Join the Hemauer Brewing family at their brewery in Mechanicsburg for a FREE Holiday Ham Meal on Christmas Eve! Join the Hemauer team and family and friends at their brewery – 1010 Wesley Dr, Mechanicsburg, PA, United States, Pennsylvania 17055 on December 24th and enjoy some fantastic beers and a wonderful and free holiday ham meal!

Enjoy a free Holiday Ham Meal at Hemauer Brewery!

Free Holiday Ham Meal at Hemauer Brewery

This looks to be a fantastic time for the community, an event for one and all; those who are looking for a delicious meal, or for those who need one. All ages and no purchases required. For more information, check out their event page here: Hemauer Brewing Hosting FREE Holiday Ham Meal. The event page lists the following information:

The Hemauer family invites you to their taproom at 1010 Wesley Drive in Mechanicsburg to enjoy a FREE holiday ham meal!

On Christmas Eve, Tuesday, December 24th, from 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM*, the Hemauer family (Brooks, Shannon, and their sons Collin and Ian) will serve free holiday ham meals at their taproom. All ages are welcome to enjoy the meal. No purchase is required.

This meal is free to anyone who wants or needs a delicious meal. A regular at their taproom? Come on in! Never been to the taproom? Welcome! Want a break from cooking? We hear ya on that one!

On the menu:
-Spiral-cut ham slices
-Mashed potatoes
-Peas
-Cookie
-Bottled soda or bottled water

Brooks and Shannon believe in community, bringing people together, and making a positive difference in this world. They are teaching their sons the importance of giving to others.

Alcoholic beverages are available for purchase; however, no purchase is required to enjoy the holiday meal! Enjoy the meal at the taproom or take it to go. One meal per person. *While supplies last.*

The taproom has limited space. Tables are first come, first served. If there are no tables available, you can take your meal to go. To keep things flowing, please limit your time to no more than 45 minutes to enjoy your meal. The last dine-in meal served at 3:15 PM. The kitchen closes at 3:30 PM.

Hemauer Brewing Hosting FREE Holiday Ham Meal – Facebook Event Page

More Information on Hemauer Brewing Company

The following comes via Untappd.

Hemauer Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Mechanicsburg, PA. They have 192 unique beers, and over 17,000 ratings, with a global average rating of 3.84 (as of 12.15.24). Their Untappd description reads: “Pouring liquid art, one pint at a time. ”

You can follow them on these social media platforms:

• Hemauer Brewing – Official Website
• Hemauer Brewing – Facebook
• Hemauer Brewing – Instagram
• Hemauer Brewing – Twitter
• Hemauer Brewing – Untappd

For Other Hemauer Brewing Articles

• Hemauer Brewing and The Adventure’s Guild Team Up For Board Game Night
• Helping the Hemauer Family Out
• Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing Company
• A Message From Brooks Hemauer

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That Time Again

Ahhh…. its Christmas time again. That time of year where we put on TBS and just let it loop ‘A Christmas Story’ on repeat for 24 hours straight. Where even babies fresh from the womb can spout every line from the movie. Talk of ‘frag-il-e” and “the soft glow of electric sex” or singing the song at the end of the movie that now comes off as pretty insensitive, or sticking your tongue to a cold metal pole, or the myriad of other quotes and lines from the movie…. the most common and obvious one of course being:

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” (Or some variant of it therein.)

It was exactly a year ago today I did another Christmas themed beer (gee, go figure, on Christmas Eve) – and it was also ‘A Christmas Story’ themed beer. Beer Review: The Soft Glow of Electric Sex (RAR Brewing). Maybe this will become a yearly tradition; doing an ‘A Christmas Story’ themed beer each year.

I know there’s no shortage of beers themed on ‘A Christmas Story’, so it won’t be a problem. (I could probably do a 25 days of Christmas leading up to Christmas day with just beer reviews based on this movie alone. If I was able to get beers from all across the country – or world.)

Intellectual Property Shenanigans

Something I’ve been wanting to write up, but as a very large article, for quite some time now is ‘intellectual property’ in the craft beer industry. I feel like its a very big topic that really needs to get explored (and yes, I know many have explored it in the beer writing world, but I haven’t, and I would like to).

I know I use a lot of intellectual property related beers for my beer reviews, partly because their more fun to write, partly because their easier to make a bigger article around them, partly because its easier to get them noticed and recognized and gets people to click the articles – in a similar fashion to why the beers are named what they are – to drum up attention and notice.

If there’s two beers – everything seems identical between them when reading the description (same hops, same malts, same ABV, same IBU, same brewery), but one is a Star Wars, or Simpsons, or Futurama, or Seinfeld, or whatever reference, and the other is a more generic sounding name “The Cold Lantern IPA”; I’m going with the “The Lower Human Horn” IPA. Just out of sheer recognition, namesake, and name value. Its an old school tactic, one that’s been done since advertising began.

And I’ll admit to being burnt a few times in the past over this. With clear cases of beers that were probably bad or ‘less than good’ and so they were given a pop culture or nerd culture reference or name just to sell or to move kegs or to attract some kind of attention.

So this is certainly something that will need addressed. Especially in the way some breweries are so proud of their Cease and Desists and treat it almost like awards to flaunt around. Its an interesting flex. “Here’s a piece of paper that nearly cost us a ton of money all because we drew a likelihood of Homer or Bart Simpsons nearly spot on to the T of the character on TV… ha ha ha…. had to change a bunch of labels and change the beer names on these….”. Seems like a lowest denominator type flex, but to each their own, or as the cool kids say nowadays ‘whatevz’.

Beer Review

Beer: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!
Brewery: Eight and Sand Beer Co.
Style: Lager – Red
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This brand new red lager greets you with light caramel, honeycomb candy and citrus followed by a hint of pepper at the finish.

Eight and Sand Beer Company is a brewery out of Woodbury New Jersey. According to Untappd they are a micro brewery with 172 unique beers and a total of 56,105 ratings. They have a global average rating of 3.77 (as of 12.24.21) and their Untappd Description reads: We’re two buddies from South Jersey that are fully devoted to quality craft beer brewed with patience, brewed with care, and brewed with our local community in mind. The phrase “Eight and Sand,” was used to wish train crews a quick and safe journey and we felt it a fitting name for our brewery!

This is a fruitier smelling lager. You can certainly tell its a lager based on nose alone, but there is definitely a lot more going on with it. You get a strong good whiff of grapefruit, rind, and a honeyed sweetness, emboldened with some caramel notes.

Appearance is a pretty dark red see through, translucent, uncloudy beer. Not unlike some amber ales, this is right down that vein, just with a much more frothy head to it. It left fantastic lacing on the glass as it went down, and it was a wonderful frothy head with nice interspersed bubbles.

This is a pretty tasty beer from beginning to end. Thoroughly enjoyable all throughout with nothing bad or horrible about it. A fruitier, juicier lager, you get lots of different notes. And much better than plain or typical lagers that are ‘lesser quality’. I do overall feel this was just lacking a little ‘something’ to make it better. Perhaps it was because I expected more out of it due to the pop culture reference on it and knowing that it needs to be ‘real good’ to justify itself and its usage of the reference and intellectual property and to dispel my idea that sometimes beers are named after things to push and sell them, I dunno. There is a lot to like about this beer though. It has a very good flavor profile, and it has a lot going on with it that I do like. And I was a bit hesitant and worried about the ‘grapefruit’ mentioning, as I am not a fan of grapefruit. There is a good amount of honeyed candy, with some fruity notes and citrus elements behind it, I also get a lot of sweetened caramel and that really adds to the flavor. I don’t taste any pepper despite what the Untappd description reads as. There’s enough going on to keep you busy as you drink it, and at 6.5% its not a super light lager but its also not a booze fest either. Despite all the flavors and everything, it felt a little on the watery / thin side, surprisingly for its appearance and for the more full flavors, I was actually a bit curious how this was, especially given its appearance looking so full and rich – with that big frothy head to boot. All in all its a good beer, its nothing super crazy to write home about, but it is tasty, original too, with interesting flavors, just a bit on the watery side, and just not fully grabbing me – worth a try, but not worth a four pack.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 12.24.21)

Pop Culture / Nerd Culture Beer Reviews

Like I said earlier, we have covered our fair share of popular culture and nerd culture references and themed beers here on the blog. Certain breweries do a lot of them so you’ll see their names pop up more often. If you enjoy these themed beer reviews, check out our extensive list here:

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
• May the Fourth Be With You
• Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)
• Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)

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:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)

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)
• Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)

Pro Wrestling:

• Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)

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:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)

Thanks For Reading

This was a bit of a late post, but it was a long day. And sorry for not throwing in a ton of references or GIFs and really doing the whole thing up into a big extravaganza. Woke up early this morning to do last second cleaning and preparing for my girls to come over, then ran and donated blood (which took forever due to a lady passing out, and what normally takes 25-35 minutes ended up taking an hour and 15 minutes), and then we celebrated Christmas a day early due to my having to work tomorrow. Celebrated with my girls at my house, then went over to my parents and celebrated with them and my sister and brother in law and son. Then had to run to my ex-wife’s church to take my youngest so she could sing in the choir for their Christmas Eve service. So its been a long day. But it was nice to finally get home, relax, unwind, watch A Christmas Story (yearly tradition obviously), have a few beers (I followed this beer up with Z. Morris by Black Flag – just to keep pop culture references going).

Merry Christmas to everyone tomorrow. Feliz Navidad.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday and are able to enjoy it with their family and friends. Be kind to each other out there, be safe, Omicron is still looking out there, but enjoy your time with your family. Just take precautions. Hopefully this will be the last Christmas where its all a worry and by Christmas 2022 we are back to having everything to normal (…then again, I said that this last Christmas too) – (but lets hope and have some optimism).

We’re winding down the year here on the blog and gearing up for a huge 2022 here at The Beer Thrillers. I’ll cover it more in our end of the year recap and our look forward to 2022 posts, but theres lots of big things on the horizon here. (Podcasts, videos, home brewing – guides, videos, etc; streaming, etc.). So definitely subscribe, like, comment, and follow us, to be on top of it all.

Cheers and Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, and Happy New Year!

-B. Kline

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

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This one comes flying in right into the “IP” (Intellectual Property) theft debates I’ve been having with a lot of friends, from both in and out of the industry, on my personal Facebook page. Hershey’s recently sued a brewery over their marketing of Jolly Ranchers used in a beer they made. Their lawsuit was for 8,500$, which was the amount the brewery made on the beer made and sold. IP Theft has been a big issue I’ve been thinking about a lot lately with the craft beer industry, and is something I’d like to do an article on, and the Hershey’s lawsuit has given a lot of ammunition to the idea of the article (perfect timing in a way…. well… not perfect if you are the brewery in question I suppose). This is an interesting topic, and I think there’s a lot of merit to both sides. Look at this beer in question – the quote is a direct quote from the movie, and the can / bottle logo for the beer and packaging for it is spot on too, so do you consider that IP Theft? RAR Brewing is no stranger to using pop culture, nerd culture, mainstream, etc, for their beers. Look at their lineups of the “Out of Order” series. One of which I reviewed – Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing). Or take a look at another one I reviewed from RAR Brewing, Jon Voight’s Car. This one has an exact replica of George Castanza on the can label, as well as having the car in question in the background. You can see that review here – Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing).

Here is the can and bottle label for “The Soft Glow of Electric Sex”:

It has the “fragile” box in the background, the lamp itself, and of course the iconic quote from the movie (which is the beer title). Where do you all stand on this – does this look like IP Theft to you? Is this fair ground? Is it just a cool and fun little cultural nod? A way to sell beers? I’d love to hear from all of you and your thoughts on this.

Like I said, I love diving into pop culture named and themed beers here for the blog. I have done – a TON – of them. (As with most of the pop culture beer reviews, I’ve included a section at the end of the review listing all of the other ones for you to easily find them, as well as tagged it so you can search through the blog itself easier for them). I’ve done beers from The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Space Balls, etc. Josh has also done a few, with one recently being a play on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co), and there is no shortage of beers out there to review. My most recent beer review (before this beer of course) was “This is the Whey” by Bolero Snort, a play on “This is the Way” which is a catchphrase from The Mandalorian. (Which, I also did a This is the Way beer review, by Broken Goblet). You can see those here: “Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort)” and “Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet)“.

I have been wanting to get out a lot more articles than I have recently, and I apologize for that, life has taken a bit of a crazy turn in recent days. I figured with the local (Pennsylvania Mandates and Shutdown) that we had starting on December 12th and lasting until January 4th, I would be able to get out a lot of beer reviews, and other articles, and I wanted to do a lot of local ones. But sadly, my life has gone ‘full crazy’ right before the Christmas season. So I sadly haven’t gotten as much written as I have had wanted to do. I have gone through a bout of several health related things, some familial things, dealing with my own second unemployment of the year, and fighting with unemployment itself, as well as a host of other things. (Firstly, let me just say, I would never wish insomnia on the worst of my enemies, that is honestly one of the worst things in the world, and its not nearly as “productive” as you might think, writing with insomnia is no where near as easy as you would imagine.) I haven’t even gotten much reading done, something I figured with a snowstorm, snowy and cold weather, as well as lockdown, that I would, but sadly, I haven’t. I’ve found my hours becoming less and less productive and more and more just me staring at walls, more and more of me just trying to figure out whats going on, and working to get past a lot of blocks in the road. Hopefully this writing and getting this beer review out will help with that. Fingers crossed anyway. Tomorrow is Christmas afterall, and we all need to be in the festive spirit, even if I am quarantining and unable to see my family and being all alone for Christmas, I am keeping my head up high, and will be wishing all of you out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays.

Ok, so lets move on. Lets get past that crap, and get to why we’re here. A beer review about a beer named after a holiday staple and a holiday tradition. My daughters have grown up with A Christmas Story playing on loop in the background of our Christmas’s in the house starting on Christmas Eve when it first airs. Its how I’ve fallen asleep every Christmas since I was probably 16 or 18, whenever TBS first (legitimately) did start airing it.

There is so many classic scenes, many of which remind me of my own childhood. I think I learned most of the words I now use as an adult from listening to my dad assemble various Christmas gifts (one of which was a basketball hoop we got for Christmas one year, that the instructions said could be done with the simple tools around the house; apparently my dad didn’t have a dowel rod, and he made sure to write to Huffy and explain to them in three page – five hundred or so word essay – how a dowel rod was not a common thing around the household; …they promptly shipped him a dowel rod and a 5$ coupon). I think this is why A Christmas Story stands the test of time for so many people. Its an agglomeration of stories, of all the ways Christmas can get screwed up, that it fills us with our own memories, like nostalgia. We remember the Christmas’s where things went helter skelter. I recall the time my Grandparents had a Christmas tree with worms and we could hear them eating the tree. Or my parents “Christmas Bush”. Its much like Christmas Vacation and Home Alone. The mistakes, the missteps, the crazy, is why we love it; because it reminds us of the various Christmas’s where things went off the rails in our own lives. I have often thought about this with my own daughters. The trips we have taken where things didn’t go as planned, have become more memorable than the ones where they went perfectly planned. Like our trip this year to Monocacy where I got sick and we ended up making it a two day trip, rather than a four hour trip.

But lets move on, and get to the beer review shall we? Enough about A Christmas Story, and enough about my own crazy Christmas’s in my past. Lets review some beer!

Beer: The Soft Glow of Electric Sex
Brewery: RAR Brewing
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 7.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Brewed with Mangos, Lactose, Citra, Amarillo, Ella, and Columbus. Tons of citrus and ripe mango juice flavors.

Appearance is a bright glowing orange. This is probably much closer to a New England IPA, but when first created for Untappd they didn’t really have the New England designation for their IPAs on there, otherwise I’d imagine this would fit it. This is hazy, its orange juice in appearance, has a nice foam head, and well carbonated with nice lacing on the glass as well.

Aroma is very heavy … very… very heavy mango. I love it. One of the few fruit flavors I really love, and its mango, and it works so well in IPAs (especially New England IPAs), that this is just wonderful. Theres a hint of peach to round it out, but its so much mango and so much upfront it just smells amazing.

This is delicious. Maybe for some it might be too much mango, I don’t know, but I love it. Its so heavy mango flavored, but that fits most New England IPAs, and I love it. Very heavy citrus, some lactose, some creamy smoothness to it, a nice slick mouthfeel, but the hops shine through wonderfully here. Citra, Amarillo, Columbus, and Ella hops are used, and they are all lead towards that juicy mango flavor, with some peach, some stone fruit, some zest and citrus, but at the end of the day its all mango flavor all the time. I think the peach rounds it out a fair bit, but overall its very subtle, like a hidden note you can only find after unlocking all the mango flavor. Its a well rounded New England IPA too, it has a little hop bite to it, but nothing substantial, nothing too acidic, nothing cloying, nothing poor or off putting with this. No off flavors. No bad aftertaste, etc. This was the very first RAR Brewing beer I had, and I traded for it back in January 2018. When I first started to get into doing some trading for beers or buying and having people mule beers. I had gotten this and I had gotten the Jon Voight’s Car beer. Fell in love with both, and I’ve enjoyed RAR Brewing ever since pretty much, though I think their Out of Order series has been taken over and changed a bit too much over recent years, and I think they lean a bit too much on the gimmicks for that series (they just released a whole slew of Home Alone themed Out of Order beers, with the can art and the beers being slightly different in each, some representing Kevin, Marv, The Wet Bandits, Pesci, and the Shovel Slayer), but ultimately I think RAR Brewing still makes some fine good beers and they aren’t lacking in quality. The internet can be a bit harsher on them with respects to their Out of Order series, but thats also the internet for you, and who reads the internet anyway…….. (…oh….). But anyway, back to this beer, it is a bold, bright, beautiful, tasty Mango flavor bomb, and a wonderful New England IPA. Its juicy, its tasty, slight hop bitterness, but full on hop flavor, no off flavors, nothing cloying, nice mouth feel, no aftertaste, this is just a fine well made beer, with a cool logo and name, and definitely an eye catcher. And perfect for Christmas Eve and watching A Christmas Story on loop for 24 hours!

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.01 (as of 12.24.20)

Thinking about how this was one of the first beers I traded for, makes me think back to the early days of trading for me, when I first started getting into that. When I was at Breski’s Beverages just last week preparing for the big snow blizzard we got, I saw Zombie Dust and Alpha Space Station from 3 Floyd’s on the shelf for 3.50$ each, and I remember trading and buying that from people in a Facebook beer group who muled it back. Crazy to seeing it being a “shelfie” now. Just like seeing JREAMS making it up into the Central PA midstate area and in places like The Fridge, Breski’s, etc for their crowler machines. Definitely not complaining about that! That’s for sure!

Well thank you all for reading this, and thanks for checking out another Pop Culture beer and “IP Theft” potential beer. I could almost make that its own category now on the blog. Like I said at the top, would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and opinions on that, and what they think is acceptable or not. Just in general, I always love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave comments, questions, etc, either here on the blog, or on our social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. We recently hit 1K followers and likes on Facebook which is a pretty big deal and I love how its bringing all kinds of people together.

Also, AJ Brechbiel is likely to be writing some new posts for the blog again, so be sure to check out his stuff when he releases it. I’m eagerly looking forward to that.

Another note I wanna make, there is another beer that was released with the same title as this. “The Soft Electric Glow of Sex” by Turning Point Beer, which is a brewery from Texas, and I have done a beer review from them before (from a beer trade); that beer was: Beer Review: $#!+ Ton (Turning Point Beer) as well as a beer review of one they were collaborated with – Beer Review: Virtually Inseparable (Celestial Beerworks and Turning Point Beer). But anyway, they did the exact same name as this beer, but made it a stout, and with a very similar logo too:

Their beer is a 15.6% Stout. I would love to get my hands on it and try it out for a future beer review as well (…well… and just because I like to drink stouts, and because the beer sounds good).

If I wanted to be really proper with this beer, I should have went out and gotten the “leg lamp” beer glass to drink it in:

Maybe if I get that stout, I’ll make myself buy this glass to review it in. Who knows. I wanted to get a Festivus beer for yesterday (Dec. 23rd, 2020; Festivus), but sadly, wasn’t able to get one in time to do a review here on the blog for it. Next year!

Thank you everyone for reading. And I am hoping to get a lot more reviews and articles out from here to the end of the year. I feel like I have about a thousand beer reviews to do, and no time to do them, despite being stuck at home on quarantine. I have so many things I need to do from now until December 31st, 11:59:59, and not sure if I’ll get it all done. The pressure and the anxiety is mounting up, but the stuff’s not getting done. Fingers crossed it will. Thank you all for putting up with it, and for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the beer review! Cheers! As someone who just took a COVID test today, please stay safe out there, mask up, wash your hands, and take care of each other and your local breweries, they need it! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone! Happy Festivus!

-B. Kline

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The various pop culture / nerd culture beer reviews we’ve done here on The Beer Thrillers:

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
• May the Fourth Be With You
• Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)

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:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)

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:

• Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

• Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

Other:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)

The Holidays are a time for fun, merriment, joy, mirth, family, friends, and…. to the Beer Thrillers; just as importantly – beer. So starting right off, on this day in between days – Christmas Eve – let us here at The Beer Thrillers say Happy Holidays. December 23rd kicks off one of my favorite holidays – Festivus. Just type Festivus into Google and find yourself fully immersed in it, with the pole running up the left hand side, a bevy of Seinfeld quotes, and all the wonders therein lies.

For those not in the know, or not fans of Seinfeld (which coincidentally celebrated its 30th anniversary of its season 1 this year…. shows how old I am now!), Festivus was a holiday made up by George Castanza’s dad. The original Festivus aired on The Strike episode back in 1997, and was immediately one of the most beloved episodes, and ever since it has gone on to become practically its own cult following, even by those who aren’t fans of Seinfeld or even watched it.

Its a holiday that eludes commercialism, instead of a Christmas tree you have a Festivus pole, just a bland aluminum pole with no glitz or glitter or glamour.

The biggest traditions of Festivus is the “Airing of Grievances” and the “Feats of Strength” followed by a Festivus dinner and possibly Festivus miracles! The Airing of Grievances is when you get to tell those, all of those, around you all of your grievances against them… that you’ve kept bottled up since last Festivus. And now you can finally tell them whats what and let them know how you truly feel. Following this is the Feats of Strength, where people get to call out other people and wrestle to see who is victorious. It is often a chance for fathers to compete against their sons.

So my Festivus miracle for you is a new beer review on Christmas Eve! Having done my due duty of work (and even some overtime) come home to write this blog about one of the beers I had the following night at Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant in downtown Hershey.

A perfectly apropos name for this time of year – Scrooged IPA was one of the several beers I tried at the brewery / restaurant.

Beer: Scrooged IPA
Brewery: Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant (Hershey, Pennsylvania)
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 60
Untappd Write-Up: American-style IPA brewed with a generous amount of hops for a pronounced hop flavor and bitterness that matches the beer’s namesake.

What a good beer name for Festivus and Christmas Eve. We all know some scrooges in our lives; bitter, angry, upset at the world folks, not unlike a very bitter and piney IPA – am-I-right?

What a wonderful segue into the beer review huh? Ahh, this is how writers write. I feel like Hemmingway would be so proud. So to keep him proud, lets keep it quick and to the point and discuss this bitter IPA.

Appearance is light yellow, clear, normal IPA beer coloring. This foam head, nothing crazy there, and not a whole lot of lacing from this either. This is what exactly its supposed to – a beer, specifically an IPA. Can never fault a beer when it looks exactly like what its supposed to.

Aroma is piney and earthy hops. You can smell that this is a full on old school, West Coast style IPA. It has a pine and bit of citrus smell, it has an earthy undertone, that you can just tell is going to be bitter and nothing like New England IPAs with their lactose and everything.

From first sip you definitely get that – all of that hop and West Coast IPA style – right upfront. You get west coast IPA beer taste immediately, old school IPA, with the bitter hops and the full flavor of pine, citrus, and bitterness. This does its namesake proud with the bittering but not to the point of being a hop bomb or too much and taking away from the beer. You still get notes of citrus, orange rinds, coriander a bit, but lots of pine notes and an earth undertone to it. There is no doubt as you drink this that its anything but an IPA and especially a west coast style. It fits the style perfectly. Its ABV is low, at 6.2% so its not going to hit you too strong, and the IBU is a good solid 60 so you certainly feel those hops at work on this one.

Now, I don’t know if anyone cares about Untappd ratings or not…

Oh… ok, since you care, let me tell you.

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.68 (as of 12.24.19)

For those of you unfamiliar with the GIFs they come from the movie Scrooged (1988) starring Bill Murray. A retelling of A Christmas Carol. Its certainly a classic, and one of the many movies that Drew and Esteban and co discuss on their Christmas movies podcast. Which you can listen here: WTF Did I Just Watch: Christmas Movies.

Hopefully you enjoyed this ‘interesting’ beer review, filled with pictures of Festivus and gifs of Scrooged. Given the name of the beer when I was out at Iron Hill I knew I had to do a beer review on the blog here of it, and knew I had to incorporate the elements of the Holidays. Perhaps in the future this will become a regular feature where at the various holidays I review holiday themed beer and give some thoughts and reviews on it. Who knows, hopefully they’ll be many (many, many, many, many, many) more Christmas’s here at The Beer Thrillers blog for many reviews to come. Fingers crossed. As long as you all keep liking and reading the blog, I’ll keep posting to it.

You can expect a slew of Tree House beer reviews in the coming days. First up will be Sap which I’ll be having at Christmas dinner. After that, I have Doppleganger, Haze, Julius, and Autumn to enjoy and review. These all come courtesy of Dan Arndt who along with his fiance was up north and brought them back down to me. So major kudos and thank you’s go his way.

As always, if you enjoyed this beer review, make sure to check out some of our other recent reviews: The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works, My Watch Has Ended by Brewery Ommegang, Ice Dreamz by Pizza Boy, and a beer flight of scratches by Troegs Brewing; also check out J. Doncevic’s reviews of Colonization by Adroit Theory, and Envie by Parish Brewing, and check out our contributor Let Us Drink Beer’s review of Koki Bunni.

At this time of the year, we here at The Beer Thrillers wish all of our readers a very Happy and Hoppy Holidays. Be it Festivus, Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, The Festival of Lights, or any other way you enjoy celebrating with friends and family, we wish you the very best. May your 2019 end happily and your 2020 begin even better!

Cheers!

-B. Kline