With the success of any pop cultural phenomenon comes a beer dedicated to it. This is the way. Look at the myriad of pop culture themed and named beers throughout the craft beer world. Either current popularity or old nostalgia, beers love using names, themes, ideas, and pop cultural references. That’s the main thrust behind the Evil Genius marketing strategy, beers like Zey Goggles Zey Do Nothing, Santa I Know Him!!!, So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance, etc. A lot of breweries do it, some kind of reference to something else. Either as a homage or as a means of catching popularity and increasing sales. And being the sucker that I am for Star Wars, I fell for this one hook line and sinker. Thank the Maker this was good!

As many know (who either know me, or have been long-time readers of the blog), I am a big Star Wars fan. Been a major part of my life since I was 10 years old, and have loved it since I first came into contact with it. (My current reading pile right now as Battleground II: Inferno Squad by Christie Golden, Anthony Daniels’ Autobiography of his time as C-3PO – I Am 3PO, and Rebel Force Rising). My youngest daughter is named Mara – after Mara Jade (Skywalker). I could go on and on (or show thousands of pictures of my bookshelves in my office filled with Star Wars books, collectables, knick knacks, and Lego constructions), but I think you all get the general idea. (If you want to see my virtual bookshelves where I have all of my Star Wars books listed, you can check out my GoodReads Profile: B. Kline.) Also, I have done quite a few podcasts now with my friends over at So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar… through either their WTF Did I Just Watch or their Esoteric Antics channels. I’ll provide links to the individual podcasts at the end of this post.

So as soon as I saw this pop up on some of my beer group feeds, I immediately started reaching out attempting to secure it. Throwing out ISO posts on tons of different groups and sites, finally landed me one. Thanks to Roy Ge who even met me at Boneshire Brew Works to hand deliver it (his first time at the brewery too and he loved it, so double win there). It came as a crowler and set me back just 16$, which was worth it for both the liquid gold inside and the awesome can art.

I enjoy the small nods and homages to the actual universe. Rather than just ticking off the box for the namesake and picture, they went a bit deeper, calling it a “MEIPA” rather than a “NEIPA”. (Mos Eisley IPA rather than New England IPA.) (For those not in the know – Mos Eisley isthe name of the city where Chalmun’s Cantina is that Luke and Obi-Wan visit in Episode IV – A New Hope, where they meet Han and Chewbaca.) Broken Goblet has done some fun and interesting crowler can art in the past, primarily their “Nightmare Fuel” one, which had Gritty’s face on it – even complete with googly eyes pasted to the cans.

Unfortunately I missed out on that one but if they ever come back out with it, I’ll be making sure to grab one of those bad boys. Thats about the biggest Philadelphia thing you can do right there. And for the record – I don’t care what you say, that 13 year old kid had it coming and Gritty is innocent.

But as you can see…. Baby Yoda is growing restless and sick of all this nonsense and wants his (or hers?) beer review. So lets move on and give it to him / her / it / whatever. (And yes, for the record, I know its “The Child”, and I know its not really Yoda, and I know the story behind the character… but it’ll still forever be Baby Yoda to me.)

Beer: This Is The Way
Brewery: Broken Goblet Brewing
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A hazy IPA hopped with Julius, Idaho 7 and Citra then dry hopped with Julius and Citra
Broken Goblet’s Description: “This Is The Way” is a juicy “MEIPA”, brewed on-planet with Mykyr Neti, Ergesh and Grenade Fungi from Yavin 4, which are very similar to Julius, Idaho 7 and Citra. The brewery dry hopped aggressively “until the Ergesh became angry about the whole thing and bit Bub. Such are the perils of hopping beers with sentient plants”.

As you can see in my picture, I brought two glasses from home to D. Scott’s for the podcast. Had to make it “proper” by drinking a Star Wars beer in some Star Wars glasses and share it with one of the biggest Star Wars nerds I know. (Glasses came as a Christmas gift from Mara, so its all full circle.)

Appearance is a light and surprisingly not very hazy look for a New England IPA. Its relatively clear, and looks more like a general IPA or even “regular beer” as my friends would call it. Not completely transparent, but relatively so, no sediment, and obviously filtered. Pouring from the crowler (which was filled on location at Broken Goblet Brewery and brought to me just two days later and then consumed one day later) it has great carbonation, leaving a wonderful head and even on these small glasses good lacing.

Aroma is a fruity hoppy creamy smell, full of mango, some citrus notes, but pretty much full mango and some peach. I’m not familiar with Julius hops, but I am familiar with Citra and Idaho 7. You can smell the citra hops a mile away (as per usual with the hops) and the Idaho 7 has a nice blend with it. So lets do a little research on Julius hops: ….so far, nothing on either Hopslist or BYO: Compare Hops. HomeBrewStuff also doesn’t list Julius hops. And neither does MoreBeer. For all of these hop notes sites, the only J hops listed are Junga, Jerrylo, and Jester. So I honestly can’t tell you what Julius hops are, what the dry hopping of them adds, or anything really at all about them unfortunately. If anyone knows anything about Julius hops, please leave me some comments letting me know. I know about Tree House’s Julius. (Even did a beer review of it.) But I also know, the Julius beer, does *NOT* use Julius hops. So hopefully someone out there reading this will know something about it and can let us all know. The aroma is strengthened by the dry hopping, and you certainly get a good hop punch out of this.

Taste is super smooth. Creamy and very much like a light New England IPA. Lacking the hazyness and the unfiltered nature, and no real hop bite. This is incredibly smooth, easy drinking, and even for “non-IPA” fans would be very good (they probably wouldn’t even know it was an IPA). This is juicy, very heavy on mango, peach, and hints of citrus hop. Floral but very fruity. Not ripe and not pungent or overpowering, but just good fruit tasting IPA, like a fruit sour or fruit beer, or (non-alcoholic) fruit juice. There isn’t a heavyness to this either, it won’t lay on your tongue, it won’t be too much for you, its just simply tasty, smooth, crisp even, with the right amount of fruit flavor.

My Untappd Review: ****
Global Untappd Review: 4.05 (as of 2.7.20)

Well, thats my thoughts on this…. for anyone else whose had it…..

As always, thanks for checking out the blog. Like I said, I’m a big Star Wars fans, and so are the guys I do the podcasts with (D. Scott, D. Arndt, Esteban, and a random assortment of others who step in and out from time to time like Andy, Andy, Alan, Jared, Josh, etc.). You can check out the full podcast listing here: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar…
For the Mandalorian first-half: Esoteric Antics: The Mandalorian. And for our discussion on Rise of Skywalker and wrap-up of The Mandalorian: Esoteric Antics: Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian Wrap-Up.

I have done other Broken Goblet Brewing beer on here, you can check that out here: They Burn Them All Away (Beer Review).

I might be finishing up my series of Tree House beer reviews either tonight, or tomorrow, or Sunday, depending on if I go out tonight, and how everything shapes up tomorrow with the bottle / beer share at Tattered Flag. The last beer in the series is Doppelganger. I have previously done: Sap, Autumn, Haze, and Julius.

Speaking of tomorrow, I (B. Kline) will be attending (with D. Scott) the Breweries in PA beer / bottle share at Tattered Flag. I had done a local for local beer trade with a guy out in Eureka California, sending him Troegs Independent Brewing, Tattered Flag, Pizza Boy, and Boneshire Brew Works beers in exchange for some locals there. He…. kinda screwed me over on his end though. We were both to send out on January 31st (I did and proved receipt). He waited until package was in hand (attempted delivery on the 3rd, but his bar he works at was closed, and so he received it on the 4th), the whole time telling me he was sorry it was taking so long and that he would expedite it. Well, on the 6th, he claimed it’d be 200$+ to expedite it, and thus he would send it regularly. So, now, no ‘interesting’ California beers for the bottle / beer share. I will probably be hitting Breski’s Beverage and pickup something good from the cooler or maybe a big stout to bring. Sorry for those attending that my beers won’t be as interesting or likely as unfamiliar to most of you. I tried, I really did.

And, since we’re on the subject of Breweries in PA, you can check out their initial press release of This is The Way: Broken Goblet Introduces “This is The Way”. And while we’re at it, you can always check out the big article I wrote for them: Touring Through the Harrisburg – Hershey Area – Touring the Breweries That Surround Harrisburg.

With this event tomorrow, I will be doing a write-up / wrap-up on it. Most likely Sunday, possibly Monday. Sunday is a big give-away promotion at the casino, so its going to be a hectic day for me, and one I’ll probably need some beer afterwards. For tonight, maybe tomorrow, not sure, I’m hoping to get to Stoudt’s Brewery before it closes. So maybe me and a buddy will go tonight, or maybe me and D. Scott will go after the bottle share tomorrow, or we might go on a Wednesday or Thursday (my days off) next week. According to my phone, its a 48 – 52 (depending on traffic) travel time from Hummelstown to Adamstown. So not the easiest travel, but not the worst.

Some upcoming beer reviews are: Wild IPA – Loki (Newfangled Brew Works), Doppelganger (Tree House Brewing), Anagnorisis (Boneshire Brew Works), Pink Hippo (Boneshire Brew Works), possibly First Cut (Troegs Independent Brewing), I Cannot Tell a Lie (New Heights Brewing), and then eventually when the beer mail arrives – the California beers.

So please stay tuned for all of that. Also this Saturday is the York Hibrewnation. Would love to hear from anyone going and then afterwards how it went. Sounds great!

I am waiting hearing back from Brad Moyer to do our piece on Liquid Noise Brewing. That will be fun when we get that all set-up. The Mellow Mink one went fantastic and I’m looking forward to doing the same there.

As always, there is a ton of things in the works here at The Beer Thrillers, so please be sure to subscribe, follow, like us on Facebook and Twitter and keep drinking and reading along with us. Please feel free to leave feedback or contact us through our contact page. We love hearing from you guys! Hopefully I’ll see some of you guys at Tattered Flag tomorrow for the beer / bottle share. Thats from 11AM to 2PM and sounds like a blast. Let us know in the comments if you’re going.

Thanks for reading everyone, cheers!

-B. Kline

Finally getting back into the saddle with a beer review. The first since – my Multiple Beer Review of my flight of beers from Troegs – Scratches 394, 395, 396, and Mad Elf. And my first blog post since the November Recap. (The guest blog contribution from Let Us Drink Beer blog – Five Breweries to Visit in Atlanta was the most recent blog post here.) So its good to get back into the rhythm of writing and posting, and blogging, and all of this fun jazz.

Last week, (exactly one week ago), after handling all the activities of being an adult (and a parent) I stopped at Official BBQ and picked up two six packs – one six pack of Ice Dreamz and one mix-a-six (Michael Meyer’s Lemon IPA, Shabby Sheik IPA, 2x Sunny Side Up, Hop Vision: Amarillo, and LegenDairy Pumpkin.) During the podcast at D. Scott’s, where we did a podcast about The Mandalorian with Alex and Andrew, we followed this up with a podcast on The Irishman with Esteban. Both of those podcasts are now available to listen, and you can here:

• The Mandalorian
• The Irishman

So make sure you check those out, download or even listen directly on the site linked there. Both were great fun to make. In the Mandalorian episode we discuss the beers we’re trying a bit. Alex had the Michael Meyer’s Lemon IPA, Drew had the Sunny Side Up, I had the Ice Dreamz (at first; then the Shabby Sheik, then the Hop Vision: Amarillo and LegenDairy Pumpkin during the Irishman podcast), Andrew had brought his own from Troegs – he started with a Blizzard of Hops, before having a Hopback, a Perpetual, and I believe a Troegenator. All wonderful beers. The Mandalorian is wonderfully nerdy about Star Wars, so if your into that, definitely check it out. (Spoilers for the Mandalorian but not for Rise of Skywalker). The Irishman podcast gets pretty heavy into mob and mafia / mafioso and gang stuff, and we spoil other Scorsese movies as well (namely Goodfellas, Casino, Departed, Wolf of Wall Street). Both have some cursing, and could be considered ‘R’ rated probably due to that. But please give them a listen, their about an hour and a half. (I’ll relink them at the bottom of this blog, with a bit more details on both.)

So getting back to the blog, its about time I wrote a beer review right? December has been a bit of a slow month here on The Beer Thrillers and I apologize for that. Hopefully this will snap me out of the slump and right the ship a bit, and we get a lot more productivity and blog posts out of December. Fingers, toes, and other things crossed.

Beer: Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (blank)

Untappd lists three variants made by Pizza Boy Brewing for Ice Dreamz – Ice Dreamz: Raspberry, Ice Dreamz: Blueberry, Blackberry, and Lime (which sounds amazing and I really want to try), and Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines.

I haven’t tried the other two variants (yet). But this tasted absolutely delicious. And the others at the podcast – Alex, Andrew, and Drew, all devoured the can I gave them. (Can and all even! Damn monsters.) They all loved the beer just as much as I did, and it was certainly the beer highlight of the night (though Sunny Side Up is always up there as well, as thats just an amazing stout.)

All three variants are listed as Sour – Fruited and 5% ABV on Untappd. So their most likely the same recipe and made the same, with just the different adjuncts (Raspberry singled, then blueberries, blackberries, and limes for the second; and for the third and the one I got to tried – cherries, cranberries, and tangerines).

The picture makes this beer look a little bit darker than it is, but it has a very nice cranberry color to it. A slightly dark red with pink hints. It has the sour look and texture to it, and there is a thin head with nice bubbles. It left a nice lacing on the glass, and no sugary residue or sediment really involved, but an obvious sour look and complexion to the beer.

Aroma is very strong and powerful. From cracking the tab on this one you are assaulted with the various fruit aromas. The cranberry is the standout. It jumps out and is very pungent, powerful, and strong, and nothing in the bad way. You get the notes of cherry and tangerine after that. Probably with tangerine being the least strong (less strong? not as strong?). You can distinguish them with a good clear nose, but just in order of strength it would be cranberry (by a fair margin) then cherry then tangerine.

This is a very smooth, non-textual, sweet sour. The lactose smooths things out, and with it not being a pulpy mess or a sugary smoothie like sour, your not left with that gritty sour texture or clumping that goes on in some other beers. This drinks smooth and sweet to sour. As with the aroma, you get the cranberry very much upfront and strong, like drinking tart cranberry juice, followed with a bit of cherry – luckily not too much, and not the medicinal cherry cough syrup flavor either – and then you get a bit of a blast of citrus kick to end it with the tangerine. It makes for a very nice and well rounded beer with the flavors changing as you sip down and as it all works it way through the beer and down to your gut. Its much more sweet and then tart than a true heavy sour. Its puckering to a small degree but nothing crazy. It tastes a lot like cranberry juice in that aspect. The lactose certainly smooths out the edges of the tartness and makes this a very pleasant beer. And with the 5% you could easily down quite a few while hanging with buddies…. perhaps doing a podcast? Perhaps discussing the finer points of The Mandalorian or Star Wars lore or culture? Who knows what you’ll discuss while drinking it… but I know what we discussed while pounding these bad boys out!

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.04 (as of 12.12.19)

Let me say a final note on this beer – that the can art is pretty cool too, a nice ‘hippy’ / ‘trippy’ cool piece of artwork:

This variant of the Ice Dreamz is currently on draft at both Al’s of Hampden Pizza Boy location and the Official BBQ and Burgers location. They also have a few sixpacks left at the Official BBQ place, for 18$ a six-pack, a fantastic value.

And for those of you sticking around about the podcasts, here’s more information.

The official channel is called “So a Mexican and a Scot walk into a bar…” (Esteban and Drew Scott started the channel, so you can see where the name came from.) You can find their official channel on BuzzSprout here: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk into a Bar….

I have done three podcasts with them now. I did the Breaking Bad and El Camino (broken up into two parts – Part 1 and Part 2), as well as The Mandalorian, and The Irishman. Theres a few different sections to the podcast and categories that they are doing. For the movies and shows they will be mainly under the heading “WTF Did I Just Watch” and for the more esoteric and nerdy things, that might stray away more from just a show or a book or a movie, its going to be under “Esoteric Antics”. The Mandalorian episode was the first under that heading, or category, or show, or series title, or whatever you want to call it. You can find their podcasts to download on BuzzSprout, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, and you can download straight from the site linked here. You can also listen directly to the podcasts on the site as well (though you will need to keep your internet on the whole time.)

Esoteric Antics : The Mandalorian – 1:28:43 – Staring Drew, Ben, Alex, Andrew
WTF Did I Just Watch : The Irishman – 1:45:53 – Staring Drew, Esteban, Ben

My older podcasts I did with them:

WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino / Breaking Bad (Pt. 1) – 1:09:28 – Staring Drew, Estey, Ben
WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino / Breaking Bad (Pt. 2) – 1:13:22 – Starring Drew, Estey, Ben

Their other podcast topics have included Halloween, Trick or Treat, The Joker, and Stephen King, and have included various other guest hosts like Dan and Andrew.

Thank you everyone for reading and checking out the podcasts. Once a site or FaceBook or Twitter page is set up for the podcasts, I’ll be sure to link them here for you all to see as well and hopefully follow so you’ll be kept up-to-date on the happenings there as well.

Cheers!

-B. Kline