and Parish; especially the Ghost in the Machine).

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.85 (as of 8.19.19)

I would like to thank Brooke Ball for the beer trade, and really hoping she’s enjoying her Boneshire, Tattered Flag, Troegs, and Pizza Boy beers.

In the upcoming days should see the backlog of my blog posts slowly trickle out here into the interwebs, so make sure you stay vigilant, alert, and on the look-out for all the great posts! (Follow, bookmark, like, and comment, to make sure you see the posts as soon as their uploaded!)

Until next time, keep on keepin’ on and keep on drinking that sweet nectar of the Gods.

(And just because I know the bookworms out there are trying to see what the books are… and I know they are… because I do the same thing…. the books are:
* Learning How to Learn
* Star Wars: Master and Apprentice
* Things My Son Needs to Know About the World
* Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam

All checked out from the Hershey Public Library.)

-B. Kline

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November Recap

Beer Review: Salted Caramel Imperial Moo Hoo (Terrapin Beer Co.)

Beer Review: Rye for an Eye (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Beer Review: Kettle Sour Series (Raspberry) (Natchez Brewing Company)