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

A beautiful day calls for a beautiful beer does it not? Before the cold spell, before the rain and ugliness, before the threat of murder hornets, a nice, beautiful day spent doing yard work, grilling, relaxing, and doing the like – requires a delicious, zesty, tasty, cold brewski. And what better one to do it with than Blue Hippo by Boneshire Brew Works.

I had discussed doing the Pink Hippo on the blog before, back at the time of my review for ‘This is the Way‘ by Broken Goblet. Pink Hippo was a delicious beer, and its cousin (or sister, or brother, or step-sibling) is just as delicious. (Actually, I think it’s probably the better of the two so far in this series by Alan.)

Boneshire Brew Works is my closest ‘watering hole brewery’, and that is certainly no disrespect to Boneshire Brew Works or the hard work of brewer Alan Miller. (Non-quarantine) The cozy atmosphere of the brewery leads it to be the small town drinking pub for a lot of people. Myself, D. Scott, A. Parys, J. Doncevic, and many others included. Karl Larson (ihackbeer) also was a part-timer brewer for them. Its a great place to hang out, chat, listen to some wonderful live music, and drink some of the finest and most delicious beers in the Central PA area.

Of course right now with the quarantine, nobody is really hanging out in there, but I still love stopping in there for some 4packs (to go) and talking with Jason and Alexis (obviously safely from six feet or more away). (Bonus note people – right now, more than ever, even when stopping in at breweries just to grab a 4pk to go, leave a tip for your bartenders. Their still there, working, at a reduced rate right now due to closures of the indoor seating, and their still doing lots of work behind the scenes. We need to stick together and help each other out. …steps down from soapbox….)

As usual, I jibber jabber and ramble before getting to the beer review, so lets cut the crap and get right to it with this bright and delicious zesty beer.

Beer: Blue Hippo
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This is beer 2 in our Hippo series, where we brew with loads of fruit. Blue Hippo is brewed with insane amounts of Blueberry and Tahitian Lime. Strong lime aroma and flavor rounded out with ripe blueberry.

As you can see from the various pictures, this is just a beautiful beer. It has a reddish (slight pinkish hint) to purple hue. Little bits of floaters / pulp one can see when poured from an unrolled can. It is certainly carbonated, it is a fruit beer afterall, and doing some possible refermenting, so definitely keep this cold, drink it fresh, and drink it quick!

Aroma is fun with this one. Its got definite tartness from blueberries and you get a good whiff of that out the gate, and its called the lime as well. It smells carbonated, with the bubbles tickling your nose as you take in the nose of this (and yes, I understand that doesn’t sound ‘technical’ or ‘correct’, but you can tell, and smell, and taste carbonation, thats my stance anyway). It smells like a ‘spritzer’. This is just a fun beer from the appearance and the aroma, before you even get to the taste of it. Sometimes you just ‘know’ when a beer is going to be good, when they just look fun, and you can’t wait to drain that glass.

This is certainly a case of this. This is such a great relaxing day beer. And at 5% it is completely crushable. Both a great sipping beer, and one you’ll finish in no time flat, its fantastic for all day. A Senators game, a college baseball game, your daughter’s softball game (shhhh, no one is telling), or mowing the yard, or suntanning, or sitting out to read (one of my favorites), this is just perfect for it. This tastes very similar to a spritzer, just like its smell. A fruited spritzer, unlike the white wine ones. The zest level on this thing is off the charts, but with a great tartness and slight funk from the blueberries. This is the right kind of blueberry taste; not too tart, not too funk, just right. Perfect middle ground on the blueberry flavor, and with the Tahitian lime zest and flavor, it gives it a fantastic kick to it. Mouthfeel is fine, no off flavors, just nice tartness, no cloying, no sweetness. Its not a true sour, it just has a bit of a tartness and the zest kick. At 5% you can drain the first, drink the second, and start on your third and not even feel a thing, perfect for the summer. (When its not snow squalling in May that is!) This is just a wonderful, well made, well crafted, and delicious beer. Probably better than Pink Hippo, which itself was very good. I highly recommend grabbing this while its still available at the brewery, and if you live close, they’ll even deliver it!

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 4.2 (as of 5.9.20).

You can order online through Boneshire Brew Works’ website at: Boneshire Through Square.Site. Or check out their official webpage: Boneshire Brew Works.

Still rolling through May pretty strong. Make sure to wish your mom a happy mother’s day tomorrow. Make sure you avoid all this cold and the snow squalls. And keep washing your hands, practicing social distancing, etc. I want to be able to have at least SOME fun this summer, and go to events like the Ffej of July and brewfests at Lititz or Lancaster or the make-up dates for the RenFaire or AC Brewfests.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline