A time of friends getting together, working, hustling, doing a project, calls for something special, calls for something to be shared, enjoyed together as a group… and thats just what we did with Buddy Shots.

We were all together discussing time travel and doing our time travel podcast for So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar… – D. Scott, Esteban, Skot Shneck, and myself. This was also going to be our first filmed one and was going to be put up on YouTube as well, but unfortunately (or fortunately? – depending on your view of my handsome and roguish good looks) there were camera issues, so this stayed as just a podcast. You can find the time travel podcast here: WTF Did I Just Watch – Time Travel Flicks.

And having been looking for an opportunity to crack this open and enjoy, I figured what better way, what better time, what better place than during the podcast as a group to enjoy it. So, of course, thats just what I did. Because I’m an adult and I get to do things when I want – because thats what adults do gosh darn it.

I had gotten this a while back as part of a beer mail trade alongside the bottle of Thursday (2016) from Cycle Brewing Company. You can check the review out here at the link.

I enjoy doing local for local trades, as it gets me an opportunity to try beers I don’t normally get from smaller breweries in areas I don’t travel to, while also supporting my local breweries (by buying their beers to ship to these places) and gets them some word of mouth as well. I was a little bit disappointed with this trade, that I only got two beer bottles, from a relatively well known brewery – Cycle Brewing Company – in exchange for the 8 or 9 beers I had sent from Tattered Flag, Troegs Brewing, Boneshire Brew Works, and Ever Grain Brewing. But it is what it is, both of these beers were delicious, and were expensive bottles, so it wasn’t the worst trade in the world (glares at some of the trades the Phillies have made in the past….). Ok…. so lets get moving on and review this beer!

Shots! Shots! Shot shot shots! ….sorry for getting that horrible song stuck in your head now, but I just had to do it.

Beer: Buddy Shots
Brewery: Cycle Brewing Company
Style: Strong Ale – American
ABV: 11%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Description: Strong Ale brewed with 6 different malts with a little chocolate then aged in Jameson Whiskey barrels.

This certainly fits the descriptors, so if you like a strong ale, if you like a high alcohol tasting beer, and if you like Whiskey – particularly Jameson – than you are bound to like this. So luckily for myself, this all hit home and found the mark.

This is a solid dark black, ocher like. Razor Ramon jet black hair black. Not a tremendous amount of things to say about its appearance really, its dark black, it has a thin layer of head to it when poured out in the tasters for each of us, as well as the finishing of the bottle into a glass for myself. There is carbonation but not an extreme amount, and the foamy head is extremely thin but is there. Its an off-brown / off-white creamy looking thin head with nice bubbles.

Aroma has that strong kick of alcohol. You get an immediate nose of hard whiskey, Jameson whiskey, just punches through this. This smells like the barrel aged – in particular whiskey barrel aged – beers that you are probably familiar with, ones from Weyerbacher or the Goose Island stouts, etc. You know that nose as soon as you crack the bottle on these types of beers, just a straight heavy alcohol nose to it. The six varieties of malts do get blended in and provide a punch, and there is the faintest hint, like a wisp of it on the wind of baker’s chocolate.

Taste is a fair bit more complex than both its aroma and its appearance, thankfully. Not saying that its nose or appearance is bad or anything, its just in comparison to the taste, their nondescript and pretty much by the book, whereas the taste is complex, flavorful, strong, and downright delicious. There is certainly a complexity to this, mainly because of the six different malts used. I’ve tried looking up the malts (Google searched and checked Untappd) but haven’t found which malts they used exactly. (So if anyone does know, be sure to leave a comment telling me what malts they used.) There is definitely a richness and complexity of flavors to this. But, mostly it has that very high alcohol and barrel aged tasting to it. You get very heavy notes of Jameson Whiskey on this, and it is incredibly strong. This is similar to a lot of barrel aged beers I’ve had, like with Weyerbacher and others where it has that wooden, whiskey infused, heavy alcohol taste that is so rich and delicious, but with this, there is the different notes of malts used, so it adds a lot of differing notes to this, so its not straight strong alcohol. I got notes of roasted caramel, notes of baker’s chocolate, notes of a deep dark roast, slightly coffee, but not heavy, and a bit of an earthyness to it all. There is a slight sweetness to it, but its balanced by some bittering from the coffee and baker’s chocolate. It teeters on a blade’s edge between the two, never becoming too dominant one way or the other. This all creates a nice blend, more apparent in the full glass than in the tasters, as all the different malts, all the different complexities, different notes, all converge together and combine with the Jameson barrel aging, gives it a very deep heavy, sweet and bitter, and downright delicious tasty flavor. This is a well rounded, blended, beer that incorporates a lot of different notes and malts and is perfect to do ‘shots’ of with buddies, a bomber split up amongst four friends at 11% is plenty to have a good night (or to do a good podcast).

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.33 (as of 8.12.20)

Be sure to check out the time travel podcast, it was a lot of fun doing it, and I think it turned out really well. We covered Terminator, Futurama, Back to the Future, LOST, and many others. So be sure to give it a listen!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

As you might have noticed, there’s been a few changes and some new faces here at The Beer Thrillers. Don’t worry, I’m still here (B. Kline), and somewhere out there J. Doncevic is still lurking around. But as you saw yesterday, we have two other new writers.

Firstly, Karl Larson (ihackbeer) is going to be writing for us periodically, mostly about brewing, home brewing, commercial brewing, and various informative pieces about beer, history, brewing, etc. He comes with an extreme wealth of knowledge, and it is such a privilege to have him writing for us. He is an award winning home brewer (gold medal winner), he is also a BJCP judge, as well as having brewed commercially for both Boneshire Brew Works and (currently) for Newfangled Brew Works. You can follow him on Twitter at: @ihackbeer. You can view Karl’s first post here: Brewing a Traditional Lithuanian Farmhouse Beer – Keptinis.

Our other new writer is Andrew Parys (A. Parys) (aka thesugarfoot). A local to Central Pennsylvania like myself and Josh (J. Doncevic) and Karl, he is an avid craft beer enthusiast and brewery traveler as well. He has been part of the extended Beer Thrillers family doing a podcast here or there with D. Scott and Esteban and myself over at “So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar…” Saturday featured his first article for us, a thought-piece about what makes a good “quarantine” brewery during these ‘crazy’ times: What Makes a Great Quarantine Brewery? I suggest you head over there, read it and leave a comment!

Also, speaking of podcasts (and the ilk), I’m looking at possibly trying to do beer specific podcasts in the near future for The Beer Thrillers, as well as possible YouTube videos and reviews done that way as well. So stay tuned for that. As always, I am still doing sporadic podcasts with D. Scott, Dan, A. Parys, Esteban, and a host of others through their pop-culture series – So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar…

As for the blog itself, we are celebrating one year this month. And we are most likely going to be moving to a full page and new host and having things look a lot more formal, professional, and nicer by the end of the month (fingers crossed). With that, there might be a few moving parts and some construction, but it should be quick and minimal (hopefully). The site’s links might change too, but if they do, I will set-up redirects so it should be no trouble to find us.

I also have had two other people from our Facebook group – the Central PA Whalerz (that me and Josh are members of) express interest writing for us, so you might be getting some more new faces as well. Hopefully we can poke and prod and get Mr. J. Doncevic to write us something new as well. Also, Let Us Drink Beer Blog is still guest writing with us (as well as we are for them) giving us about a monthly article about the beer scene down in the Atlanta Georgia area.

As far as the coming days go, this month, since I am still furloughed, for the foreseeable future (who knows how slow / fast things will begin to open up), and since its our One-Year anniversary, I am looking to make sure we get a blog post (or two!) every day. Tomorrow, being May 4th, I’d like to do a Star Wars themed one. Went down to Gettysburg today with my girls, but unfortunately struck out at Fourscore Beer Co (their Star Wars themed beer – Wookie Monster; sold out Saturday night). (Hint hint if anyone has one their willing to part with, to message / comment / PM me / DM me / etc.)

Then following that up we have Cinco De Mayo or Revenge of the Fifth, which I will take a look at some Mexican Lagers or Cervezas . So stay tuned for those articles.

If you are new to the blog, you can follow us on the various social media outlets. And I will take this opportunity to toot our own horn, and plug our statistics. I am amazed at how well, how fast, and how great the community has been in supporting us, in less than a full year. Thank you all so very much for your support! I will list our social media accounts next, as well as with the followers for each, just for people to get a scope of how far we’ve come and grown over this year!

As of May 3rd (10PM):

• Facebook: 550 Likes / 583 Followers
• Twitter: 159 Followers
• Instagram: 106 Followers
• WordPress: 53 Followers / 11 E-Mail Followers

We are currently #9 on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs. (Where it lists our Domain Authority as 76 and our Alexa Rank as 4.3K.)

So again, I would just like to say thank you so much for supporting us, especially amidst these crazy and troubling and unprecedented times. We have a lot more in store for the future so be sure to stick around and check us out!

Thank you everyone! Cheers!

-B. Kline
The Beer Thrillers Staff: Ben, Josh, Karl, Andrew
The Extended Beer Thrillers Staff: Let Us Drink Beer, Drew, Dan, Esteban

This is what a post-blood donation meal looks like. A nice beer, a big quesadilla from Sheetz, and not pictured but there, a big bucket of Sheetz fries as well. Typically I would do a huge stout to build back up, but I decided to keep working into the beer mail I got, and I chose this – Daebak (Berry) Kettle Sour by The Booth Brewing Company (out of US).

The Booth Brewing Company originally started in Seoul South Korea before moving to the United States. (Eureka California to be exact.) As per their Untappd page: “At The Booth Brewing Company, we brew more than just beer; we create a lifestyle. We craft our beer with all natural ingredients, both traditional and innovative brewing ingredients. We embrace big and bold but specialize in balanced and tasty. If you are ready to challenge your taste buds and “follow your fun”, come join us for any one of our special brews!” They have 41 unique beers listed for a global average rating of 3.82 (as of 2.25.20). They are listed as a micro-brewery. The Korean page for The Booth Brewing on Untappd – The Booth Brewing Korea – has 49 unique beers and has a global average rating of 3.35 (as of 2.25.20).

The Daebak Kettle Sour came from Eureka California in a beer mail trade I did. Its the third from the package to be reviewed here on The Beer Thrillers (I previously did Sunshine and Opportunity and Chocolate Confidential). The rest will follow in the days / weeks to come, have no fear.

Beer: Daebak Kettle Sour
Style: Sour – Other
ABV: 3.5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)
Can Write-Up: Daebak (Sour Ale) 1 Pint. Follow your fun…ky? Thanks to the suggestion from our social media supporters, Boothman is changing up the bass line and bringing the funk to your taste buds in this brand new kettle sour! Featuring delicate notes of blueberry and vanilla…. A splash of tart, a taste of fruit! The Booth Brewing Co. started in Seoul, South Korea. Our three founders set out to create a place where young like-minded people could gather to drink quality craft beer and change the world.

The can art is pretty cool for this, inspired by Pac-Man it certainly looks interesting. Here’s two promotional pictures from The Booth’s website:

And who doesn’t love Pac-Man? He’s a staple and a video game stalwart. I just find the can label cool, simplistic, but obvious and recognizable. I do love the can art and labels that craft breweries come up with and its such an essential part of marketing and branding; not just for the particular beer but for the brewery and company as a whole.

Ok, with no further adieu, lets get to the beer.

Appearance is light honeyed golden yellow. It has the bright glow of a tart sour, and it has the bubbly nature of one as well. Its translucent and got great clarity with a fantastic head to it. This looks exactly in line with tart sours like berliner weisse’s and farmhouse saisons. None heavy fruited sours (and kettle sours) can also look this way.

Aroma has a crisp tart smell to it, berry notes with a hint of funkyness. You can smell raspberry and blueberry, but “funked up”. It has a very crisp clean smell to it, nothing extreme, nothing super strong, nothing assaulting your nostrils, and certainly nothing off or bad. The aroma for this is actually kind of tame.

Taste is tart, crisp, bubbly, with hint of berry. The berries in this – raspberry and blueberry – are pretty mellow, but they are there, and they are funky. This is a kettle sour, This does bring the funk and does bring the tartness. Its crisp and clearness is nice and pleasant. The ABV is ridiculously low on this (3.5%) so you don’t even feel it, even after donating a liter of blood. This is a good refreshing beer, a four pack of this would go down easily, or it’d make a great starter beer for a night of fun. Its just a simple, pleasant beer that delivers exactly what you’re hoping and looking for with it – clean, crisp, well made, tart, funk, berry flavored kettle sour.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 2.25.20)

This was supposed to be finished before work, but didn’t quite make it in time, so I finished it just before getting to D. Scott’s for the podcasts. As you can see, after work yesterday (Monday, Feb. 24th, 2020), I dropped Chris (a co-worker) off at his mechanic to get his car back, then went to the Hershey Library to donate blood. I try to donate regularly, as close to my eight week mark as I can. One donation can save up to three lives. For more information on donating blood in the Central PA area – check out: Central Pennsylvania Blood Bank. Please, check it out, and if you are able to, donate.

Ok, coming down from my soap box, lets talk about the next few days for me and the blog here at The Beer Thrillers. Tonight (literally as soon as this publishes), I am doing two podcasts with the guys at So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar…. the first is the next episode of our LOST Podcasts – covering Seasons 3 and 4, this podcast will be with myself, Esteban, and Trevor. The second podcast tonight, is a commentary track of Evil Dead. (I will update this with the links as Drew gets them done and online.)

Tomorrow then around noon I’m walking down to Rubber Soul to tour and check out their new facility here in Hummelstown. That will be fun to get to check out their place and building, I’ll be sure to post pictures on our Facebook and Twitter, so be sure to follow along there and check it out. I will then be doing a write-up that evening as a blog article with the pictures as well.

Then on Thursday I am doing a call in with Beers with Strangers. It will be about a 40-45 minute podcast with the two of us talking via phone. Look for my episode to go live around middle of March (I’ll post here when it does). This looks to be fun and interesting.

If you’re new to the blog and want to check out some of our older articles, you can here: Loki – Wild IPA, Pete’s Secret Stache, I Cannot Tell a Lie, Back to Reality, Intemperance, Sunshine and Opportunity, Chocolate Confidential, Furious IPA, Brewery Visit: Mellow Mink, Miami Vice JREAM, Enigma, Colonization, Koko Bunni, and Default Brewing.

We are still ranked #9 on The Top 100 Beer Blogs list, as of February 24th.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and like and subscribe here to keep updated.

We appreciate all feedback and comments, so be sure to let us know your thoughts. And as always, thank you for reading. Cheers!

-B. Kline

Imagine this: its February 19th in Central PA; its usually cold, blustery even, possibly snow on the ground or snowing, icicles usually hang from gutters and roofs and trees, nobody is outside walking their dogs, nobody is outside period – unless forced to shovel – schools might even be cancelled due to snow or bad roads, cars stay parked along the roads, plowed in by local governments snowplowers, …..this is your usual February 19th right? Not 2020. Instead, its 2PM on February 19th, 2020, in Hummelstown Pennsylvania, and my phone says its 45 degrees, sunny, with the warm rays warming me more than the 45 even suggests. There’s a slight breeze. I take a pause from my yard work and long dog walks to sit outside and enjoy a delicious beer and read some books.

My first beer from the California beer mail I did a few days prior, and my first of that batch to be reviewed for the blog. When going through the beers in the fridge looking to find one to drink on this beautiful day, the name of this one leaped out to me (for obvious reasons) and thus became the de facto first pick.

My beer mail consisted of Almanac Beer Company, The Booth Brewing, Fallen River, Sudwerk Brewing, and one Sierra Nevada can. Ironically, while sitting out and enjoying me beer and reading, my friend Dan, who had gotten me the Tree House Brewing Company beers that let me do my series (Sap, Autumn, Julius, Haze, Doppelganger, and Intemperance), texted me that he was currently in the San Diego area of California. That he had just left Belching Beaver and was wondering if I knew of any other really good breweries in the area. (I let him know about Modern Times and Pizza Port, and then used Hop Plotter [which is going away soon by the way] to locate some others.) He told me you can’t walk more than five minutes down the streets without running into a brewery there. Oh what a problem to have!

Other than just the name of this beer, the beer caught my attention for how interesting it is. Its a barrel aged, dry hopped sour. Seems like a very interesting combination to me. You don’t typically see barrel aged, sour, and dry hopped, all combined, let alone any combination therein (barrel aged sours, or dry hopped sours, or barrel aging and dry hopping), so this called out to me all the more for it.

The picture might be hard to read, and its not listed on their Untappd profile for the beer, so I’ll re-write it here:

“This is NOT a kettle sour. This mixed-culture farmhouse ale was aged in oak barrels with pear juice. A delicate dry-hop of Citra, Sabro, and Mosaic imparts a transcendent tropical aroma. Shine on! HOPS: Citra, Sabro, Mosaic. MALT: Admiral Pale, Oats, Wheat, Aromatic.”

So as you can see, there is definitely a lot going on with this bad boy.

Almanac Beer Company is a regional brewery out of Alameda California. According to Untappd, they have 286 unique beers listed with a global rating (as of 2.20.20) of 3.98. Their description on Untappd reads: “Our motto, “Farm-to-Barrel”, means brewing beers inspired by the great brewing traditions of the world with the best in locally sourced ingredients. Almanac Beer Company was founded in 2010 by Jesse Friedman and Damian Fagan.”

Beer: Sunshine and Opportunity
Brewery: Almanac Beer Company
Style: Farmhouse Ale – Saison
ABV: 5.8%
IBU: None Listed
Hops: Citra, Sabro, Mosaic
Malts: Admiral Pale, Oats, Wheat, Aromatic
Untappd Write-Up: Mixed fermentation saison, aged in oak barrels and dry-hopped.

This is certainly an interesting beer. As I cracked it open, the aromatic and citrusy and summer smelling, sunshine beaming, fruity and citrusy hops burst free, the pear juice, burst free, all of these things just from cracking the can. I poured it into my Ffej of July glass, making me think about the super fun party in July and envisioning even more sunshine and great weather, it almost looked like pouring champagne. It bubbled, it was effervescent, it was bubbly and happy and excited to be poured out. Its bright yellow / orange / wheat like golden hue was bright, bubbly, looking like a cross between a pilsner, champagne, and a saison. It had a big white fluffy bubbly head, with huge interspersed and diverse bubbles. This guy was carbonated and ready to play. As I drank, it left lacing. And as I drank, it still bubbled, tickling your nose with little pops as you drank.

This is also jam packed with a variety of smells. It is definitely an aromatic beer. Your nose is getting a workout with this one. First impression of the nose is pear and citrus and sunshine hops. You get a definitive pear juice presence right off the bat, as well as the Citra, Sabro, and Mosaic dry hopping. Quick background on those three hops:

— Citra: “American aroma hop Citra was created by John I. Haas, Inc. and Select Botanicals Group joint venture, the Hop Breeding Company. It was released to the brewing world in 2008. Now one of the most coveted high-impact aroma hops in the US, particularly among craft brewers, it boasts a complex lineage that includes the likes of Hallertau Mittelfrüh (father), Tettnanger (US), Brewer’s Gold and East Kent Golding.” (Hopslist)
— Mosaic: “Released in 2012 by the Hop Breeding Company, LLC, Mosaic hops feature complex but clean flavor characteristics and are known for their triple-use profile encompassing bittering, flavor and aroma. They have high alpha acids but low cohumulone which makes them pleasantly hoppy, carrying flavors of mango, pine, citrus and herbs and aromas of tropical and stone fruit. Mosaic is the first daughter of Simcoe and Nugget as has been humorously referred to by some as “Citra on steroids”.” (Hopslist)
— Sabro: “Sabro is an aroma hop that is notable for its complexity of fruity and citrus flavors. It imparts distinct tangerine, coconut, tropical fruit, and stone fruit aromas, with hints of cedar, mint, and cream. Sabro’s pedigree is the result of a unique cross pollination of a female neomexicanus hop.” (Yakima Valley Hops)

So as you can see, these three hops really impart a very fruity, citrusy, juicy hop characteristic. Especially for aroma. Full of mango, citrus, spicy herbs, tangerine, stone fruits, tropical fruits like coconut, kiwi, passionfruit, stone fruits, you get a large rang of gamut with these hops. And they work kind of like a trifecta together. On top of the complexities of the dry hoping with these hops, and the strong presence of the pear juice, you get the distinct oakyness of the barrel aged process in which this beer went through, imparting it with the characteristics and notes of oak barrels. This is a bit fainter, especially on the nose, but the oak is there, as well as some of the spices and the yeast strain notes that accompany farmhouse saisons and ales, a bit of a background funkyness that you know is trying to peak and stick its head through when nobody is looking.

Enough blabbering about appearance and smell, lets get to the fun part of beer – drinking it. Do you have socks on? You better have shoes on too then, because if you don’t, first sip is going to knock those socks right off. One sip, first sip, barely in your mouth, and you get an explosion of complexities. You get the dry hopping, you get the pear juice, you get the oak barrel aging, you get the funkyness of farmhouse ales and saisons, you get a full rich and immersive beer on that first sip. So lets try and break this down (if I can!). Breaking it down by drinking it is the best approach I think because this beer changes as you drink, and you get more of the complexities evening out into their own compartments and it gets kind of sectionalized. First as you take your sip, those bubbles get you. This is almost like drinking champagne, I immediately felt the bubbles tickling my mustache, could feel the interesting yeast right away, a combination of champagne yeast and farmhouse saison style yeast. Beyond this then, you start to really pick up the pear juice, and this is where the tartness and a bit of the sweetness of the beer comes through. You get that funky Saison taste, that deep tartness unlike sours (or kettle sours or even berliner weisse’s), you get a funky, resonating tart with pear notes. Then blammo the hops take over. You get the citrus and sunshine bright hops exploding like mortar blasts all around you, like the trailer of 1917 as the guy is running criss-cross through the battlefield and blasts are going off around him. Citra. BAM. Mosaic. BAM. Sabro. BAM. Pop. Pop. Pop. BAMMMM. You get citrus, tangerine, coconut, pineapple, mango, more pear, kiwi and passionfruit, some cedar, some pine, stone fruits like plum and apricot, all blending in the hops and exploding rapid fire around you. And finally, you are left with the oak, the oakyness of the barrels, like a lasting, impression on your tongue as the beer fades away. It adds to that funkyness, it adds to the tartness, and it really brings out the Saison and Farmhouse aspects of the beer. The beer is also only a 5.8% so there’s not even really a buzz afterwards. There is nothing cloying, or upsetting about this, nothing heavy, or too dry, the juice is there, the tart is there, its slightly thin, but not problematically. This is just all around unique, tasty, and fun to drink.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.85 (as of 2.20.20).

I am currently in the process of going back and editing a bit of some of the recent blog posts. Namely, the Loki – Wild IPA, the Valentine’s Day Beers, I Cannot Tell a Lie, and the Back to Reality. Adding some references and stuff to the beer titles and things like that. Nothing altering the actual review of the beer, but just providing some extra information about the beer, its name, cultural underpinnings of it all, etc.

As I said in my last reviews, Back to Reality and Intemperance, we are really starting to hit our stride here at The Beer Thrillers. I will be on several podcasts in the near future – Might Be Brews, Beers with Strangers, and the one with my friends So A Mexican and A Scot Walk Into a Bar…, as well as lots of writing news as well. Invites to Rubber Soul Brewing opening (or re-opening) in Hummelstown (my hometown), Liquid Noise, and an interesting e-mail about doing some writing about breweries for Visit Hershey. (This could be potentially about the brewery that might be opening at the Chocolate Town area – which will be the new entrance to Hershey Park. I don’t know for sure, but I’m eagerly awaiting this meeting with the representative to find out more and let you all know.)

We are up to 412 followers on Facebook now, which is absolutely fantastic, and 128 followers on Twitter. We are currently listed as the # 9 blog on FeedSpot’s Top 100 blogs. The blog is certainly growing, we just hit 150 total posts recently (this is post number 152). The blog has only been live since near the end of May 2019. I am very excited for the growth its gone through and its continual growth. Our friends at LetUsDrinkBeer blog are also about to have their latest review of a brewery from Georgia for us.

We are primarily a Central PA beer blog, but we are also very much more, we’re doing beer reviews of beers from all over thanks to beer mail trades as well as Tavour (J. Doncevic’s favorite), we are also hitting up a lot of beer events this year (upcoming for me will be the AC Brewfest in early April as well as Little Big Beer Fest, and J. Doncevic will be hitting the big Prototype Invitational with Rotunda Brewing. With the guys from LetUsDrinkBeer, we are reporting on stuff down in Georgia. We are also getting invites to podcasts and writing for other blogs as well as brewery openings and events too. So we are going to have no shortage of things to report on. And with the guys from Default Brewing, we’ll have more homebrewing articles in the upcoming months as well. (Fingers crossed they’ll get something posted soon.)

For those interested, the books behind the beer in this blog post are: “I Am C-3PO” by Anthony Daniels, and “Desert Wisdom” by Yushi Nomura and Henri J.M. Nouwen. You can read my reviews of books at my GoodReads page.

As always (I feel like a robot on repeat saying this), please click the follow, like, and subscribes. Enter your e-mail to get up to date news on new blog posts. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to see posts and pictures and videos that don’t always make it onto the blog.

All of us here at The Beer Thrillers, from the writers like me and J. Doncevic and AJ Brechbiel, as well as those tangentially tied in (D. Scott, Esteban from the podcast; D. Arndt and others who have helped to contribute) we all greatly appreciate you reading.

We love to hear from you; so if you have anything at all, comments, suggestions, questions, writing tips, information, news, queries about writing for us, or queries about us writing for you, be sure to leave a comment or use the Contact Us page to send us some direct feedback. We love to from all of you! Be sure if you enjoyed reading this, to rate it and like the blog post as well (that also helps with the SEO and page algorithm on sites like Google, Bing, Dogpile, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.).

Thank you everyone, and cheers, and enjoy these all too few beautiful February days!

-B. Kline

Being a big fan of Game of Thrones (a big nerd of it actually; even more so of the book series – A Song of Ice and Fire) and being a big fan of Omnegang Brewery, I’m glad to finally get to review one of their beers; let alone one of their Game of Thrones series beers.

This is another fantastic addition to the Omnegang series of Game of Thrones beers. I believe this is going to be their final one, and its the only one they’ve released since the show ended. Its an interesting title in that its “MY” Watch Has Ended, instead of “Your” or “Our” Watch Has Ended. So I’m curious if thats a nod to it being the last of the series. Typically in the show when a watchman died, they’d say “Your” Watch Has Ended or “His” Watch Has Ended. Either way, its a good title (as all of their others are as well – Blackwater Stout, Hand of the Queen, Hand of the King, Mother of Dragons, etc.), and all of their beers (as all of Omnegang’s in general) have been fantastic, so if this is the last of the series, I will be disappointed to see it end. Just like I was with the final two seasons…. *bum-da-dish*.

Some of the other beers in their Game of Thrones series:

• Game of Thrones: Take the Black – Stout – Foreign / Export
• Game of Thrones: Three Eyed Raven – Farmhouse Ale – Saison
• Game of Thrones: Valar Morghulis – Belgian Dubbel
• Game of Thrones: Fire and Blood – Red Ale – American Amber Ale / Red Ale
• Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms – IPA – Belgian
• Game of Thrones: Iron Throne – Belgian Blonde
• Game of Thrones: Valar Dohaeris – Belgian Trippel
• Game of Thrones: King in the North – Stout – Russian Imperial
• Game of Thrones: Mother of Dragons – Smoked Beer
• Game of Thrones: Bend the Knee – Belgian Strong Golden Ale
• Game of Thrones: Hand of the Queen – Barleywine – English
• Game of Thrones: Queen of the Seven Kingdoms – Sour – Other
• Game of Thrones: Winter is Here – Witbier
• Game of Thrones: For the Throne – Belgian Strong Golden Ale
• Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended – Brown Ale – Imperial / Double

I believe thats not quite a full list, but thats the list given on Untappd. I thought there was a Blackwater Stout, and a few others, unless they changed the names of some of them in later releases of them. Out of that list above the only one I haven’t had is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (Sour). We – my friends and I, D. Scott, R. Dibeler, D. Arndt, Youngblood, and several others – typically would pair up the latest Game of Thrones beer with an episode, which they usually released one for the premier and one for the finale each season.

Background on Omnegang:

Brewery Omnegang is located just outside of Cooperstown, New York (famously known for the Baseball Hall of Fame). Their Untappd page bio says: Brewery Ommegang is a craft brewery dedicated to brewing American interpretations of classic Belgian-style ales. Located on a 136 acre former hop farm – the brewery grounds offer a truly heavenly backdrop in which to enjoy delicious Belgian-style brews.

Brewery Ommegang is listed as a Subsidiary of Duvel Moortgat . They have 222 unique beers on Untappd, with a global average rating of 3.77. They are considered a regional brewery.

I’ve honestly not had a bad beer yet from them, and their Game of Thrones series has been especially top notch. Its also obviously their biggest money-maker, as the show became such a huge cult phenomenon and pop culture highlight. Parties were held each week for the episodes, with people pairing up the latest release from Ommegang with that of the show. I know my friends and I were not alone in buying 2-3 upwards of 6-8 of the big corked bombers for the premiers and finales (where we had huge gatherings of 10-20 people). Occasionally we got multiples of each and sampled them as the episodes progressed. Comparing Hand of the Queen to Hand of the King, or Mother of Dragons to King in the North. Valar Morghulis to Valar Dohaeris.

So I was genuinely surprised when I showed up at Drew’s Thursday night before his podcast about Christmas movies he was doing with Esteban, Desiree, and a few others; that he had a new Game of Thrones beer. The show had been over for a bit now, the discussions on how bad the finale was all over, debates on how bad the final two seasons were, all forgotten. Much like life, the internet has moved on to discuss ad nauseum the latest pop cultural phenomenon – The Mandalorian now; rather than rehashing how bad the finale was of Game of Thrones (and dear god it was bad!).

So, as I was saying, I was quite surprised to see it. He said it just released and he found it at Giant on his way home from work the other night. I hadn’t heard a thing about a new Game of Thrones beer coming out, here I thought “I was in the know” (apparently not!). So, ahead of their podcast, while waiting for the others to come, and before I had to go to Ming and Don’s Christmas party, me and Drew cracked it open while watching the 1986 classic “Hands of Steel”. (Which that is an amazing classic movie…. if you ever get the chance, look it up on Amazon Prime and behold the glory!)

But enough about bad movies, and TV shows that were once good and then went to crap, lets discuss the beer!

Beer: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended
Brewery: Brewery Ommegang
Style: Brown Ale – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Imperial Brown Ale brewed with maple syrup and fenugreek.

Needless to say, I certainly had to look up fenugreek as I had no worldly idea what that was! So typing it into Google search, the first thing it brought up was on WebMD and on the Google Search page it said:

Fenugreek is an herb similar to clover that is native to the Mediterranean region, southern Europe, and western Asia. The seeds are used in cooking, to make medicine, or to hide the taste of other medicine. Fenugreek seeds smell and taste somewhat like maple syrup. Fenugreek leaves are eaten in India as a vegetable.

So there you have it, you most likely learned something new now today. Glad I could help.

Coloring on this is brown, obviously since its a brown ale. Its dark brown, not quite black, with a very beautiful foamy head. Its almost black in coloring, but I’d still label it brown. The head is heavy, thick, with white going to brown. Alternating bubble sizes, and the beer has great carbonation.

Aroma is heavy maple with a mixture of spices – probably that fenugreek, but I can’t exactly put my finger on that because I’ve never knowingly smelled just fenugreek before. There is a definitive herbal note to this, something similar to clover which is where I’d put my money on the fenugreek being. The maple is very strong though, so the spices kind of just work with it rather than act on their own.

Taste is fantastic and wonderful. Just like other Brewery Ommegang and their Game of Thrones beers, this is an exceptional, fantastically well made beer. You can tell they put true work and craftmanship into brewing. This is very thick and mouthfeel is very heavy, in a wonderful way, you are getting your 8% ABV worth on this bad boy. It feels like a heavy beer, it tastes like a heavy beer, and it gives you a great warming sensation with the herbs and spices. The maple is very strong providing a wonderful flavor to work great deep dark malts and roasted grains you get a real dark and heavy beer from the combination of these, that the spices then play over and lend it a wonderful fall / winter beer. The ABV gives you a bigger wallop then just 8% would lend you to think, probably also because it comes in the big champagne size bottles, so theres a lot more to drink than your typical 12oz or 16oz can or bottle. I could really rave on and on about this beer, but its just fantastic.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.85 (as of 12.14.19)

(Must admit, I’m surprised by the global rating on this one. Figured it’d be a bit higher. Usually I think I’m pretty close to the global rating, and sometimes, like this, it just surprises me when I’m off, especially when I think I might have even rated this 4.5 instead of 4.25.)

Ok, everyone, thanks for reading, and I managed to keep this pretty non-nerdy given the topic matter! I’m impressed with myself. Didn’t go crazy overhanded like I did with the Moon of Vega Space Balls one.

Cheers everyone! Happy Friday the 13th (when I started writing this) and Happier Saturday the 14th (when I finished writing this)!

-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