The final of the “video game streaming night” collection of beers to be reviewed. This is the fourth from that series. Also, just like I did last November (you can read up on it all in the November Recap 2019) in honor of NaNoWriMo I will be doing a blog post each night. It will mostly be beer reviews, but some will be different, brewery reviews, events, news, etc. This year will also be a bit different, as I have a road trip coming up around the 11th. (Driving out to Indianapolis to visit the Vonnegut Museum and Library on his birthday.)

This series of beer reviews comes from the night a week ago when playing at Drew’s for his Knights of Nostalgia streaming page. You can visit his page and follow by clicking the name. The other beers of the series were:

• Fruit Monster (Great Notion Brewing)
• Isolation Anniversary Beer (Aslin Beer Company)
• Pixels (Seminar Brewing)

Last year for November, I challenged myself to try one new beer each day (30 new beers), and to do one new blog post each day (30 new blog posts), as well as try and get my 10,000 steps each day, and even try and walk at least one mile. Ironically, the only day I didn’t make my 10K step count was the 2nd day of the month (early morning issues, work, and going straight to a Halloween / remembrance party at a friend’s house) led to me not hitting my 10K that day. (Six years ago today we lost a very good friend – Doug; Doug the Slug, and last year Myers had a party to celebrate his life as well as Halloween, but due to COVID this year, that’s not in the cards.)

So for the first blog post of November 2020, it will be the final beer of the series I recently did – which was four incredible beers I picked up at Breski’s Beverages and drank for the streaming night on Knights of Nostalgia. (This was technically from The Barley Mow in Reading, not one of the ones I got from Breski’s, but I do believe I’ve seen Elder Pine Brewing and Blending at Breski’s before.)

Be sure to check out the streams sometimes. It’s Drew’s page and he is the lead streamer on it, I sometimes accompany him, as do other people like Rome, Kelsey, Rory, Dan, Youngblood, Kerrie, Esteban, and others. Its a lot of fun, its typically older games – NES, SNES, Atari, Sega, etc, but with some newer games (like Friday the 13th, or some of the Final Fantasies he’s done, or recently we did The Last of Us). It can get vulgar and sometimes the humor runs ‘dark’ or ‘blue’, but nothing is made to purposefully offend anyone or to upset the masses. Its definitely worth a watch at least once and see if it’s your cup of tea or not.

So this Villeinage beer is one I picked up at The Barley Mow in Reading from our Reading trip. You can click here to read more about it: “The Birthday Trip to Reading – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”

I have never heard of the word of “Villeinage” and honestly assumed it was a made up word, but, when writing it out, it doesn’t get the little ‘red scribble line’ under it, meaning its a real word, so I looked it up on Dictionary.com:

villeinage

or vil·lain·age, vil·lan·age, vil·len·age

noun

• the tenure by which a villein held land and tenements from a lord.

• the condition or status of a villein.

Dictionary.com Definition Villeinage.

This all led to me then wondering exactly the true definition of Villein. I have a pretty good idea from the above, and I don’t think its an evil mastermind or evil doer. But lets see.

Dictionary.com:

villein

noun

• a member of a class of partially free persons under the feudal system, who were serfs with respect to their lord but had the rights and privileges of freemen with respect to others.

Dictionary.com Definition of Villein.

There you all go, now this has been both an educational beer review, as well as hopefully entertaining, as well as providing you with the actual review of the beer itself. You never knew you’d get so much out of just one single beer review did you? You’re welcome.

Ok, lets get on with it, and get to the beer review.

Beer: Villeinage
Brewery: Elder Pine Brewing and Blending
Style: Farmhouse Ale – Saison
ABV: 4%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Table-strength Saison brewed with an insane amount of spelt malt & raw wheat for the creamiest body a 4% abv beer can offer. Heavily dry-hopped w/ Pacific Jade at a staggering rate of 3lb/bbl for bright citrus notes that meld perfectly with the stone fruit, banana and bubblegum aromas & flavors derived from our house saison yeast.

Dry hopped saison got my interest piqued right away. And I believe is why I ordered a can of this while Drew ordered some food and I had a draft while we were at The Barley Mow during our Reading trip. Also, always kind of interested in how flavorful beers can be at the lower spectrum of ABVs, 3%, 4%, 4.5%, etc.

Appearance for this is light, yellow / golden. It looks like a cross between a saison and an IPA, but more on the lighter, effervescent saison side. There is a lot of ‘bubblage’ in this bad boy, almost champagne like. A little bit of head to it and nice lacing on the glass.

The nose on this has some interesting differences to it. There is a citrus hop note from the dry hopping, there is also a very yeasty, kind of funky smell that emanates from the house yeast that Elder Pine Brewing and Blending uses, there is some wheat, bread, almost a spent grain note, a sweet almost to ripening banana, and a slight bit of lemon.

This is super light, airy even, the 4% is forefront in the mind because of how light, refreshing and drinkable this is. First tasting notes are funky saison, sweet to ripe banana – almost banana bread like, a yeasty champagne note, there is a lot going on with this as you can tell. Its got the classic funkyness of a saison, but with an edge to it, from the dry hopping, almost giving it a New England IPA style tasting to it. The dry hopping adds some juicy citrus, lemon notes to this that I think blends pretty well with the notes from the yeast and the saison and the raw wheat. There is some notes of stone fruit, a wee bit of bubblegum flavor but very (extremely) subtle, but it blend with the citrus and lemon of the hops into a nice combination. Nothing is super strong or overpowering or too much, and the degrees of the complexity to this all work together and stay in synch. Its also interesting that with the low ABV I feel like it keeps it lighter than it probably really is (like a trick of the brain type thing). It has a light crisp almost pilsner like finish, and there is some zest, some funk to it that gives you a nice aftertaste to this. This is a very interesting beer and was a good ending beer to my night of good beers.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.79 (as of 11.1.20)

As I said earlier, I like to make November a challenge month for me. And like I did with last year, I’m doing the same again this year – attempting to do the following each day in November:

• One new beer
• One new blog post
• 10,000 Steps
• One mile walk (or run)
• Try to do some kind of lifting

Every other day I’d like to have a book read, so fifteen books read in November. I’m up to 76 so far for the year, so I’m a bit behind, as my reading goal for this year is 105 (meaning I need 29 more books to read, so 15 in November and 14 in December).

Its 10:50PM now, and I’ve gotten my walk in, gotten my steps in, did some light lifting, and finishing my beer. Despite having a recent string of drinking nights (Wednesday – after a ten hour day at work I walked down to Rubber Soul and met Drew and A. Parys, and then walked to Howling Henry’s; Thursday – a streaming session with Drew and Rory; Friday – Boneshire Brew Works’ 4th Anniversary Celebration; Saturday – Halloween and the yearly Halloween party at Justin and Aimee’s). But I’ve survived, and going slow with just a small beer tonight. It’s ‘Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale’ by The Atlantic. Nursed this while reading and writing and having this god awful Eagles / Cowboys game on in the background.

Thanks for reading everyone!

To see the others of this series check them out here:

• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Isolation Anniversary Beer (Aslin Beer Company)
• Beer Review: Fruit Monster (Great Notion Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)

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

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)
• Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Continuing the beers from the stream; I get to the third of the series, and I present to you the fabled FRUIT MONSTER of Great Notion Brewing. Firstly…. let me say, finally, I’ve gotten to try Great Notion Brewing, and they absolutely live up to all of the hype their beers have received. I got a few of their beers from Breski’s in a mix-a-six, and I’ll be reviewing the others as well at some point. But first I wanted to do the beers I had on the stream as part of a series. You can check out the streaming page at Knights of Nostalgia. I’ll put a list of the beers from the stream that I did beer reviews of at the end of this article. Its a series of reviews, just like my Tree House beers I reviewed as a series. Make sure to check out the others.

Look at that picture above, doesn’t that look like pure juice? Like orange juice? Like a good breakfast OJ to get the day going? Well, its not OJ, and its not a New England IPA, but it is pure straight juice, and its straight fire.

This is part of the Great Notion’s Tart Ale series, each batch being a different blend of fruits. This particular one (in the above review) was Mango, Guava, and Passionfruit. The Untappd description reads that its Passionfruit and Pineapple, but that was for a different batch, and they don’t have a unique beer check-in for each batch. So the description reads off a bit different than the beer itself; but its a simple fix – where it says “pineapple and passionfruit” just think “mango, guava, passionfruit”. Problem solved.

Beer: Fruit Monster
Brewery: Great Notion Brewing
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: The first in our new tart ale series, Fruit Monster! Each batch will have a unique blend of tropical fruits and milk sugar, and the first one has a scary amount of pineapple and passion fruit. Drink up before the monster gets it all!

Appearance is like your morning juice with a nice breakfast. Not quite like the hazy juice of New England IPAs, this looks more like your pineapple or slicker clearer juices. Its still not transparent and is mostly opaque, but it not as hazy or turbid and it doesn’t have any sediment or floaters in it. It had a thin (very thin) small head when poured that quickly evaporated. Good carbonation. Beautiful orange color, bright, and all around just appealing.

The nose for this is just as described and offered. Mango, guava, passionfruit. Very fruity, in a heady mixture. It all hits together at the same time in the same way and makes one giant blend of an aroma. You can really smell the three fruits; but I think the mango and guava is probably the two that come through the most, hard to say though with just how well it all blends together.

Now we get to whats always my favorite part of the review…. because its my favorite part of beer; and that’s drinking it! Just like its appearance would make you think, this is pure juice. And just like its aroma would make you think, this is pure fruity. So… guess what? Its pure fruity juice! This is completely, absolutely, ridiculously, incredibly… delicious. As the ‘cool kids’ on the interweb would say, “its pure fire”. (See, I’m still hip and with it. I can get jiggy with it too.) There is a very slight tartness to this, but its refined and mostly negligible; what you are primarily getting is a fruity, juicy, drinkable and crushable beer. I think I downed this in no time, savoring the first sip and the last, and draining the rest of it far quicker than I should have. (Its so good its hard to savor it.) The fruits do blend in the tasting just like they did in the aroma. You get the notes of the mango, guava, and passionfruit, very heavily. Probably mostly mango and mostly guava with the passionfruit being more subtle. Guava can be an interesting flavor to me, its very hit or miss, in this though, I think its definitely a hit, most likely because of how its used in combination with the mango and passionfruit. I am a huge fan of mango in beer and this nails it completely and perfectly. Providing such a deep tasty mango flavor that combines really well with the guava and the passionfruit flavors and makes a really nice blend. This is 6% so its certainly not heavy or boozy or too powerful, and its very crushable, a four pack of this would go down waaaaaaaaay too easily. I think 5-7.5% is the perfect range for beers if you are sitting down and drinking; don’t get me wrong, I love the deep heavy boozy barleywines and stouts (as many faithful readers of the blog can attest to), but for hanging out with friends, drinking, playing video games, etc, a good 5-7.5% beer is perfect. You can have multiples, its not too boozy, too heavy, and sits well. Just like this does. Perfect for playing Friday the 13th and being a camp counselor running away from Jason Voorhees. Also, just a perfect beer, period, in general, flat out. Make sure you find yourself some of this and give it a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed at all.

My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: 4.11 (as of 10.29.20)

This is the third of the four beer series from last week’s streaming session; when me and Drew played Friday the 13th on Knights of Nostalgia. You can check in with us to see what we’re drinking, and you can watch Drew on there a lot, usually drinking craft beer and / or bourbon or scotch.

Beers:

• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Isolation Anniversary Beer (Aslin Beer Company)
• Beer Review: Fruit Monster (Great Notion Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)

So be sure to check out Villeinage soon. Probably sometime in the next day or two.

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

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Tonight I will be joining Drew again on Knights of Nostalgia for another stream, this time we’ll also be joined by Rory. So make sure to see the three of us play some video games and drink craft beer and joke around.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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!

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:

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:

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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!

-B. Kline

Last night was another ‘stream night’ with my friend Drew over at Knights of Nostalgia. I had four amazing beers last night (and will be doing a review of each). I had this – Pixels; Aslin’s Isolation Anniversary Beer, Elder Pine Brewing and Blending’s Villenage, and Great Notion’s Fruit Monster. This was my first time having all four of these beers, and my first time having a beer from Seminar Brewing, from Elder Pine Brewing and Blending, and from Great Notion Brewing. And none of them disappointed.

Don’t worry, I will be doing a review for all four of these. They were way to good not to do a review for each. (And made for quite the costly mix-a-six at Breski’s too, so I better put the drinking to good use!)

I had been saving the Pixels for a night of doing video game streaming with Knights of Nostalgia just due to its image and name-sake. Funnily though, we didn’t play a pixelated game, we did a more modern game (normally on Knights of Nostalgia we play old school NES or SNES games, like Zelda, or Metroid, or Mario, etc.). But, either way, it still made for a good fit for the stream. We played the Friday the 13th game, which you can play against people multi-player online. You are either Jason (the killer) or a camp counselor (someone who wants to escape). You play from various levels like Crystal Lake, Jarvis House, etc. Drew has all of the different Jason’s unlocked, so if you are Jason, you can play as any of the Jason’s from Parts I through X, including NES Jason. (Which looks absolutely horrible by the way, I do not recommend that Jason; just on aesthetics alone.) The game is ridiculously fun, and every time you play it, it’s simple, same yet different, and has endless possibilities. The surprise and shock factor of Jason appearing and things like that are always great too. Absolutely a blast to play with friends, definitely worth checking out. (Or go to Knights of Nostalgia and watch us play it.)

So after work yesterday, I ran home and got the beer and then went to his house and from 7:30 to roughly 12:30 we played Friday the 13th, and then hung around chatting until about 2:30 while having another beverage or two (St. Boniface’s Theory and Reality; and lots of water).

Enough jibber jabbering; let’s get on with the review!

Beer: Pixels
Brewery: Seminar Brewing
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.2%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: New England Style IPA – Juicy, hoppy and cloudy, just like it should be!

This beer comes from a co-worker (shout out to Jam; who also brought me Up a Creek Extreme Ale) who grabbed this and a few other beers for me from South Carolina. Interesting note on this – the can’s tag price was 4.19$. Not sure why it’s such an odd amount, but possibly / probably because of tax I would assume. This is my first time having anything from them, and I was not disappointed. On Untappd their listed as having 60 unique beers. You can find the link to them above.

It’s hard to tell from the picture above (didn’t want to detract from the streaming by taking a beautiful photo, so you’ll have to deal with the crappy photo pic of the beer, half drank), but this looks like a juicy dank normal New England IPA. It’s hazy and opaque, and it foamed up a lot more than I imagined it would (could be traveling causing some shaking), but it had a lot of head to this. White foamy, billowy head to it, that left a fair bit of lacing on the glass.

Aroma is a very juicy, citrus, hoppy New England IPA. Its bright, powerful, and strong hop notes, this smells every bit as what you’re expecting from a hoppy and hop forward New England IPA. It’s definitely taken the knob and turned it up to max on the hop aroma, and there ain’t a thing wrong with that.

Taste is just like the above two – spot on for a New England hoppy / hop forward IPA. Very juicy, very strong hop notes and flavors, very powerful hop presence, that will really knock your socks off (be careful; drink this with shoes on to protect yourself from flying socks). There isn’t a crazy amount of things going on with this beer, its pretty much standard, by the numbers, but its done extremely well. You get a lot of juicy citrus hop notes up front, that taper off into more subtle earthy hop notes, with a slight background of mango hops flavors. It all blends pretty much by the end, and all blends very well to boot. Sometimes the best beer is just a beer done extremely well. Doesn’t need to have five thousand adjuncts or forty million different ingredients or a bunch of crazy recipe additions, late hop this, or dry hopped that, just a well brewed, delicious, tasty, and drinkable beer is all you really need most times; and this is just that beer. It hits all of the palate well, and spot on, doesn’t have any lingering or bad off flavors, and gets you wanting more when you are finished. At 7.2% ABV its not super strong and comparison wise, that puts it near Perpetual IPA (7.5%) by Troegs Brewing; so its not incredibly strong, and easy to drink a few of these at a time. A great beer to have while hanging out with friends and playing video games and streaming the game, while being chased and hacked to pieces by Jason.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.95 (as of 10.22.20)

Thanks for reading everyone. Today has been a slow day for me, I had wanted to go hiking and taking the dog walking and checking out a brewery or two or something, but that doesn’t look to be happening (started off slow… I may or may not have a pretty decent size headache when I woke up this morning, and woke up at 7AM thinking it was a work day, and then went back to sleep and woke up at 8:30-9AM). But hopefully tomorrow will be a hiking and traveling day. I’m thinking of hitting up the Hamburg area for hiking and obviously the breweries in the nearby areas.

You can see my latest beer reviews here:

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)

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!

Final notes – be sure to check out our article on Pilger Ruh Brewing and their crowd funding, they begin construction work on their brewery tomorrow, and need every cent they can get, so check that out and see if you are able to help out. Also, tomorrow, Tattered Flag released their Pitties beer; which some of the proceeds go towards helping Pittie Rescues. Be sure to check that out.

Ok everyone, have a great Thursday, and it’s time I get my butt moving instead of doing nothing all day. Alright, cheers everyone!

-B. Kline