We’re Moving On

The competition is slimming down again, getting hardened by steel and flint, and moving on. The victorious are once again trudging into battle whilst the defeated head home with their heads low – some on the backs of their shields, spears across their chest.

That’s right, we’re now onto the next round and stage of The Battle of the Beers. We’ve gone from 32 competitors to 16, and now to 8. The battle is beginning to really heat up as we start getting closer and closer to the true champion.

Might this all be hyperbole? 100%…. but either way ‘ya’ gotta love it as we forge on in this great testament of will and power and hop and barley and malt!

So let’s see who all is left!

The Final 8 Competitors

So let’s see who these tried and true, tested and vetted warriors of the Beer Gladiator Pits are:

• The Alchemist (with Heady Topper)
• Rotunda Brewing (with Annville IPA)
• Tattered Flag (with TMI PA)
• Toppling Goliath (with Pseudo Sue)
• Lawson’s Finest Liquids (with Sip of Sunshine)
• Von C Brewing (with Walking on Clouds)
• Rubber Soul (with Dropout)
• Troeg’s Brewing (with Perpetual IPA)

How Did They Get Here

How did we get here with these brewed gladiators? Check out these other pages of the tournament to find out:

• The Battle of the Beers (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 8 (Voting) (2022)

Remaining Weeks of Voting

The remaining voting schedule is as such:

• Round of 8: July 15th – July 21st at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 4: July 22nd – July 28th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 2: July 29th – August 4th at 11:59PM (EST)

Rules

The rules are relatively simple. Each day you can vote (so make sure you come back daily to vote), just open up this article and go through the voting block clicking on the beers you want to win. You can share and post this on your various social medias to help the beers you want to win. (In fact…. I highly recommend you share this article as often and in as many places as possible. Hell, even post a screenshot of it on your library’s community board… why not?!)

Enough Yammering…. Lets Vote!

Alright, alright, I hear ya… enough yammering. Let’s get right down to it and vote:

Remember – you can vote daily. So be sure to come back and keep voting!

Blog Update

There’s been quite some news here for us at The Beer Thrillers. Amy and I are expecting our first daughter (together) (I have three daughters with my ex – wife). She is due in November.

But we do have lots of stuff on the lookout. We are still working on getting the podcast set up and to go live (or recorded) with that soon. We are also looking at getting a new layout for the blog, that will hopefully look a lot nicer, be smoother, and easier to use.

We also have some great new articles I am hoping that will be all dropping in the next few days – including a few brewery reviews / visits as well as getting some beer reviews done (I know its been a little bit of a while), as well as several news articles. We also have some big articles that will be dropping as well. (Also, hope you all like ‘list’ articles, because we have several with it being the halfway point of the year. I know a lot of blogs and pages are doing similar, and we’ve decided to follow suit. So, hopefully that will rank up there with some stuff you all will enjoy.) Lots of these should be up now, or up in the near future. As well as several articles about the US Beer Open Competition. (Like Wallenpaupack Brewing’s two gold medals, Wolf Brewing’s one gold medal, and Sun King Brewery winning Grand National.)

Amy is also transitioning to her new job, so she is a bit busy, but will be getting back into the flow here at TBT – HQ (The Beer Thrillers HQ…. like I said…. name in progress.)

But thank you all for all the continued support you are showing us here at the blog and our social medias. It really means a lot. We just hit 2K followers on Facebook and we’ve been hovering right around 500 followers on Instagram. So thank you all very much for following us! We appreciate all the love and support so very very very very much!

As always, we are looking to grow, expand, and innovate here at The Beer Thrillers. These tournaments are a blast to run, and I hope everyone is enjoying them just as much as we are hosting them. We are always on the lookout for writers as well and other people who would like to become involved with The Beer Thrillers, if you are interested, you can contact us directly at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com and we will get back to you.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks For Reading

Once again – as always – thanks for reading. I hope you are enjoying the tournament, as well as the wrap up and heads up on the state of the blog. (Some of that was copy and pasted from the Round of 32 post, but it holds true all the same.) Lots of stuff going on here at the blog, both behind the scenes, and in front of your screens. So keep your eyeballs peeled… well… that just sounds nasty… whatever… just stay on the lookout!

This tournament has been a blast so far, and I hope you are all enjoying it as well. Keep voting and sharing! We are coming down to the wire, lets see who wins our first Annual Battle of the Beers!

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

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Heady Topper

Heady Topper | ABV 8%

BJCP Style: Double IPA

CraftBeer.com Style: Imperial IPA

CraftBeer.com Sensory Style: Hoppy & Bitter

Hops: Proprietary blend of six hops

Malts: Proprietary

Brewery: The Alchemist

City: Stowe, VT

Beer Review

Appearance: Clear, light amber (unfiltered) with fluffy white head, good retention

Aroma: Pine, citrus & tropical fruit and woody/musty.

Flavor & Aftertaste: Alcohol noticeable. Citrus & resinous pine prominent with spicy notes mixed in. Aggressive bitterness on a low to moderate sweet malt backbone.

Palate: Highly astringent with a lengthy dry finish. Bitterness builds and lingers well into the finish.

Do you have a Bucket List of beers you’d like to try? I technically don’t have a formal list, but there are some beers out there I’d love to try at some point. High on that list is The Alchemist’s Heady Topper. It’s definitely a hype beer, one of those coveted beers that people stand in line at the brewery to get. Considering The Alchemist is out of Vermont (I rarely travel to that area of the country) and its not distributed down in Georgia, the odds of me getting to try it were pretty slim. As my good fortune would have it, I am active on Beer Advocate and BA buddy saw a post about me hoping to try it some day and contact me about sending me a can. I was blown away and offered a trade, but he insisted that I didn’t have to send him anything, he’s just happy to send me some. Sure enough, a few days later a package arrived with it and a can of Bearded Iris Attention Please DIPA. Wow, amazingly generous. Needless to say, I still plan to return the favor with some interesting local product. Let’s take a look at Heady Topper.

John Kimmich keeps his Heady Topper recipe close to the vest, but a little digging reveals it utilizes over six different hops. With that many hop varieties involved, it’s tough for one to really stand out. That being said, you will experience layers of hops aroma and flavors. Some are quite subtle, others very prominent. I believe this is what makes it such a popular beer. There are a number of beers out in the market place today that utilize multiple hops varieties, but this was among the first. Upon opening the can, the pine aroma will be the first thing you notice, followed by tropical fruit, citrus fruit, and a woody/must note (some refer to it as dank). Dankness is not one of my personal favorite beer aromas, but a lot of people like that. Something you’ll appreciate about this DIPA is that it is not too heavy. In today’s market place, the overuse of adjuncts to boost the mouth-feel of many IPA’s causes the beer make you feel full sooner.

What’s my final take? I’m not a big drinker of DIPA. I prefer something more sessionable, less bitter and less overwhelming. That being said, if I were a big fan of DIPA, this would definitely be one of my favorites. While the malt bill is simple, the layered hops characteristics make this a delight to the senses. It’s easy to see why this is a craft beer drinker favorite.

Let Us Drink Beer

Thanks for reading, until next time…Let Us Drink Beer!

Remember, always drink responsibly!

Other Let Us Drink Beer Reviews:

• Beer Review: Galactic Space Circus (Creature Comforts Brewing Co.)
• Beer Review: Fast Fjord Norwegian IPA (Gate City Brewing)
• Variant Brewing Company – Roswell, GA
• Beer Review: ETA IPA (Wild Leap Brew Co.)
• Beer Review: Koko Buni (Creature Comforts)