Seriously. F*CK 2020. I don’t think I’ll hear too many disagreements with this statement. F*CK it. 2020 has been everything everyone keeps saying it is: a train wreck, a dumpster fire, a dumpster fire full of dog excrement traveling on a train headed right for a train carrying a dumpster fire of ostrich excrement, it sucked, it blew, etc, etc, etc…..

This has been a crazy time for all of us. Terms like “unprecedented times” became the norm for news stations, hundreds of thousands of people dying to a pandemic level virus, ….a pandemic level virus!…., shut downs and lock downs and quarantines, civil unrest, altered sports leagues, massive economic changes, unemployment and furloughs from the shut downs and just loss of jobs due to the pandemic, all in all,…. yea…. F*CK 2020 and F*CK COVID-19.

This has been a hard time here for me, and for The Beer Thrillers in general as well, as I’m sure its been for a lot of you. Dealt with two lock down / shut downs by the government that closed my work and forced me into unemployment twice. (The latest of which, due to how horrible our unemployment system, I still haven’t received a penny for the three weeks I was unemployed – thankfully I’m back to work now.) A divorce amidst the pandemic and quarantine and lockdown.

But, it hasn’t been all bad (no year is all bad); I did get to do a lot more hiking. I did get to do a little bit more traveling due to now being single and having a lot more extra time, I got to hike lots of new places that I never did before, got to visit 57 (new to me) new breweries. And I got to do a lot more work on the blog and site here. Which has been a great bit of fun. My friend started his streaming and got do do that a lot with him, and we got to do some more podcasts with his podcast group.

(I will have a whole “End of 2020” and recap of the year, as well as a “Looking Forward to 2021” post coming soon, the site migration and things have kind of made things wonky with getting it all moved over and posts published up, due to us hitting our bandwidth wall on the old site and having to migrate, so some things got all garbled up.)

I went to Breski’s Beverage and had to pick up a four pack of this – and knew – I needed to make it the last beer of 2020 and the first beer of 2021. Thankfully it’s a fantastic beer and its not just a “cool name / bad beer” like some of the other cool name, cool can art, cool pop culture reference beers, I’ve had in the past. I also picked up the RBG beer as well as Breski’s.

So my 31st was pretty simple; being by myself, with no places open, and my first New Years Eve / New Years Day off in quite a while – due to the shut down of Pennsylvania. Early in the day I went to Breski’s and picked up the four packs. Despite the rain, I took my dog (Leela) to the Greenbelt walk off of Derry Street, stopped at Boneshire Brew Works for my last pint of 2020 at their location, and then stopped at Rubber Soul Brewery for take-out (pierogies…. *drools like Homer at thought of food*….) and then pretty much just went home, read, wrote, and stayed in my bed. My friend did an overnight stream on his site – Knights of Nostalgia – and I had that up on one screen and tuned in just for the last 2 minutes to a ball dropping ceremony on another screen. All in all – a lame New Years Eve. Which about sums up how 2020 was.

So I also started this post and beer review on December 31st, but with the bandwidth limits, and the problems of the migration, I didn’t get to finish it until January 1st. So this is a “two year project”. Hahahahaha…. oh I crack myself up. It was written and finished on January 1st, but with the bandwidth and everything, and having to re-upload media, I’m not sure when it’ll finally get published, hopefully soon into the new year.

I’m not too great and technically savvy, so this move of nearly 300 blog posts, and several pages, as well as a homepage, users, links, followers, and everything else, was a lot harder than I imagined it would be. I started everything on December 31st, and wanted it all set to go on January 1st, but noooooope….. that didn’t happen. Was really hoping everything would go smoothly into 2021…. but 2020…. said NOPE to that, and I’m thinking 2021 might have a rockier start than we all wanted it to have.

But anyway…. we have beer!

So let’s do it and drink!

Beer Review

Beer: F*CK 2020
Brewery: Abomination Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 9.1%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: “Fuck 2020” is a slightly amped up 9.1% version of our Fog series, double dry hopped with a blend of two of our most popular variants … Galaxy & Citra.

Abomination Brewing Company has had some amazing beers, and they have done a ton of collaborations with a lot of local Pennsylvania breweries. Rotunda Brewing Company, Tattered Flag, and stuff with multi-collaborations with Pilger Ruh Brewing, Snitz Creek Brewing, Wolf Brewing Co, etc. Untappd lists them as a micro brewery from North Haven, Connecticut. They have 159 unique beers on Untappd with a global average rating of 4.04 out of 140K+ ratings. Their Untappd description simply reads: “Crafting liquid chaos. #beermonster”

Starting off with appearance; this has a beautiful golden orange hue. A gorgeous looking New England IPA appearance, its got a nice dank hazy orange look, its not full of turbid and sediment, but its still dank and hazy looking, and its opaque and not see through. It had a thin white foamy head and great carbonation from the can.

Aroma is a lovely hoppy New England IPA nose. The nose comes through with the galaxy and citra very heavily, you get lots of tropical fruit, citrus, some peach, mango, and wee bits of passionfruit, guava, and grapefruit. It smells juicy, it smells delicious.

Whooo…. this is the way to go out of 2020! With a banger of a good beer and a way to say F*CK YOU 2020 with both middle fingers up like Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was just a delicious all around good beer. A perfect end note to 2020 and a wonderful start note to 2021 (drank one early in the day of 2020, had one right before midnight, and cracked open another one two minutes into the New Years). Galaxy and Citra hops are wonderful hops and work very well together. You get a very heavy dose of citrus, peach, mango, the tropical fruits, and there is so much more hidden and buried underneath that adds to those heavy hitter flavors – like the passionfruit, guava, and grapefruit. There’s a right balance to all of this. The mouth feel feels right on, not oily, slick, not watery or thin, no cloying; just a nice drinking NE IPA. This is is a consistent beer and reason for why the New England IPA style has caught on so much with craft beer drinkers. There’s a bit of hop bite, but its covered in all of the fruity wonderful flavors, there’s no bitter aftertaste, no bad off flavors, and its a really drinkable beer. Even the 9.1% ABV is hidden by how wonderful the flavors are. You don’t taste that ABV, and you don’t even notice it until you’re done. This isn’t a crushable beer where you could drink the whole four pack in one sitting, but you could have two, and be happy and content afterwards, especially with a really good meal to go along with it. This is a great ‘nap inducer’ as I like to call some of the mid-range double IPA area beers (8-9.5/10%), especially with a meal, it just fills the belly and makes you sleepy. This was the perfect way to end out 2020.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Average Untappd Rating: 4.34 (as of 1.1.21).

So this might be the first post of 2021, or it might not be; and it might be the first post on the new The Beer Thrillers page, or it might not be. Who knows with migration, work starting back up, moving domain hosts, moving links, uploading pictures (since the bandwidth put a halt to that), etc. There’s a lot of other posts that are in various states of being done, that also will be published soon too, once again, with the migration and start of the new year, who knows. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Been a little hectic here.

I hope everyone had a wonderful end to 2020. Hopefully despite everything, you still had a great 2020, and lets hope 2021 starts off so much better. Things are looking up. The vaccines are rolling out. Hopefully by the end of 2021 we are back to a level of normalcy. One can only hope. I want to get to some brewfests in 2021!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

See some of our latest beer reviews here:

• Beer Review: Mutant Temple (Strange Roots Experimental Ales)
• Beer Review: B-52 Belgian Dubbel (Cox Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: The Soft Glow of Electric Sex (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is The Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Snow Tracks (New Trail Brewing Co.)

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Bit late on getting this review up, been meaning to get this written, alongside the Stone Cold Steve Austin IPA we had that night, and I also apologize that there hasn’t been a new post in a bit, been a rocky few days for myself (not speaking for the other writers; just for myself). But…. here it is, and its about time I get this up.

I feel like this is a beer that well encapsulates a lot of people’s thoughts about the disease. I was going back and forth on how to write up the beer name for the title and in the article. The can itself reads as “FVCK COVID” – and it also shows up as such on Untappd, but I was also tempted to do F*CK COVID; but felt that actually looked more vulgar. I think the misspelling of it (even with a letter replacement that is meant to be similar) actually detracts from the vulgarity of it. Either way though, the beer’s title is FVCK COVID, and it exactly what everyone thinks of this virus.

So needless to say, once I saw this on Breski’s Beverages Facebook page, I knew I needed to pick up a four pack of it and give it a try for the blog. As always, I cannot recommend Breski’s Beverage enough. One of the best beer distributors in the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) area. One of the best bottle (and can) shops, with lots of hard to find breweries and some ‘whale’ status breweries as well. Occasionally having Triple Crossing, Aslin Brewing, Burley Oak Brewing, etc on their drafts for crowlers / growlers as well is also nice. One of the best selections for mix-a-six packs (definitely hop on their deals for mix-a-sixes, a fantastic way to try new beers and breweries). So when I stopped in, I picked up a four-pack of FVCK COVID as well as the Stone Cold Steve Austin IPA from El Segunda Brewery. My first from either of these breweries. Look for the Broken Skull IPA review soon. (I know, I know, I’m a bit backlogged on the beer reviews.)

(Yes, like I said above… I am quite back logged on the beer reviews. I have a long list of word.doc’s on my computer of tasting notes, and factoids and things about a whole host of beers that I’ve had in recent months; just need to write them up and post them.)

I had picked up the two four-packs for one of our many video game streaming sessions at D. Scott’s. He runs a Facebook page where he streams various video games, and (B. Kline) I’m a somewhat regular on it. We’ve been doing a lot of randomizers for The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time, as well as Majora’s Mask, and other games. You can check out his Facebook page here: Knights of Nostalgia. Definitely check it out sometime while we’re on. (Right now D. Scott is doing a stream where he’s doing the side scrollers of Wizards and Warriors, and I’m having it play in the background as I type up this article.)

Enough with all the pre-beer review shenanigans and lets get on with the beer review – which is what I’m assuming 99.999999999% of those reading this are really here for anyway (not the drunken ramblings of a mad man; but the beer reviews of a drunken mad man who rambles….).

Onward!

Beer: FVCK COVID (Version 2.0)
Brewery: Ale Asylum
Style: Pale Ale – New England
ABV: 5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: The second installment of our FVCK COVID series. How about a shirt or neck gaiter to match the beer? Visit our Merchandise store at www.aleasylum and you can wear what we’re all thinking.

Ale Asylum is a brewery from Madison Wisconsin. They are listed as a Regional Brewery with 64 unique beers to their name and a global average rating of 3.72 on Untappd. Their Untappd description reads: “ALE ASYLUM is unfiltered and all natural. This is what we mean when we say our beer is FERMENTED IN SANITY. You know who makes it, you know what it’s made with.”

Starting off with appearance (as I usually do in my reviews) this looks like a typical New England style IPA or Pale Ale variant. In this case its a Pale Ale, and it is a bit lighter and not as full bodied looking as a New England IPA might. But it still has that same similar appearance; a hazy, orange, glowing, unfiltered drink. With a nice foamy white head with plenty of carbonation and good bubbles.

The nose to this isn’t all that particular or crazy exciting. Its a typical New England pale ale; and because of it being a pale ale versus an IPA, its not got that much of a hop aroma to it. Despite being New England, despite being unfiltered, the nose is minimal hop aroma, minimal fruit notes, more just blandish beer smell.

Taste, at least it gets a bit beyond bland. Its not a crazy ridiculous new taste, but its not bland. It is a pale ale and not an IPA so its a bit low on the flavor profile, especially as far as hops go. My notes from the night of on this is that its a nice beer, a bit light on flavor, light on hop flavor in particular, but it has a pleasant overall taste with no aftertaste or lingering bad taste. It is a bit strong on malt and has a noticeable malt sweetness to it. There is some floral-ness to it, but its a bit underwhelming. This is not a bad beer and I’m not taking anything away from it. Its malty, its sweet, its floral, its light hoppy, and its a good beer, and at 5% its easy to knock down the whole four pack in a sitting while playing video games with your buddy. This beer though is definitely sold on its name above all. I don’t want to take away from the beer, because its a good beer, just not great, but as far as marketing goes, the beer name kind of sells itself. Its a theme in craft beer; a cool name or a gimmick pop culture or cultural reference, or cool can art, sells the beer more than the quality of the beer itself does. Thats not completely and necessarily the case here, but it gets a boost because of its name in sales I imagine. I’m guilty of that, buying a beer based on can art, or like in the case of this – beer name. My guilty vices for this is any beer that is Star Wars or Futurama themed; their auto instant buys for me. This was still a very enjoyable beer, and I don’t mean to sound pessimistic or upset at it, its a good beer and enjoyable, and worth the drink.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.46 (as of 8.4.20)

Sorry this took so long to be posted. I’ve been working on several articles all at once (including several Black is Beautiful beer reviews), as well as working on other side stuff too. But, my August hasn’t gone quite to plan. I haven’t gotten as much accomplished as I’ve wanted. A lot of things going on, an increase in hours at work (50-55 hour weeks), amongst a lot of other things going on in my life (personal and otherwise). It is interesting, a year ago this past few days is when I took my daughters on our trip – on August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd – and went up Elk Country to Kinzua Bridge to Pittsburgh to Bushy Run and back to Central PA.

You can read about those here:

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

• Going on the Road
• The Trip: Day 1 Recap
• The Trip: Day 2 Recap
• The Trip: Day 3 Recap

Stay tuned for some stuff coming out soon, like the huge backlog of beer reviews like I’ve mentioned earlier, as well as any day now a new interview with a beer scientist from Cape May Brewing with A. Parys. As well as an interview I’ve done with Scott Smith of East End Brewing. I’m also excited to do beer reviews for several of the Black is Beautiful beers, including the Ever Grain / Harris Family / Wolf Brewing collab, the Spring House Brewing one, and hopefully if I can snag a can (or more) Thursday at Troegs Brewery the Harris Family / Troegs Brewing collaboration.

Lots of stuff to see and do here at The Beer Thrillers, so be sure to subscribe, like, and follow us here, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thank you everyone for reading, and please be sure to leave a comment!

Cheers!

-B. Kline