Hoppy Easter

Hoppy Easter everyone! I hope the best for everyone of all religions and dominations have a wonderful and Hoppy Easter today. I am just about to make breakfast using the hop shoots that are popping up and growing, but first wanted to get this fun little IPA article posted.

(Hoppy Easter – IPAs [2020])

As you can see above, my cascade hops are already springing up pretty quickly. (You can find images on our Instagram here: The Beer Thrillers – Instagram.) I will be cutting these early shoots to make breakfast this morning, possibly doing a Hop Shoots Omelet, I’ve done this in years past.

(That’ll probably be an article for tomorrow then. I’m not a big foodie or great cooker, so fingers crossed it’ll go well.)

In the meantime, lets take a look at five great Central PA IPAs, of this season. Enjoy!

Five Great Hoppy Central PA IPAs

Green Machine – Boneshire Brew Works

Beer: Green Machine
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 7.2%
IBU: 75
Untappd Description: Green Machine! Green Machine! Green Machine! This hop fueled juggernaut smashes your senses with its not-so-delicate bouquet of floral notes, tropical fruits, and pine. Drink up IPA lovers, drink up.

Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.80 (as of 4.9.23)
My Untappd Rating: 4.25

This is one of my favorite IPAs and why I lead off with this one. Its a year round flagship at Boneshire Brew Works, and it is absolutely delicious. If you get the chance to stop in at either of their locations, you have to try it.

Lollihop by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

Beer: Lollihop
Brewery: Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: N/A
Untappd Description:

We Taste: pear, citrus, hint of Melon.

When we make our annual pilgrimage to the hop-growing hotbed of Yakima Valley, we’re like kids in a candy store. We eyeball the hops on the lines, crush them in our hands and rub them til their oil fill the air. LolliHop brings together three of our favorites. Dry-hopping with Citra and Mosaic layers in notes of orange, grapefruit, and melon, while Azacca in the kettle adds hints of papaya and pineapple. Locally harvested rustic pale malt provides the backbone, and wheat and oats make this beer silky smooth with a touch of haze.

Global Average Untappd Rating: 4.03 (as of 4.9.23)
My Untappd Rating: 3.75

A fan favorite this time of year here in Central PA. Living five minutes from the brewery certainly has its perks. This is one of Drew (of Knights of Nostalgia)’s favorites from Troegs, and his favorites in general. Personally I can’t wait for Nimble Giant season which will be right around the corner.

Silent Disco by Funk Brewing

Beer: Silent Disco
Brewery: Funk Brewing
Style: IPA – New England / Hazy
ABV: 6.1%
IBU: 62
Untappd Description: A bowlful of tropical juicy flavors.

Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.89 (as of 4.9.23)
My Untappd Rating: 4.25

This is a fun New England IPA. It might not be their most notable, but its certainly one of their stellar flagship IPAs. They have many other IPAs that are very good as well like Citrus IPA, Double Citrus IPA, Pipe Dream, and Prop, and even a Double Disco. We have previously reviewed their seasonal IPA – Royal Rumble. (As well as another beer from them – Griddle.)

Broken Heels by New Trail Brewing Company

(Broken Heels by New Trail Brewing Company)

Beer: Broken Heels
Brewery: New Trail Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England / Hazy
ABV: 7%
IBU: N/A
Untappd Description:

A Hazy IPA hopped intrepidly with hand-selected Citra and Mosaic, leading to High Aromatics of luminous Citrus, rich Conifer, and refreshing Tropicals. This beer packs a full mouthfeel with low bitterness that is soft on the palette. Broken Heels is available all day everyday, and reminds us that no adventure is without its risks.
Pack The Essentials.

Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 4.9.23)
My Untappd Rating: 4.25

Albeit this is a little bit north of Central PA (Harrisburg wise), but its everywhere here. Sheetz, WaWa’s, Rutters, you name it, you can find it in their beer coolers. While I do love hammering some of the tall boys of these, I do typically prefer the Double Broken Heels, a good four pack of the Double Broken Heels will have you feeling all kinds of good.

We did review this previously here: Beer Review: Broken Heels. Here’s a brief quick excerpt:

This is like drinking hoppy juicy dank orange juice. It is so full of citrus fruit juicy hop taste and is just so easy to drink. You get a flourish of hop notes as soon as you start sipping, you get citrus, you get the tropical fruits, you get practically no bitterness, you just get a smooth drink. The pilsner malts and the flaked oats gives this a really smooth and tasty brew and just makes it like a wonderful NEIPA that drinks easy. After one sip of this you can quickly see why New Trails Brewing Co. is known for their outstanding IPAs.

Beer Review: Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

We have reviewed a few other New Trail Beers in the past, and I know I can sometimes get a bit cynical of their IPAs tasting the same, but at the end of the day, their IPAs are absolutely wonderful even if they are all very similar. (You can find our review of Icicle here – Beer Review: Icicle.)

Annville iPA by Rotunda Brewing Company

Beer: Annville iPA
Brewery: Rotunda Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England / Hazy
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: 110
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.90 (as of 4.9.23)
My Untappd Rating: 4.00

This is the highest IBU on the list. But thats nothing to hold against this (or to prop it up either I suppose). No Central PA IPA list would be complete without this wonderful IPA on it (so, it might be five on my list, but its not the least, or the last, this list is in no order). This is a delicious, juicy IPA, very tasty, and you can find it at Rotunda Brewing Company’s main brewery in Annville, or their brewpub in Hershey, or at a lot of different bars in the Hershey, Harrisburg, Hummelstown, Palmyra, Annville, Lebanon area.

We’ve reviewed a couple from them, such as: Juicy Fruit sWheat Tart, Irish Car Bomb Nitro Stout, Chewbacca, and Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart. Please check them out.

Hoppiest of Easters

Just want to wish everyone one last time, the Hoppiest of Easters. If you are looking for more great IPA and beer review and related articles from us, please be sure to check these out:

• The Last Beer Standing (Winner of our 2022 Best Flagship Beer Tournament)
• What is Craft Beer?
• Beer Review: The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I (Ghost 907) (Adroit Theory)
• Beer Review: Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)
• Hoppy Easter – IPAs (2020)
• IPA Archives
• Beer Review Archives

Thank You For Reading

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. I’m off to make breakfast for Amy and Scarlet (well, she’s not gonna be eating, but all the same), and myself. Later we are getting my older three girls, and will have a wonderful Easter day. I hope the same for all of you.

We are currently starting to work on creating maps of all the breweries in each state, starting geographically with Maine. So be on the lookout for these great resources to soon be popping up on the blog. Hoping to get a state done every 2 – 4 days. (Some will be quicker and easier than others, but 50 states, plus Washington D.C., will certainly take some time!)

We just got the Maine map done, you can see that here: Map of Maine Breweries.

Currently right now we are in the Finals of our Battle of the Breweries (2023). You can check out the final four breweries left in the Finals Fatal Four Way here and vote:

• The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Finals Fatal Four Way (Voting Page)
• The Battle of the Breweries (2023) – Conference Finals (Results Page)

In the upcoming two weeks I am going to do a more thorough look at the full tournament, breaking down the votes and how well each conference winner did. I will also do a full write up on each of the breweries in the Finals Fatal Four Way too, where I will list what articles we’ve done about them, and my visits to each of those places.

Thank you everyone for reading and please like, share, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff you see at the end of every YouTube video.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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Not So Good Morning

Pretty much upon waking up Amy showed me the news. Two hours ago (5:20AM) it was first reported by Kate Merriman of WGAL News 8 that the Funk Brewing Company on South Market Street of Elizabethtown was on fire.

Since then, updates have been coming in and pictures and videos and news articles as well.

First reported was at 5:20AM by Kate Merriman of WGAL News 8 with her personal Facebook account. Her post reads:

#UPDATE Police lined the back of the building with tape. Details are still limited. Still with us for the latest developments.

BREAKING Crews are on the scene of a fire at Funk Brewing on South Market Street in Elizabethtown Borough. This is the backside of the business. No injuries. Still under investigation.

Kate Merriman Facebook

She updated the post at 6:30AM with the following pictures:

WGAL 8 7:00AM News

The WGAL 8 News at 7:00AM then ran a news clip, which they posted to their YouTube Channel after its airing. It was posted on YouTube just 8 minutes ago at 7:10AM.

Funk Brewing Company

Funk Brewing Company is located on South Market Street in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. You can find them here on Google Maps: Funk Brewing Company Brewery and Taproom – South Market Street. They are located next to the Elizabethtown (E-Town) Public Library. They host several events often and regularly at their brewery and one of the top spots of the E-Town community. They do a lot of fundraising events, charity events, and other things to help out the community.

Funk Brewing Company according to Untappd:

They are listed as a microbrewery out of Elizabethtown and Emaus Pennsylvania. They have 515 unique beers with 249,432 ratings (as of 10.27.22) and a global average rating of 3.85 (as of 10.27.22). They have no Untappd description.

For more on Funk Brewing Company, you can check out their social media pages:

• Funk Brewing Company Official Website
• Funk Brewing Company Facebook
• Funk Brewing Company Twitter
• Funk Brewing Company Instagram
• Funk Brewing Company Untappd

The News

Things are still new at this point, so not lots of news, but whats coming in we’ll try and keep updated (will try and make phone edits while at work, so bear with me on that). But currently we have the following:

WGAL8 News:

Crews battled a fire early Thursday morning at a brewery in Lancaster County.

The fire happened at Funk Brewing along the first block of South Market Street in Elizabethtown. The call went out around 3 a.m.

Advertisement

Crews from Lancaster and Dauphin counties responded to the fire.

WGAL 8 News – Kate Merriman Reporting

Around 6 a.m., police officers surrounded much of the scene in crime tape. WGAL’s Kate Merriman was at the scene as it happened. You can watch that video in the player above.

There were no injuries in the initial call.

The investigation is continuing.

WGAL 8 News – Kate Merriman Reporting

Updates

Stay tuned and come back here to the article for updates as we get them. We will try and best and keep everyone updated.

Sources

• Kate Merriman Facebook
• Funk Brewing – Google Updates
• Crews Battle Fire at Funk Brewing in Elizabethtown (Yahoo News)
• Crews Respond to Early Morning Fire at Funk Brewing Company (Fox43 News)
• Crews Battle Fire at Elizabethtown Brewery – Funk Brewing Company (WGAL 8 News)
• WGAL 8 News: Youtube News Clip
• Matt Barcaro WGAL 8 News Facebook

See Also

• Victory Brewing Company Fire at Kennett Square

Brewery News

Interested in finding out about many other brewery openings, new locations, closings, movings, and in general brewery news? You can check out our links below:

• Other Half Brewing Company Opening Friday 2.18.22 in Philadelphia
• Midwest Coast Brewery Opening
• Brewery Opening: Howling Henry’s (Hummelstown)
• Brewery Opening: Highway Manor (Camp Hill)
• Brewery Opening: Rotunda Brew Pub (Hershey)
• Is JB LoveDraft’s Opening a Brewery?
• Tattered Flag at Hollywood Casino – Grantville – Opening Their 5th Location
• JB LoveDraft’s Grand Opening (Mechanicsburg)
• ZeroDay Opens Their New Tap Room (Harrisburg)
• Victory Brewery Fire and Explosion (Kennett Square)
• Sign of the Horse Brewery is Expanding in Hanover (Taking Over the Old Miscreation Brewery)
• Brewery Tour: Couch Brewery (Pittsburgh)
• Brewery Visit: Mellow Mink (Mechanicsburg)
• A Sneak Peak at the new Rubber Soul Brewery (Hummelstown)
• Rubber Soul Grand Opening (Hummelstown)
• VooDoo Lancaster Closing
• River Bend Hop Farm and Brewery Closes
• Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing (Mechanicsburg)
• Rally Point Tap Room Opening – Cox Brewing Company – Elizabethtown
• Spigot Brewing Closes
• Full Pint Brewing Closes
• Night Shift Brewing Cancels Expansion
• Mikkeller Brewing NYC Closes Permanently
• Pilger Ruh Brewing Needs Your Help (Pottsville)
• Official BBQ (Pizza Boy Secondary Location) (Rutherford)
• Aslin Beer Co. Now Ships to Pennsylvania
• Boneshire Brew Works to Open Second Taproom in Harrisburg (Harrisburg)
• Aslin Beer Company Confirms Expanding to Pittsburgh
• Rural City Beer Company Coming to Beamstown PA
• Grand Opening of Forest and Main’s New Brewpub
• New Bells-gium – New Belgium Owned Company Buys Bell’s Brewery
• Human Robot Expanding to Jenkintown
• High Road Brewing Company Coming to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania in Summer 2022
• YAH Brewing’s First Can Drop
• RAR Brewing’s Star Wars Can Drop
• Arboretum Trail Brewing Company Opens Their Doors Tomorrow
• Macklin Brewing Company in Development
• Michaux Brewing Company Grand Opening
• Shy Bear Brewing Announces Two New Locations
• Newfangled Brew Works Announces Closure
• Fourscore Beer Company Celebrates Their 3rd Anniversary
• Penn Brewery Announces Sale and Owner’s Retirement
• Voodoo Brewing Company To Open Brewpub on North Shore of Pittsburgh – August 27th
• Truth Beer Company’s Grand Opening
• Sobel’s Obscure Brewery’s Grand New Location and Opening
• Boneshire Brew Works Celebrates 6th Anniversary
• Brewery Openings – Archives

Funk Brewing Company Articles

• Beer Review: Royal Rumble (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)

Thanks For Reading

Well…. this is very unexpected and unfortunate news to wake up to this morning. Hopefully the updates will be better and things will come out better. Hoping that there continues to be no injuries and very little building damage. Funk Brewing is a great brewery and a great spot to visit. I love stopping in there when in the E-Town area. (Even done a few beer reviews from there.)

Please stop back for updates.

Reminder – tomorrow is the Boneshire Brew Works 6th celebration that we’ll be stopping out at, come out and visit. As well as game one of the Phillies – Astros World Series. Fingers crossed for our Phightin Phillies.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, 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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

LEEEEEEEEEEETSSSSSSS GEEEEEEEEEEEEET READY TOOOOO RUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMBLE!!!!!!!

Ok, its that time of the year, when its one of the few WWE PPVs I check in for anymore (its basically this and WrestleMania). WrestleMania is a definite watch for me, but the Royal Rumble match(es) itself is always one of the funnest hours / hours and a half of wrestling a year.

In years past co-workers (and I) have done ‘Rumble Pools’, where you draw a random number and whichever wrestler comes out at that number, if he wins, you win. Since they started doing the women’s Rumble match itself, we’ve also included it, so you get two chances (20$). I picked Thursday for my Rumble spots…. and I got: #7 for the Women’s Rumble….. and then…. #7 for the Men’s Rumble. Crazy, that out of 30 possibilities, I managed to get both number 7s in each Rumble (30 possible x 30 possible).

So let’s go #7! Coincidentally, thats also the line they are giving in the Chiefs / Bengals AFC Championship game on Sunday (Chiefs are a 7 point favorite). So maybe 7 will be my number this weekend when Bengals subvert expectations on Sunday and win by 7… and both the men’s and the women’s 7th entry win their Rumbles tonight… …maybe. (No wrestler has ever won the Rumble at the 7th spot.)

We are nearing the pre-show (started writing this review at 5:15PM, whilst doing chores, and after I finished my dog walk with Leela – and holy crap was that cold – and workout, and by the time I get this done, it will most likely be going on 7PM), so, I’ll give my predictions while we’re at it. The Royal Rumble (2022) card (as per Wikipedia):

My Predictions

My predictions for this card:

• Reigns over Rollins
• Miz and Maryse over Edge and Beth Phoenix
• Lynch over Doudrop
• Bobby Lashley over Brock Lesnar
• Ronda Rousey returning and winning the Women’s Royal Rumble
• Brock Lesnar being a surprise entrant (or taking the place of someone else) and winning the Men’s Royal Rumble

We’ll see in just a few hours how close I am to these predictions!

Funk Brewing yesterday posted a great video on their TikTok and Facebook acounts. (Tried to embed it, but it didn’t seem to want to work for me due to being a Facebook video rather than a YouTube video, but if you click the link it will take you to the video, its all of 23 seconds, and then you can pop right back over here.) Watch the video here: Funk Brewing Company – Royal Rumble – And That’s the Bottom Line.

Wrasslin

I’ve covered good ol’ fashioned ‘wrasslin’ a few times here on the blog. First with the Stone Cold IPA and then with Couch Brewery‘s Macho Man beer. Also did the March Madness from 2021 in a wrestling format.

I loved watching the old WWF growing up, and ECW, and WCW, and then got into all of the various independent promotions over the years (especially ROH Wrestling), (original) NWA:TNA, CZW, IWA:MS, XPW, PWG, Chikara, ECCW, as well as the Japanese Puroresu (プロレス) (NJPW, AJPW, NOAH, etc.) and the Mexican Lucha Libre (AAA) as well as everything else in between (shoot videos, tape trading, etc.). So its definitely always been a joy, even as I’ve gotten older and it became much more of a backburner type thing (behind all of my thousands of other hobbies – nerdy ones like Star Wars, 40K, books, board games, card games – and less nerdy ones like fantasy sports, hiking, etc.), as well as just the responsibilities of getting older and having kids and jobs and life itself.

But its fun to get to dive back into it now and again, like today and get to review a beer about it. Which, at this point I’m sure you are all sick of my rambling and just want to get to the rumbling… of the beer review that is!

Beer Review

Beer: Royal Rumble
Brewery: Funk Brewing
Style: Porter – Baltic
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Funk Brewing Company is a microbrewery from Emmaus Pennsylvania. They also have a taproom in Elizabethtown, PA. According to Untappd they have 500 unique beers with over 236,000 ratings, and a global average rating of 3.85 (as of 1.29.22).

Lets start with the look of this bad boy. Big frothy foamy head with individual bubbles of varying sizes. Jet black…. like Razor Ramone’s hair. A full looking bodied drink, stout and deep and heavy like a big burly man in his underwear about to throw you around a ring.

Aroma is slightly smokey / smoked, with what I would characterize as a ‘bitter’ aroma. Thats not probably on any BJCP judge form or anything, but almost like a sense of it before actually drinking it, kind of like looking at a really black coffee and sniffing it, you have a strong sense that its just got some bitterness to it. Some caramel notes in a deep whiff.

Slammed to the mat, thrown across the ring, and tossed right over the top rope! All in the first sip? Nah, not really, I luckily grabbed onto the rope and pulled myself back in, skinning the cat to get back in. Superkicked by Shawn Michaels afterwards…. Five Star Frog Splashed by RVD…. and still in this boys! Ok… back to reality…. This is a good porter. Not a blow you out of the ring or blow you out of the WWE Universe porter, but its a good porter. Its smooth, its dark, its got some roasty, some caramel, some bitterness, some flavors, but its just not quite as complex as I was hoping, just not quite as full bodied as The Big Show. Its certainly no Spike Dudley or Rey Mysterio (in size) either, but its …lacking a little bit of more OOMPH to put it over the top. I would gladly drink it again. Its a great beer, its just not a blow you away beer. And there’s nothing really outright wrong with that. Its not watery or paper thin, but its not got a real deep mouthfeel or flavor to it. The flavors of roasted malt, caramel malt, with a tinge of smokey bitterness, is all there, but just not quite as strong as I’d like. Maybe its going from can to glass, maybe its just my expectations (with a name like Royal Rumble eliciting thoughts of huge muscular bonecrushing men pummeling each other), or what, it just doesn’t quite reach the full flavor spectrum. There is nothing wrong with the beer – no off flavors, no bad aftertaste, no cloyingness, nothing that makes you not outright enjoy it, just not as deep and complex and rich as I was hoping for.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.87 (as of 1.29.22)

Finished Just in the Nick of Time

And like that, I skinned the cat, and pulled myself back into the ring… to get this article done at 6:57PM, just before the show kicks off at 7:00PM on Peacock. What perfect timing! Ok, while I quickly upload this to the social medias and the universe, you can scroll down to check out all of the other nerd culture beers we have reviewed, and I’ll catch you guys later!

Nerd and Popular Culture Beer Reviews

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Tatooine Tart (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: RAWRGWAWGGR (RAR Brewing)
• Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
• May the Fourth Be With You
• Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)
• Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
• Beer Review: BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Mead Review: The Meadalorian (Space Time Mead and Cider Works)
• Beer Review: Let the Haze Flow Through You (Black Flag Brewing Co)
• Book Review: The Jedi Path and The Book of the Sith (Daniel Wallace)
• Book Review: Guardians of the Whills (Greg Rucka)

Rick and Morty:

• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Space Balls:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

• Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)

The Simpsons:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)

Back to the Future:

• Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Scrooged:

• Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

A Christmas Story:

• Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)

Pro Wrestling:

• Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)
• Beer Review: Royal Rumble (Funk Brewing)

Matrix:

• Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

• Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

Seinfeld:

• Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Other:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
• Beer Review: Intergalactic Deals (Levante Brewing)
• Beer Review: Galactic Space Circus (Creature Comforts Brewing Co)

Thanks For Reading

As always everyone, thanks for reading. Try and stay warm (my phone currently says its 18 degrees with a real feel of 4). And make sure to root on the Bengals tomorrow to beat the Chiefs! Have a great weekend everyone! (And lets go #7 and #7 in the Royal Rumbles tonight!)

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you!

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

Round Two Statistics

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

Statistics:

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

Upsets:

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

Results of Round Two:

HEELs Conference:

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

FACEs Conference:

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

Round Three Now Begins

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

Round Three Match-Ups:

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

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

VOTING

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

Past Articles and Results

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

Information Articles:

• March Madness (2021) – The Battle of the Breweries – The Beer Thrillers Way
• Round One Results and Round Two Set-Up

Voting Pages:

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

Share, Share, Share, Share

To help your favorite breweries win, be sure to share this page as much as you would like. Using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Myspace, your own sites, your local newspaper…. whatever you like. Also, be sure to follow us on our social media accounts to stay up to date on the tournament and our other articles, which include brewery reviews, beer reviews, travelogues, hiking trips, brewery news, events, and much much more!

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.

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

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

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

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

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, 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!

Sorry for a slow amount of articles lately. I know things have kinda gotten down to a trickle with only weekly articles, but I do have a lot of backburner ones, and hoping for my weekend (Wednesday – Friday) I will be able to get up a lot of them. Quite a bit of them are backdated ones, so be sure to be on the lookout for them (best way to automatically be notified is to become a subscriber and follower, so make sure to follow us). I am also hoping to finish up the YouTube video (FINALLY!?!!!!!??!?!?!?) and get that posted this weekend as well.

But I do have a TON, and I mean, ___A___TON___, of beer reviews to go over and get published up on here. From a lot of different breweries. Hopefully also J. Doncevic will jump back in with a review soon (every time I see him he hints to me that he’s getting back in the review game…. and…. then…. nothing….) (….maybe if we bug him enough…. he will….). Also looking forward (still) to A. Parys’s soon to be released interview article that he did / is doing / has done / is working on.

So as always, lots of stuff going on here at The Beer Thrillers, so always be sure to like, follow, and subscribe, and follow us on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and our Facebook group (all of the links are above) and soon on our YouTube channel as well (link above also).

I ended up at Funk Brewing in E-Town a while back (September 4th) when Cox Brewing’s newest location – The Rally Point – was at max capacity. So, unable to get in, I got a draft to go, drank it in the parking lot, then went to Funk Brewing. Where I first had their Oktoberfest, and then this – Griddle – a barleywine that was delicious and worthy of a beer review. So here goes!

Beer: Griddle
Brewery: Funk Brewing (Funk Brewing Company)
Style: Barleywine – English
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Brewed with over 50 gallons of Vermont maple syrup this barleywine a huge maple nose but the heirloom english malt shines through cutting the sweetness. In 4 words or less: Flapjacks and Jack Daniels.

I am a huge Barleywine fan, of all shapes, sizes, flavors and breweries. Funk’s is no different. Funk Brewing is well known in the Central PA, primarily for their Double Disco and Mic Drop and Citrus and a few others. Their location in E-Town is typically pretty hopping (even during COVID) (….get the pun?). To read more about Funk Brewing click here for their Untappd page: Funk Brewing’s Untappd Page.

Appearance for Griddle follows what most Barleywines look like; a malty looking dark, heavy beer. Akin to tobacco spit, which might not be the most appetizing way to describe it, but I think a pretty apt one (just don’t think about it from now on). Despite having to drink it in a plastic cup (which I hear is a bit of a no-no for some people in PA and that sometimes post in a Facebook group and run their own brewery……….) it still had a nice small ring of a head.

Smell is very syrupy, very maple, very malty. The description does a good job describing the nose to this; very heavy maple. Very. Heavy. Maple. A. Very. Maple. Forward. Nose. The. Nose. Is. Very. Heavy. In. Maple. Ummm… did you pick up on that its got a very heavy maple aroma? There are a few more underlying hints and whiffs, but its primarily the maple, a bit of a brown sugar smell, and English malts. Possibly a hint of some of the English hops, but it would be so extremely diluted that it’d be hard to say.

This is definitely flapjacks and Jack Daniels. Its strong boozy right out of the gate, but with an extremely heavy maple flavor. The English malts (and perhaps English hops too) bitter out the sweetness of the maple syrup and tame it a bit, giving it – alongside with the booziness – a bit of a bite. Not fully a bitter bite, but a definite eye – opener. Mostly bitter to cut out the sweet, the bite also has that boozy undertone kicking you a fair bit. Thats not to say this isn’t sweet though. Its certainly still very sweet, but with the heavy boozy undertones, and with the English malts providing a nice malty bitterness, that the maple sweetness doesn’t become too cloying or clinging to your tongue (like Lizard of Koz was from Founders……. shudders….. I still have nightmares of drinking that beer). This seems like a very strong Pennsylvania beer, the idea of a boozy flapjack strikes deep to the core of a good hard working lumberjack breakfast. A can of Griddle, some flapjacks, scrapple, bacon, eggs, and maybe coffee to wash it down, would be a great breakfast and start to the day for any hard working man ready to go out and cut down a hundred trees and deforest the rural lands. The beer might even give said lumberjack the edge he would need if he had to race a giant flannel wearing man with a big blue Ox…… (Do people even remember the old folk tales and folk legends of yore?) At 10.5% and with the boozy taste, a 16oz can of this is all you need at a time, but its a wonderful time, and a great drinking beer. Enjoy! (I know I did!)

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 9.21.20)

For those interested, the book I’m reading in the picture was a great book by Daniel Klein. You can find it (and even find my book review of it there) on GoodReads here: Everytime I Find the Meaning to Life, They Change It: Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live Life. I highly recommend the book as much as I do the beer. (In fact I highly recommend Daniel Klein as an author, his philosophy books are fantastic, and the joke series he did with Thomas Cathcart are great – Plato and A Platypus Walk Into a Bar and Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates).

This was a shorter beer review, and a bit of a quick launch one, but I wanted to get an article out tonight, because primarily, because I feel like I haven’t been writing that much lately, and I need to get a lot more writing done. I have all of these “drafts” set-up on my WordPress and just need to finish them. Plus I have had a ton of great beers lately that all deserve reviews. So I need to get through them and get them done! So I’m trying.

As always, please, please, please, please – like, follow, subscribe, follow us on social media, and comment your questions, comments, suggestions, etc. Always love to hear from you.

Enjoy and cheers everyone!

-B. Kline