Its upper 60s in early / mid May in Central PA, its a bit past noon, and you are stuck ‘inside’ (or at least stuck in / on ‘lockdown’) due to coronavirus / COVID-19, and you have a grill going in front of you, cooking up some hot dogs for three hungry offsprings…. you know what goes well with that? A fantastic Imperial Sour! Thats what! And luckily, as part of my beer mail trade, I received an excellent Imperial Sour all the way from Fort Worth Texas. And, it was absolutely delicious, hit the spot, was an excellent grilling beer, and went down far too fast (and made for a nice afternoon nap out in the sun reading.)

A bit ago, I did a beer mail trade, I sent some local beers – Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag, Pizza Boy, Ever Grain Brewing, and Troegs Independent Craft Brewing; and in exchange I received beers from Texas. I’ve covered quite a few of them so far on the blog – Islla En El Cielo, Road Trip Snacks, Virtually Inseparable, and $#!+ Ton!. So far, the entire beer mail package I received was delicious. …Except for one – but I knew that going in, and thats primarily due to my tastes, my friend D. Scott loved it; and thats the Spicy Pickle Beer Maid beer from Martin House Brewing Company. I hate pickles. I’m not a huge spice person. And I received it for free as a bonus beer. I poured myself basically a shot of it, and gave Drew the rest of it, knowing pretty much full well that I was not going to like it. And sure enough, I didn’t. Thats not really a negative to the beer – thats just my own tastes, and I knew that going into it. (Don’t worry, I didn’t pull the famous Untappd line of: “0.5 Stars, IPA, I don’t like IPAs.” Or something similar.) Thats just a type of beer thats going to be polarizing, if you like pickles, or spice, you’ll probably like it, if you don’t, you’ll hate it. Not a lot of middle ground on that beer, and really, you aren’t going to be buying that beer if you know you’re not going to like it.

Alright, so lets move on, to a beer I really DID enjoy from Martin House Brewing Company – and that’s Blackbird. So lets discuss it!

Beer: Blackbird
Brewery: Martin House Brewing Company
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 9.2%
IBU: 6
Untappd Description: Imperial Blackberry Sour.

According to Untappd; Martin House Brewing Company is a microbrewery from Fort Worth Texas. They have 505 unique beers, and a global average rating of 3.78 (as of 5.12.20.) Their Untappd description reads: “Martin House Brewing Company is a team of brewers, explorers, and dreamers. We avoid tradition in favor of adventure, both in brewing and in life. We value good ingredients and good people, and each of our beers will pair perfectly with life’s memorable moments. We want to be the handcrafted beer you and your friends choose when celebrating your most recent adventure or planning the next one. Martin House – Made in Texas by Texans.”

This pours a beautiful berry purplish, or lavender hue, its bright, sparkly, and looks like a lot of your typical berry infused sours. Especially blackberry or blueberry or raspberry sours. This is a bit on the more royal purple, darker purple spectrum, with the blackberries providing the deeper, darker contrasting purple coloring. It looks beautiful. It has a nice bit of carbonation and foam with a reasonable amount of head retention and leaves a good lacing on the glass as you drain this (and drain it quickly I did).

Aroma is strong berry, thankfully, which shows how this is a good beer. When blackberries are your main ingredient, I better well be getting a very heavy nose of them, and I certainly do with this. It has a tart, bite to the berry smell. You get a few hint of other berry notes, or at least I felt like it – raspberry a mild bit. There is also a faint hint of the booze hidden here from the smell.

Taste is fantastic. Its smooth, its tart, its sour, its even a bit boozy, but it is very dangerously crushable. I quaffed mine down far quicker than I expected. There is a boozy aftertaste from draining it. It almost tastes like it could have been barrel aged, but I’m 99.999999% certain its not, though I couldn’t find anything on their site, on Untappd, Beer Advocate, or with a quick Google search saying either way. Sadly the Untappd description doesn’t give you a lot to go on. You definitely can tell this is an Imperial or Double, and you certainly get that 9.2% ABV with this. It has a very tart going towards sour taste, which gets amplified by the higher ABV. It is undeniably juicy and very berry flavored, so if you are not a fan of berries – in particular black berries, this might not be for you, but I think it would still be an enjoyable beer. Its like drinking a very potent juice, with a bit of a boozy bite to it. It is a wonderful summer beer, and perfect for grilling, perfect for sipping outside in the sun, in just soccer shorts, tanning, reading, and… falling asleep and getting massively burnt because you passed out for an hour and a half and only get woken up by your youngest jumping off the trampoline to purposefully scare you ….. not speaking from experience or anything here. Sigh.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.1 (as of 5.12.20)

We are nearing our one-year anniversary here on The Beer Thrillers blog (May 17th, 2020 will be one year of the blog going strong), and what a wild ride its been. Especially the last few months. It certainly has thrown a monkey wrench in quite a few different ways. But its also provided an outlet for these troubling times. Look for a big article on that date, talking about the blog in a bit of a historical aspect.

Cheers everyone. Please keep safe and healthy, and please keep supporting your local businesses and breweries. They need it now more than ever!

-B. Kline

I’ m not sure what beaver nuggets are…. but I like them (at least in beer). Never heard of them, have no idea of them, but this was a damn tasty fine beer, so I’m all for them. This was in the beer mail package from Texas, and made for a great grilling beer. (Dinner for breakfast was made.)

So, did a quick search (Google search) for beaver nuggets. (Just typed in beaver nuggets). First thing up is an Amazon item, for Beaver Nuggets (r) by Buc-ee’s. The description for the item says: “Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets are the number one snack item in the Buc-ee’s store! These beaver nuggets are a delicious caramel coated corn pop snack. Great treat for Buc-ee’s fans.” (Amazon)

Not gonna lie, tempted to order a bag of these, just to see if their as good as the beer is. Tempted. (Read: not really gonna do it, but I am tempted / thinking about it).

One of the several beers I got from Texas; Road Trip Snacks is brewed by Panther Island Brewing. Panther Island Brewing is a microbrewery from Fort Worth Texas. Untappd lists them with 132 unique beers and a global average rating of 3.7 (as of 5.8.20). Their description reads: “We are local to Fort Worth. Born and raised. Texas through and through. We offer beer that is brewed by people that give a crap about what beer tastes like. We have 4 core beers available year round and brew specialty beer every season. We also have small batch unique beers that we pour in-house only. We open to the public on Thursday and Friday from 4pm – 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 12pm – 10pm. We love live music and often have local artists play when we are open. The selection of food trucks we have on site for our tours is always different and unique. We are available for private bookings for corporate events, fundraisers, weddings, birthdays, receptions, etc. Contact us at amber@PantherIslandBrewing.com for more information.”.

Beer: Road Trip Snacks
Brewery: Panther Island Brewing
Style: Brown Ale – English
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description:

Brown Ale brewed with Buc-ee’s Famous Beaver Nuggets.

*Buc-ee’s, Ltd. is the owner of the Beaver Nuggets mark, and that Buc-ee’s, Ltd. is not affiliated with, nor does it endorse or sponsor, the beer.

This lives up to its style’s namesake – it is a brown beauty. Very thin, (barely there) head. Few bubbles. But thick, pouring, heavy looking beer. Appearance there isn’t a whole lot to say about this beer, its unassuming.

Cracking the tab, you get super rich maple aroma right away. Some deep complex caramel malts get mixed in, but this is extremely maple, like maple bacon candy, like maple syrup, a very good, rich, dense maple flavor. It smells extremely delicious right from the opening of the can, especially if you love maple syrup (or at least the smell of it).

I found this very delicious. I could see it going the other way for people, but I personally really liked it. The reason is that it is like a maple syrup and caramel malt bomb exploding in your mouth. It has a very thick mouthfeel, almost a little cloying, but it is very rich (sets off ‘diabeeeeeetus’ alarm bells), very sweet, very maple, very caramel malt. There isn’t really a massive amount of other flavors or complexities, but there is a lot of maple, (a LOT), and an underbody to this of caramel malt that supports all that maple flavor. There is a slight ‘nut’ flavoring to this, either imparted from this being a brown ale or from the Beaver Nuggets; not sure. Like I said, these combinations either work for you, or they don’t. It did for me, it might not for others (or you).

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.84 (as of 5.8.20).

Cheers everyone. Remember two days til mother’s day. Get your mom something nice!

-B. Kline