Dewey Beer Company - The Beer Thrillers

Big 3 Day Weekend: Friday Recap

BKline — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 17:00:36 +0000

Flights at Dogfish Head Brewery

Where we started….

If you read the previous article – Big 3 Day Weekend – this is the first recap article in the series.

So Friday certainly was a day! We got to Dogfish Head at about 11:15AM. (Having left right after I finished and posted yesterday’s article.) And we hit it hard. First beer on the taster was the ‘Rip Van Wrinkle World Wide Stout’ which was a 18.4%. Then proceeded to follow that up with Orloso 120 Minute (a 15.4%) and 120 Minute regular. We did three flights at Dogfish Head Brewery before leaving for Burley Oak.

Well… we had to make an impromptu stop at Dewey Beer Co in Harbeson… then went to Burley Oak. At Dewey Beer we got several 6oz pours.

At Burley Oak we did a flight, and picked up our JREAMS Hydra and JREAMS Swerve that we ordered online. The flight was absolutely tasty.

We then traveled Tall Tales Brewery in Maryland on our way to Loakal Branch in Delaware to dip back into Maryland before hitting RAR Brewing.

RAR Brewing ended up being the last brewery stop of the day – as we got there only around 7PM. Its amazing how fast time travels at breweries. So, needless to say we did not hit the full list of breweries I planned.

Where We Ended Up

Yea… we never quite get to all of the breweries on my itineraries. Just how it is (I often get ‘scolded’ or over-planning or being too ambitious with my plans.

But, after RAR Brewing, we traveled all the way to Hagerstown from basically 9PM to 12-midnight to check in at our hotel in Hagerstown to spend the night and be prepared for the Cushwa Brewfest today. (Which, I am wrapping this article up, with the Uber on its way.)

Friday was still a very good day. We still got to six breweries – Dogfish Head, Dewey Beer Co, Burley Oak, Tall Tales, Loakal Branch, and RAR Brewing. Thats still a lot and we did plenty of traveling! (I got to have 36 beers in total at the various breweries, and quite a bit of food as well too.)

So now, I am wrapping this up, the Uber is nearly here, and we will be on our way to the Historic Springfield Barn for the Cushwa 5th Anniversary Celebration Brewfest. Maybe I’ll see you there! I know I can’t wait for it!

Thanks for Reading

This is definitely a brewfest that looks absolutely banging. You can get the details here: Cushwa 5th Celebration. I hope to be able to see some of you there, and I can’t wait for all the delicious brews!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – Round Three – The Terrific Twelve

BKline — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:15:16 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round Two of The Battle of the Breweries (2021) is officially in the books. And we move on from having two conferences to being down to just the final twelve! The terrific twelve! After this round it will be six remaining breweries, and after that a triple threat to decide who is the most liked – or best – or voted on the most – or whatever term you want to pick – in this arbitrary list of breweries battle that we made here on The Beer Thrillers. Unlike previous rounds this post will be both results of Round Two and the voting page for Round Three. So if you want to just vote, scroll down to the Voting heading. If you want to see the statistics for Round Two keep reading.

Round Two Statistics

Once again thank you everyone who voted, shared, or commented on the previous two rounds. A great idea to help your brewery out is to share this page on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Statistics:

Total Votes: 2659
Total votes in the HEELs Conference: 872
Total Votes in the FACEs Conference: 1787
There was no upsets in the HEELs conference.
There was three upsets in the FACEs conference.

Upsets:

The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) by 52 votes.
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4) by 52 votes.
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6) by 46 votes.

Results of Round Two:

HEELs Conference:

Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (71 votes) defeated GearHouse Brewing Company (12 seed) (61 votes).
Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (70 votes) defeated Desperate Times Brewing Company (11 seed) (67 votes).
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (96 votes) defeated Chatty Monks Brewing (10 seed) (51 votes).
Urban Artifact (4 seed) (79 votes) defeated Sun King Brewery (9 seed) (48 votes).
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (5 seed) (126 votes) defeated Swiftwater Brewing Company (8 seed) (32 votes).
Mad Chef Brewing Company (6 seed) (117 votes) defeated Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7 seed) (54 votes).

FACEs Conference:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (170 votes) defeated The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (119 votes).
The Isle of Que Brewing (11 seed) (193 votes) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2 seed) (141 votes).
Funk Brewing Company (3 seed) (178 votes) defeated Three Heads Brewing (10 seed) (103 votes).
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9 seed) (168 votes) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4 seed) (116 votes).
Boneshire Brew Works (5 seed) (155 votes) defeated Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (134 votes).
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7 seed) (178 votes) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6 seed) (132 votes).

Round Three Now Begins

And the great cage fight dwindles in competitors and continues on into Round Three. Round Three sees us do away with the conferences and just have twelve terrific competitors left standing and tapping their beers. The surviving twelve breweries have been reseeded based on Untappd scores. Voting begins now and will continue until Sunday, March 21st at 11:59 PM – Midnight (EST).

Round Three Match-Ups:

Round Three sees some very interesting fights, especially with the few upsets we had last round and some close voting results. The match ups are as follows:

Fourscore Beer Company (1) vs. The Isle of Que Brewing (12)
Dewey Beer Company (2) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3) vs. Mad Chef Brewing (10)
Ever Grain Brewing Company (4) vs. Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (9)
Urban Artifact (5) vs. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (8)
Funk Brewing Company (6) vs. Boneshire Brew Works (7)

VOTING

Click through the survey below to vote, and may the best (or at least your favorite) breweries win!

[perfect_survey id=”7395″]

Past Articles and Results

For more information on The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – The Beer Thrillers version of March Madness; you can scroll through the previous articles and voting results.

Information Articles:

Voting Pages:

Share, Share, Share, Share

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The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – HEELs Conference

BKline — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:36:03 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

To view the results of Round One, and for background information on the tournament – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (March Madness) click here: Round One Results and Round Two and Moving Forward – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (The Beer Thriller’s March Madness).

This is the poll for the HEELs Conference – Round Two. You can vote once per day, and you can vote once per poll (there is a poll for each division in round one). Be sure to share and send to your friends and breweries to let everyone vote!

Voting runs until March 14th, 11:59PM (EST).

For past links, go here:

March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

HEELs Conference:
* Triple H Division: Round One
* Ric Flair Division: Round One
FACEs Conference:
* Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
* The Rock Division: Round One

Vote

[perfect_survey id=”7363″]

Any questions, concerns, or comments about the brackets, or tournament, or breweries in question, you can leave in the comment section or message us directly through our Contact Page.

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – March Madness Continues – The Conference Round

BKline — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:15:02 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Voting Polls for Round Two

(Edited: March 8th, 9:02AM). Since this is the landing page when exiting the polls, I am posting the links here for both poll locations, so you can easily jump to the next poll to vote.

Round One Has Finished

Thank you everyone who has voted in round one. We got 3422 votes in one week and thus has ended round one of the tournament! We have gone from 48 breweries and competitors down to 24 breweries left.

First a word on going forward: due to how I have set-up the brackets and how its not a typical “32” or “64” or “128” tournament, that means we will now go from divisions to two conferences. (We’ll keep the wrestling theme going and still call them the HEELs and FACEs conferences.) At this point we will also re-seed the conferences. Just like before, total global average rating on Untappd will be used to seed the breweries.

But first up, some statistics from the first round:

Round One Statistics

Voting statistics:

Total votes for round one: 3422
Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

Round Two

Round two now begins and will run until next Sunday night at Midnight – eastern time. (March 14th – March 15th Midnight). We now do away with the divisions and just go into conferences. So there is now two conferences of 12 breweries / competitors each. The conferences are reseeded (again using Untappd rankings) to create the new brackets for each conference.

Round Two Match-Ups

The new brackets for the conferences, and The Battle of the Breweries (2021) March Madness going forward now looks like this:

HEELs Conference:

Fourscore Beer Company (1) (4.09) vs. GearHouse Brewing Company (12) (3.68)
Dewey Beer Company (2) (4.08) vs. Desperate Times Brewing (11) (3.69)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3) (3.96) vs. Chatty Monks Brewing (10) (3.71)
Urban Artifact (4) (3.90) vs. Sun King Brewery (9) (3.71)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (5) (3.79) vs. Swiftwater Brewing Company (8) (3.77)
Mad Chef Brewing Company (6) (3.79) vs. Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7) (3.79)

FACEs Conference:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1) (3.93) vs. The Church Brew Works (12) (3.56)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) (3.88) vs. The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11) (3.69)
Funk Brewing Company (3) (3.86) vs. Three Heads Brewing Company (10) (3.71)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (4) (3.83) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) (3.74)
Boneshire Brew Works (5) (3.83) vs. Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) (3.75)
Rough Edges Brewing (6) (3.82) vs. Tattered Flag (7) (3.79)

Voting Begins Now

The polls will be going up shortly after this post goes live (about 8:30AM EST). Make sure to share the polls to help your favorite breweries in! And hopefully we can beat round one’s total of votes! (We need 3423 votes to break the first week’s numbers.)

Thank you all for participating in the polls!

For past results and information on the brackets, you can check out the following links:

March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

HEELs Conference:
* Triple H Division: Round One
* Ric Flair Division: Round One
FACEs Conference:
* Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
* The Rock Division: Round One

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division – Round One

BKline — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:21:07 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

This is the poll for the HEELs Conference – Ric Flair – Round One. You can vote once per day, and you can vote once per poll (there is a poll for each division in round one). Be sure to share and send to your friends and breweries to let everyone vote!

Voting runs until March 7th, 11:59PM (EST).

To read more about The Battle of the Breweries (2021) you can read the initial post here: The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – March Madness – The Beer Thrillers way.

[perfect_survey id=”7308″]

Any questions, concerns, or comments about the brackets, or tournament, or breweries in question, you can leave in the comment section or message us directly through our Contact Page.

March Madness (2021) – The Beer Thrillers Way

BKline — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 04:30:00 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – VOTING LINKS

Since this is the landing page post – survey, I will keep all of the voting links here for quick reference and jumping point, and so they don’t get lost in all the muddle.

HEELs Conference:
* Triple H Division: Round One
* Ric Flair Division: Round One
FACEs Conference:
* Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
* The Rock Division: Round One

(Updated: 10AM – March 1st, 2021. Continue on for the original introduction to The Battle of the Breweries [2021] – March Madness tournament – article.)

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Who’s ready for some March Madness? Like everyone else, in March, that means we need to fill out some brackets! And we here at The Beer Thrillers are no different!

BUT….

Instead of filling out NCAA or college basketball brackets, we are doing our own take on it – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

So how’s this going to work? Who all is invited? What all breweries are going to be in it? How many breweries? How’s voting going to work? Who decides whose in and whose out? Whats the seeding? Why is Rick such a jerk to Morty? Why is Jurassic Bark the saddest episode of Futurama ever? Why is it also B. Kline’s favorite episode? What does that say about him? Why is the sky blue?

Ok…. enough with the questions!

The procedure for this ‘tournament’ will be similar to most other March Madness style tournaments. Similar to the ones you’ve seen Untappd and Breweries in PA have done, but with a bit of a twist. Because we here at The Beer Thrillers have a terrible time making full fledged decisions, the list of competitors will be 48 instead of the normal 32.

How did I decide what breweries will be involved? Simple. Only breweries that I have physically visited in person. The voting is based on the brewery and their beers; but to be included on this list, I personally had to have been to one of their locations.

How is seeding decided? Thats also pretty simple, the seeding is based on global average Untappd ratings. So the decision of the seeding is out of my hands. Also, bonus, you can’t get mad at me for the seeding. “Why is X above Y? Why is Z below D?” Its all decided by Untappd.

So whats the tournament structure? One total grouping of 48 breweries (in lieu of teams), divided by two conferences of 24 each, which is divided further into a total of four divisions of 12 each. So break down is simple: 4 divisions of 12 each, with two divisions per conference, of 24 teams in each, for a total of 48 competitors / teams / breweries.

How did we decide on who is in what division? Simple – random number generator. I rolled the dice (a D4 to be exact, thank you to my old nerdy DnD days, I just ‘happened’ to have one of these lying about). Rolled the dice for each brewery to locate them into a division. If one division was understaffed and another overstaffed, I re-rolled until they were evened out.

Let’s Meet Our Competitors

So who all do we have facing off in this crazy free for all of brewing expertise? Quite an assembly of breweries actually. There are a heavy abundance of local (Central PA local) breweries but there is an assortment of breweries from my various travels and across a few states. We have a few breweries from the Rochester area of New York; some breweries from Maryland, a Delaware brewery, some from Ohio, one from Indiana, and one from Kentucky as well.

Surprisingly; it actually took a while to curate the list. At even 48 entries, I still had many more to include, and even removed a few to make it a bit more diverse. I wanted to try and make this as diverse as possible (so removed a local brewery for one out of state, etc.). Possibly in the future, maybe the 2022 iteration of this, or the 2023, who knows, it’ll expand to even more breweries.

This has taken up pretty much my entire night to create the list, and to roll the dice for their divisions, and then checking their Untappd scores to get them into the correct seedings. In the case of matching Untappd scores, I did make my own decision, and that was primarily based on my thoughts of their size, notoriety, branding; so there is a few judgment calls due to a few ties, but there isn’t too many of them.

Conferences and division names…. I had to decide on what to pick. I was going to go by hop names, but I saw at last second, that the Breweries in PA have done that this year, instead of their normal divisions based on geography, it appears they decided to use hop names for their divisions, so thats out. I debated doing Jedi and Sith for the conferences and then doing different Jedi or Sith Masters for the division names…. but… instead decided to go with WWF/E names due to WrestleMania 37 approaching.

So I present you two conferences. One is based on HEELs and one is based on FACEs. The names of the breweries are listed in the order of their seedings, and will have their location and their Untappd (global average) rating behind their names.

The Heels Conference

First up, is divisions one and two of the HEELS conference. Triple H and Ric Flair.

Division One: Triple H

Fourscore Beer Company (Gettysburg, PA) (4.09)
Urban Artifact (Cincinnati, OH) (3.90)
Mad Chef (East Petersburg, PA) (3.79)
Levity Brewing (Indiana, PA) (3.77)
Swiftwater Brewing Company (Rochester, NY) (3.77)
Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY) (3.75)
Sun King Brewery (Indianapolis, IN) (3.71)
Highway Manor (Camp Hill, PA) (3.70)
Gearhouse Brewing (Chambersburg, PA) (3.68)
ZeroDay Brewing (Harrisburg, PA) (3.69)
The Ministry of Brewing (Baltimore, MD) (3.64)
Black Forest Brewing (Ephrata, PA) (3.62)

Division Two: Ric Flair

Dewey Beer Company (Dewey Beach, DE) (4.08)
Rotunda Brewing Company (Annville, PA) (3.96)
Yellow Bridge Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.88)
Troegs Independent Brewing (Hershey, PA) (3.79)
Twisted Bine Brewing Company (Mount Joy, PA) (3.79)
Cox Brewing Company (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.71)
Chatty Monks (Reading, PA) (3.71)
Land-Grant Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.70)
Saucony Creek Brewing Company (Kutztown, PA) (3.70)
Desperate Times Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.69)
Couch Brewery (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.60)

The Faces Conference

The faces conference is made up of two divisions led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. First up, is Division Three, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Division Three: Stone Cold Steve Austin

Ever Grain Brewing (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.93)
Idiom Brewery (Frederick, MD) (3.90)
Breaker Brewing (Wilkes-Barre, PA) (3.85)
ShuBrew (Zelionople, PA) (3.85)
Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.84)
Liquid Noise (Marysville, PA) (3.84)
Boneshire Brew Works (Harrisburg, PA) (3.83)
Rough Edges (Waynesboro, PA) (3.82)
Tattered Flag (Middletown, PA) (3.79)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown, PA) (3.74)
Three Heads Brewing (Rochester, NY) (3.71)
Mount Gretna Craft Brewery (Palmyra, PA) (3.58)

Division Four: The Rock

Cushwa Brewing (Williamsport, MD) (4.11)
Jackie O’s Brewery (Athens, OH) (4.02)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (Enola, PA) (3.88)
Mellow Mink (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.84)
Moo-Duck Brewing (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.83)
Logyard Brewing Company (Kane, PA) (3.78)
Molly Pitcher Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.75)
Olde Bedford Brewing Company (Bedford, PA) (3.75)
Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (Cincinnati, OH) (3.72)
Isle of Que Brewing (Selinsgrove, PA) (3.69)
The Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.56)

Alright, that’s all 48 competitors. Tomorrow the brackets will be published and you will be allowed to vote on the first round matchups. Here’s where things get a bit screwy…. mainly because I don’t do math so good (sigh, sad subject, really, since I work at a job where I do math all day). Well, what really happened, is that I didn’t think through the breakdown. 32 breaks down easily for each round…. 48…. not so much. So…..

Week one will be divisions with 6 matches in each divisions. After that, the divisions will break for week two, and it will be by conference, with 6 matches in each conference. After this, we break apart the conferences, and do another 6 matches. This leaves us with 3 final competitors, for a triple threat for the ending.

So…. I kinda sorta walked myself into a corner…. and kinda… sorta…. walked my way out of it. Glad I chose to use wrestler themed people, so that the finale “Triple Threat” makes more sense.

*Smacks head* D’oh!

But anyway, there will be 7 days of voting for each round. With the final round taking the remainder of the month and ending on the 31st.

Voting

Each day you will be able to come to the site to make your votes in the polls. It will be set-up by IPS, so it limits you to voting just once per day per vote. You can vote as many times as you want per round, but only once per day.

Following each round, I will update the brackets and post them and make up the new polls for voting. Round one begins on March 1st, 2021 and will last until March 7th at Midnight, when it will then become the next round.

I suggest helping your breweries out and sharing the poll pages so that as many of your friends and brewery lovers can vote as well. Good luck to all of the competitors… err… breweries!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Isolation Anniversary Beer (Aslin Beer Company)

BKline — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 03:15:00 +0000

Isolation Anniversary Beer by Aslin Beer Company

Welcome back to round number two of the four rounds of four beers I had during the last streaming I did with Drew on Knights of Nostalgia. The first was Pixels by Seminar Brewing, this is the second, the third will be Great Notion Brewing’s Fruit Monster, and the fourth will be Elder Pine Brewing and Blending’s Villeinage. (Spoiler alert: all four beers were really good.)

Aslin Beer Company is one of the many great breweries along the East Coast. In the middle of the East Coast; Virginia, Maryland, D.C, West Virginia, Delaware area; Aslin Beer Company, Burley Oak Brewing Company, The Veil, The Answer, Adroit Theory, Dewey Beer Company, are often mentioned on “must visit” and “top breweries” and “great” lists; they are usually the sought after, the traded for (the Facebook group ISO / FT), and the breweries that people mule back from. So needless to say, it’s fantastic to see some of these breweries (notably Aslin Beer Company and Burley Oak Brewing Company) popping up in distribution (distro) in the area. Breski’s Beverage on Eisenhower Boulevard (outside of Harrisburg between Harrisburg and Middletown) has been getting some wonderful cans from both breweries, as well as many other notable breweries, and is always worth checking in to see what they currently have in stock.

The mix-a-six selection at Breski’s and similar places are phenomenal right now (…phenomenally tasting; horrible on your wallet however). Last Tuesday before stopping at Tattered Flag for their Taco Tuesday, I stopped at Breski’s and got two mix-a-six six-packs (and paid about 60$), but picked up some tremendous beers; like the Isolation Anniversary Beer, two Great Notion beers, a pilsner (Billsner) from Burley Oak, a Black is Beautiful from Non Sequitur, Stickman’s The Growfather (can’t resist a good Godfather pun), two from Stranger Root’s Experimental Ales, Alarmist, Atlantic, etc. All in all, a wonderful selection of beers that you will be seeing reviews of (at least nine out of the 12 anyway, and hopefully in a timely fashion).

So, since I have a ton of reviews to do, and limited time (don’t we all limited time afterall?) I better get right down to this and do this beer review shouldn’t I?

Ok…. lets do it!

Isolation Anniversary Beer by Aslin Beer Company

Beer: Isolation Anniversary Beer
Brewery: Aslin Beer Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double Milkshake
ABV: 9.4%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Always a little disappointing to see the description left blank (its nice to see notes from the brewers / brewery, or maybe a joke or pun, or some context behind the beer or the beer name, or why or how it was brewed, if it was a collaboration, if its someone’s favorite recipe, or something at least), but I think this beer doesn’t really need a description, as it stands on its own.

Appearance is similar to that of a New England IPA; its opaque, its hazy, its bright, and orange, and glowing, but its even thicker than a normal New England IPA looks. It has ‘floaters’ especially if you don’t roll it before opening it up and pouring it. Its very well carbonated and has a great foamy white head, with a good pour it has just the right amount of head, with a bad pour I could picture this filling a whole glass with just head. The bubbles on it are nice and it leaves a nice lacing in the glass. It’s turbid, busy, and active.

The nose on this is hoppy, juicy hoppy, citrusy hoppy, but also creamy and vanilla and lactose, like silky smooth creamy milk with lots of fruity, citrus, juice, hops in it. I get mango, peach, citrus, a bit of zest, and a small whiff of grapefruit hop notes in this blended with the vanilla sweetness and cream of the lactose.

First sip… wow. Second sip… double wow. This has a LOT going on. Which is not a fault or problem at all; granted sometimes it can be, but not in this case. This has a lot going on, but all in proportion to the beer itself and within its style and how the beer is supposed to be. It’s not going off into all kinds of different places with varied and confusing mixtures of flavors, or with off flavors, or with competing notes. This just has a lot going on within it, but all with a purpose, all within the style, and all just how you should want it. Its a milkshake, its a hop bomb, its juicy, its turbid, its hazy, its strong, its delicious. Most importantly…. its delicious. And… did I mention yet…. that its delicious? This was hands down my favorite of the night, and it was the boldest, most flavorful, and had the biggest wallop of flavors, notes, aromas, hop, juiciness, and outright drinkability. I could easily kill a four pack of these, and probably in short time too; its just that drinkable. Which is scary at its 9.4% ABV, but it doesn’t feel heavy, or boozy, or knocking you on your face and teeth skittering across the cement floor of the basement kind of alcoholic; its just crushable but at a higher ABV. This is like drinking a smooth, juicy, silky, creamy, orange juice with the fruity citrus juicy hops in for extra flavor. Just like with aroma, I got mostly mango and peach with the flavor, but also got citrus, some zest, and a teeny weensy bit of grapefruit. I do have to say, as much as I could crank down a four pack of this, as someone with lactose intolerance, thats probably not a great idea. These milkshake IPAs and milkshake sours and such with some having an insane amount of lactose in them (this one probably has a rather large amount in it) typically give me some ‘gastro’ issues next morning when I wake up. One or so don’t usually hurt too much, but after that it starts pushing it, especially with the very heavy lacto ones.

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 10.25.20)

After wrapping up the beer review here, I wanted to do a bit more research on the beer for the blog, so I did a quick Google search (ASLIN ISOLATION ANNIVERSARY BEER) and the first site was their online ordering form for the beer, which you can find here: Order Isolation Anniversary Beer. It also came with a description for the beer which reads:

“🎉 ISOLATION ANNIVERSARY BEER 🎉 Today‘s the day we opened our (garage) door 5 years ago! 🍻In honor of the 1825 days that have passed since then, we bring you our Aslin ISOLATION ANNIVERSARY BEER. Soft ripe yellow peach, mango, and passionfruit unite with explosively juicy results, and a full-bodied, perfectly zippy taste that finishes off with woody resin notes from Cypress & Sugar Maple wood. This is juicy fruit flesh squeezed into a hazy DIPA!! We’re raising a glass of this to all of you for your incredible support that has helped bring us to YEAR 6. Hang tight, this is not the only drop in our 5th Anniversary series! 🎉 🍻”

Also came with a picture:

Aslin Isolation Beer (Picture courtesy of their Online Order Form: https://www.aslinbeer.com/online-ordering/Isolation-Anniversary-Beer-DIPA-4-Pack-p236935594)

Hopefully that provides a bit of closure on the beer and fills in for the lack of a description on Untappd for everyone.

As always everyone, thanks for reading, and be sure to check back soon as I do the other two beers, as well as some recent travelogues (just did a recent hike with my faithful canine companion Leela to the Pinnacle Overlook in Hamburg and stopped at 1787 Brewing Company and Schaylor Brewing Company). As always, there is a ton to check out here on the blog, so be sure to be on the lookout, hit the subscribe and follow button, and always feel free to comment, we love to hear from you!

You can see my latest beer reviews here:

Also, in recent news, the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) 2020 ended (their 34th edition; this year virtually rather than in person in Boulder, Colorado), and they’ve announced their winners. You can see what Pennsylvania Breweries won here. As well as the 2020 NAGBW Awards.

Cheers everyone, and stay safe and healthy out there with all the rises in COVID cases. Remember to mask up, remember to wash hands, and most importantly: remember to drink some great craft beers!

Aslin’s Isolation Anniversary

Isolation Anniversary Beer by Aslin Beer Company

-B. Kline