Hiking - The Beer Thrillers

Michaux Brewing Company Grand Opening

B. Kline — Sun, 03 Jul 2022 15:53:06 +0000

Michaux Brewing Company’s Grand Opening Dates

Michaux Brewing Company

If you have been keeping up on social media, particularly Facebook, you will have found out or already know, that Michaux Brewing Company is coming to Waynesboro and they have been working diligently to get themselves open and ready soon.

Well, they have finally announced their grand opening!

Michaux Brewing Company has been posting videos and pictures for over a year on their social media, and its now finally coming to a grand opening. I personally can’t wait to go on inside and check them out.

Location… Location… Location

Harrisburg PA to Michaux Brewing Company

As the map shows you above, they are located just above the Pennsylvania – Maryland line (the old Mason Dixon Line). The address is 11657 Buchanan Trail E. Waynesboro, PA, 17268. From Harrisburg Pennsylvania to the brewery its going to be roughly 1 hour and 9 minutes (give or take time of day, and exact location you are leaving from).

They are at the very bottom of the Michaux Forest.

Grand Opening

This Thursday – July 7th, they will be starting their grand opening weekend. As posted on their social media pages, their grand opening weekend is looking like this:

Thursday – July 7th – 4PM to 9PM
Friday – July 8th – 3PM to 10PM
Saturday – July 9th – 12PM to 10PM
Sunday – July 10th – 12PM to 8PM

Their Facebook post reads:

You’ve been waiting… we’ve been working. After 2 long years of planning and prepping, the time has finally come for us open our doors and welcome you into the taproom!
CHECK OUT A FEW DETAILS BELOW:
The draught list will include 11 Michaux Brew Co beers!
We will also offer a cider from Big Hill Ciderworks, wine from Galen Glen Winery and Adams County Winery and a small cocktail menu!
The kitchen will be open!
#michauxbrewing #franklincountypa #craftbeer #waynesboropa #chambersburgpa #beer
Michaux Brewing Company (Facebook)

Social Media Pages and More Information

For more information on Michaux Brewing Company, you can check out their various social media platform pages:

Other Brewery Openings (and other news)

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out other brewery openings and other brewery news recently:

Blog News

If you haven’t seen, we are currently doing a “Flagship Beers” tournament here on the blog, called “Battle of the Beers”. This is our first year running it. You can check out the rules post, and then the first round of voting post here:

Thanks For Reading

Thanks for reading everyone. June is over and we are starting the second half of the year with July and lots of stuff going on. Upcoming weekend will have the Ffej of July on the 8th and 9th, as well as other fun events. Brewfest season is in full swing. We also have the Battle of the Beers tournament going on here on The Beer Thrillers. We also have some big news on the home front (in our personal lives) which I’m sure will make its way into the blog here. Also, we are working on revamping the site layout and that will happen soon.

We have also just hit 2K on Facebook which is exciting, and hovering right around 500 on Instagram. So please make sure to like and follow us on both platforms. (We’re also on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Influencer, and Patreon).

Again, thanks all for reading, and Happy 4th of July Weekend!

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.

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!

Hike: Hawk Rock (Duncannon, Pennsylvania)

BKline — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 16:44:17 +0000

Sunset at Hawk Rock on Earth Day 2021

What better way to spend Earth Day than out hiking in nature itself? Is there a better way to spend Earth Day then… actually spending time with the Earth? Its like visiting your mother on mother’s day, or watching a baseball game with your dad on father’s day. Its what you do.

Thats called “being a good kid” or “being a good offspring”.

This is the second “hike review” here on the blog. I’ve covered Hawk Rock before (Hiking Hawk Rock and Visiting Liquid Noise) as a bit of a travelogue. Liquid Noise, the brewery, in Marysville is right on the way to and from Hawk Rock (if traveling to / from Harrisburg) and makes for a great re-hydration spot and refreshment location.

My previous “hike review” was the Rattling Run and Walking Tank Trail which you can read there by clicking that link.

Earth Day

Earth Day 2021 was a bit windy, “blustery” as one might say, but not horrible, a slight chill with the wind, but not too bad. Still a great day for hiking with my favorite trusty puppy friend. By now, I like to think most people know what Earth Day is, or at least that its “a day”. Not that its an incredibly special day, there’s no fireworks, most people still have to go to school on it, etc, but its still a ‘notable day’. But for those interested, here’s some more information, as per Wikipedia:

“Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network)^[1] including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.^[1][2]” (Source: Earth Day – Wikipedia) (I’ll include a longer passage from the site later on in the article.)

Years ago, on Earth Day, Troegs Independent Brewing in Hershey gave away free hop rhizomes. Two consecutive years, at their Hershey brewery on Earth Day, if you bought a draft of Cultivator you could get a can that was filled with topsoil and had a hop rhizome in it. The one year it was Chinook and the other year it was Saaz. They might have done it more than those two years, but those are the ones I’m aware of / and went and participated in.

Hawk Rock

Hawk Rock is a beautiful vista view that’s in Duncannon / Marysville Pennsylvania. It’s a vista just off of the Appalachian Trail, as well as its own trail from a trailhead at the base of the hill. If you go up past the lookout view of Hawk Rock, there is the Appalachian Trail (the AT) and that stretches in both directions and provides some nice views and hiking as well. Most travelers to Hawk Rock go for just the climb to the vista and back down, and its a relatively easy to moderate climb, and not too far either (1.9 Miles according to AllTrails). It has a few steep (and really, thats stretching the term a bit) areas on the climb up, but for the most part, its moderately difficult at best. There’s a lot of rock cut steps and it does switch – back on itself a fair bit, but its a pretty steady, easy climb.

Most vista views aren’t this easy, or as short of a distance either, so this is perfect for someone just wanting a nice quick, somewhat taxing view. A good hike and climb that will make you ‘feel like you did something’ or ‘accomplished’ a goal despite not having to do that hard of a workout. Plus, the view is incredible from the top, at all times of the year, and especially at sunset.

Speaking of sunsets:

Sunset at Hawk Rock

Lead Up

I had wanted to take pup dog (Leela) out for our hike earlier in the day, but due to a slow morning start, and then getting a call that my daughter was needed to be taken to a doctor’s appointment, it didn’t happen until a bit later. So after running some errands and taking my daughter to her appointment, and dropping her back off with the ex-wife I took Leela to Hawk Rock. From Hummelstown, its roughly a 30 minute drive (Google Maps will say anywhere from 30 – 35 minutes depending on time of day). I arrived at the parking area at the base of the trail at 5:20PM.

Hawk Trail via Appalachian Trail

Hike: Hawk Trail via Appalachian Trail
Location: State Game Lands Number 290
Near: Duncannon, Perry County, Pennsylvania
Length: 1.9 Miles (as per AllTrails)
Elevation Gain: 761 Feet Gain (as per AllTrails)
Route Type: Out and Back
AllTrails Map: Hawk Rock via Appalachian Trail
AllTrails Description: Hawk Rock via Appalachian Trail is a 1.9 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Duncannon, Pennsylvania that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking, walking, nature trips, and bird watching and is best used from March until October. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.

The Hike

My hike of Hawk Rock and Appalachian Trail via MapMyRun

As you can see, I didn’t just do the 1.9 miles of the Hawk Rock trail that AllTrails shows. I decided I would hike and walk some of the Appalachian Trail as well. Why not right? Beautiful day and night and a beautiful scenic area. Why not hike it! Plus its Earth Day afterall!

At the start of the hike, at the foot of the trailhead, I could immediately hear the sound of a woodpecker. and sure enough, about two minutes onto the trail, there he was.

Start of the hike and the woodpecker

I tried taking a video of him as he ‘worked’ on the tree, but of course he just stared at me instead, so I left him be and continued my hike up to the Hawk Rock vista with Leela. The walk up was pretty uneventful, only passing one older (I would say late 60s) couple.

Got to the top – (well, the vista outlook, there’s a small incline to go yet to get to the Appalachian Trail) – and as always, the view was amazing and wonderful, and Leela was a good sport posing for me – to the best of her ability – while I took some pictures.

The view from Hawk Rock

I sat and enjoyed the view and my time with Leela for a bit, until another couple came up, and I then took my leave and went up the small incline to the Appalachian Trail. I first took it out towards the river, where I know there’s another outlook and view over the river. From here, there is the trail down to get back to the road and to continue on with the Appalachian Trail, but I instead turned back and went the way I came, then passing the spur to get back to Hawk Rock, I kept going as if I was on my way to Cove Shelter. The way out was uneventful… but the way back… was at least… new to me.

Above the Hawk Rock – the Appalachian Trail and then the other overlook, this time overlooking the Susquehanna River.

I was going to keep going for a while, but it was starting to get late, and doing the mental math of my walking and time, I figured it’d be a bit after 8PM til I came down from the mountain (and with no tablets and commandments to show for it!), so instead of going as far as I’ve gone before in this direction, I turned back towards the spur for Hawk Rock.

On the way back, around 7:15-7:30PM, I encountered… for the first time in the wild… Mr…..

Mr. Porcupine

Mr. Porcupine. This was my first time encountering one in the wild. Was very interesting to see one, and relatively up close (at about a distance of 15 feet or so). I quickly grabbed Leela’s leash (because up on the trail I had left her go, but hadn’t unhooked her leash just in case), and she also immediately saw the animal. Leela isn’t an extremely excitable dog, nor is she very aggressive, but I was still taking no chances, especially with the limited knowledge I have of porcupines. But, luckily, she too was in the ‘cautious’ frame of mind, and kind of stayed behind me and kept a close distance to me behind my legs, as we skirted the path and area around the porcupine. It turned its back on us, which I was pretty sure wasn’t going to be a good sign, but he stayed still, and then as we kept moving, he went back to his foraging, and we kept on our way.

We then made it back to Hawk Rock just in time for a gorgeous sunset. This is about the fourth or fifth time I’ve visited Hawk Rock now, and each time I just can’t get enough of the view, especially at sunset, always gorgeous, no matter what time of year.

The sunset at Hawk Rock

I then made my way down the mountain and back to my car. Sadly, like I said, there was no commandments or tablets given to me up on the mountain, and I didn’t look like a man who had led people in a desert for forty years, but all the same, it was a wonderful trip and hike, and a great view and was a much needed refresher for the lungs, brain, feet, body, and soul.

If you are ever in the Duncannon, Marysville, or Perry County area, I highly recommend this small hike. It has a gorgeous view, it is moderately tough to get your blood pumping a bit at least and to make you think like your working hard, and just offers a wonderful getaway from the hustle and bustle of life. Also, nearby is Perry County’s first brewery – Liquid Noise, so give them a visit as well for some tasty re-hydration brewskies.

As always, thanks for reading everyone, hope you enjoy these hike reviews, there will be more to come. As well as more travelogues, brewery visits, beer reviews, brewery news, book reviews, and more, so be sure to check us out regularly, and to make sure to stop by and see what all we got going on. You can read on for more information from Wikipedia about Earth Day and Porcupines. Hope you all had a wonderful Earth Day as well, let us know what you did on Earth Day in the comments section!

Cheers!

More Information

Earth Day:

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network)^[1] including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.^[1]^[2]

In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be observed on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature’s equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later United States Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970. He hired a young activist, Denis Hayes, to be the National Coordinator. Nelson and Hayes renamed the event “Earth Day”. Denis and his staff grew the event beyond the original idea for a teach-in to include the entire United States. More than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single day protest in human history. Key non-environmentally focused partners played major roles. Under the leadership of labor leader Walter Reuther, for example, the United Auto Workers (UAW) was the most instrumental outside financial and operational supporter of the first Earth Day.^[3]^[4]^[5] According to Hayes, “Without the UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!”^[6] Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work.^[7]

The first Earth Day was focused on the United States. In 1990, Denis Hayes, the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international and organized events in 141 nations.^[8]^[9]^[10]

On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and 120 other countries. This signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Numerous communities engaged in Earth Day Week actions, an entire week of activities focused on the environmental issues that the world faces.^[11] On Earth Day 2020, over 100 million people around the world observed the 50th anniversary in what is being referred to as the largest online mass mobilization in history.^[2] (Source: Earth Day – Wikipedia)

Porcupines:

Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two families of animals: the Old World porcupines of family Hystricidae, and the New World porcupines of family Erethizontidae. Both families belong to the infraorder Hystricognathi within the profoundly diverse order Rodentia and display superficially similar coats of quills. Despite this, the two groups are distinct from one another and are not closely related to each other within the Hystricognathi. The largest species of porcupine is the third-largest living rodent in the world after the capybara and beaver.

The Old World porcupines live in Southern Europe, Asia (western^[1] and southern), and most of Africa. They are large, terrestrial, and strictly nocturnal. In taxonomic terms, they form the family Hystricidae.

The New World porcupines are indigenous to North America and northern South America. They live in wooded areas and can climb trees, where some species spend their entire lives. They are less strictly nocturnal than their Old World relatives, and generally smaller. In taxonomic terms, they form the family Erethizontidae.

Most porcupines are about 60–90 cm (25–36 in) long, with a 20–25 cm (8–10 in) long tail. Weighing 5–16 kg (12–35 lb), they are rounded, large, and slow, and use an aposematic strategy of defence. Porcupines’ colouration consists of various shades of brown, grey and white. Porcupines’ spiny protection resembles that of the unrelated erinaceomorph hedgehogs and Australian monotreme echidnas as well as tenrecid tenrecs. (Source: Porcupine – Wikipedia)

Hawk Rock
Hawk Rock via Appalachian Trail is a 1.9 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Duncannon, Pennsylvania that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking, walking, nature trips, and bird watching and is best used from March until October. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash. (AllTrails)

Thanks for reading everyone!

Hike: Rattling Run – Water Tank Trail (Dauphin County, Pennsylvania)

BKline — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:55:00 +0000

Stony Mountain Lookout Tower (via Rattling Run Trail)

Hiking Posts

Just like we recently launched our “book review” section of the blog (for non – beer related books anyway, I had previously done a beer book review, and planning on doing more in the future), this launches our “hiking” blog posts section. There are a few hiking and brewery travelogue posts that you can find here on the site (Rickett’s Glen) as well as some where we visited a battlefield or location and then nearby breweries (Gettysburg and Monocacy).

But this is the beginning of a series of just “hiking” posts, where I discuss a trail (or more, depending on the hike) and how it was, where it is, etc. I take my dog (Leela) hiking, as well as go hiking by myself a lot, usually once per week, sometimes once every two weeks, depending on work, activities, kids, etc.

The hiking blog posts will be pretty similar to the book reviews and beer reviews done on the site. I’ll detail the hike I did, the hike’s path, and upload a picture of the route I take, as well as link to AllTrails (an app and website for hiking – that is similar to Untappd and GoodReads for hiking). AllTrails is a really great app that I recommend very highly, especially for new and novice hikers (points to himself), there is a paid and free version. I currently only use the free version, but I can see the benefits of the paid version.

COVID really helped sparked the ‘hiking’ bug in me last year, leading to many fun and exciting trips. By myself, with my dog Leela, with my daughters, with my friend Ming and his partner Don or just Ming, with Deuane, Gabe, and several others. What started as me taking my dog on various walks and hitting new parks using Google Maps, turned into me joining various Pennsylvania and nearby state Facebook groups dedicated to hiking, state parks, etc, which led me to getting AllTrails. What started as walking smaller parks and rivers and creeks, turned into hiking hills, (mountains technically), deep valleys (like the PA Grand Canyon), glens with waterfalls (Rickett’s Glen) and fantastic vistas like Pinnacle and Pulpit Rock, Hawk Rock, etc, and has taken me hiking in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana.

Hopefully 2021 and the future has much more hiking adventures in store, and I’d like to start sharing them here on the blog. Just like the book reviews, most won’t gel and team up with beer and brewing, but some might. If your uninterested, you can always ignore or move on. But in some cases, the hiking will lead to breweries (as often is the case with Ming and Deuane and Gabe, be it nearby breweries or brand new ones), you can read much of those stories in the Travelogues section. For just hiking blog posts, check out the hiking section.

The Lead – Up

So what brought me to Rattling Run? Just like my beer reviews, brewery reviews, and book reviews, this section of the hiking posts (probably won’t go with such a bad headline as ‘The Lead – Up’ everytime from here on out) will pretty much just be my (typical) lead – in to the hike post. I will discuss the day leading up to the hike, what lead me to that particular hike and place, and who all was with me (be it Ming or Leela or whoever).

So this particular case, I had to drive out to Front Street of Harrisburg to drop off something, and took Leela with me, knowing I wanted to go hiking somewhere. After my errand, I then called up my AllTrails app, and looked for a nice hike in the area. I wanted something that would involve a climb, hopefully for something with a nice vista or overlook, and something that would have at least some level of challenge, since it was just me and my dog with, I didn’t have to worry about anyone else and it being too hard.

There were a couple of options, and several of them were similar or connected to Rattling Run and such, but I decided to try this one out based on length (AllTrails listed it as 10.8 Miles), some of the pictures people have uploaded of the trail, and the tower at the top of the trail looked interesting.

The trail is located on State Game Lands Number 211 and was about a 15-18 minute drive from Front Street of Harrisburg (Fort Hunter).

Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run

In the future, this segment will be where I give some of the details of the actual hike. What AllTrails gives as its description, as well as my MapMyRun map of the area I hiked and walked, this will give you a good idea of the hike and if you want to do it in the future, will give you some information on how to get there and what the paths and trails look like. The last section I’ll probably call “The Hike” and will be my discussion of the actual hike, my thoughts on it, my pictures, what I did, what I saw, what I liked, didn’t like, etc, etc, etc.

So firstly, right out of the gate, my very first hike post, and it will already slightly deviate from the norm….. figures right? I took the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run trail to get to the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower, but then on the way back down I took the Water Tank Trail, so I actually did two trails instead of just one. So for this, I will cover the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run trail, and then I will discuss / cover the Water Tank Trail that I took back down.

An area on the top of the mountain / hill, a portion of the Rattling Run, side area.

The above picture is a little bit of a ‘side – walk’ at the top of Rattling Run when you finish the climb up and get on the plateau area. Me and Leela checked out a few of these cut and burn areas to see if they led anywhere, and as far as I could tell none did. They did look interesting, and sort of creepy in a Hollywood movie kind of way, and they did have a path to them, but none really led anywhere, so after a while I would loop back to the main trail.

Hike: Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run
Location: State Game Lands Number 211
Near: Dauphin, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Length: 10.8 Miles (as per AllTrails)
Elevation: 1,335 Feet Gain (as per AllTrails)
Route Type: Out and Back
AllTrails Map: Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run
AllTrails Description: Stony Mountain Lookout Tower via Rattling Run Trail is a 10.8 mile out and back trail located near Dauphin, Pennsylvania that features a great forest setting. The trail is rated as moderate and is primarily used for hiking, trail running, and mountain biking.

Water Tank Trail via Stony Creek Rail Trail

After getting to the tower on the way back down, I decided to switch things up, instead of just doing a straight out and back (like the original trail would be), I decided to veer off and take a divergence, going down the Water Tank Trail to get down to the Rail Trail which connects to the road that leads to where I parked my car at the bottom of Rattling Run.

The waterfall that runs along Water Tank Trail leading back down to the Stony Creek Rail Trail

Hike: Water Tank Trail via Stony Creek Rail Trail
Location: State Game Lands Number 211
Near: Dauphin, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Length: 6.5 Miles (as per AllTrails)
Elevation: 1,125 Feet Gain (as per AllTrails)
Route Type: Loop
AllTrails Map: Water Tank Trail via Stony Creek Rail Trail
AllTrails Description: Water Tank Trail via Stony Creek Rail Trail is a 6.5 mile lightly trafficked loop trail located near Dauphin, Pennsylvania that features a waterfall and is rated as difficult. The trail is primarily used for hiking.

The Hike

My hike via the MapMyRun app.

I got to the base of the Rattling Run at just shy of 10:30AM. Got the dog unloaded and started up the app, at apparently exactly 10:30AM (thats a nifty coincidence, and not one I tried, and just now noticed I achieved). Sadly, I was woefully unprepared for the hike. I had my leash for Leela in case anyone came by (only passed one man the entire hike, and that was going down the Water Tank Trail portion), but I didn’t bring my backpack (an orange Bengals backpack in case of hunters), so I also had no waters, or food, or anything else; and I also didn’t bring a sweatshirt or hoodie or anything, which I usually start off with, and if too hot can take off and stuff in the backpack. And of course…. that meant nature would make it bitter cold and windy.

Once I had gotten on the road leading to the parking area, I realized this was a trail I took my daughters to last summer (probably early May) during COVID. We got to the top of the hill / mountain and ate lunch, explored the plateau area a bit, enjoyed the view, and then went back down. And the girls ….absolutely complained…. at every single… step… of… the ….. way. Every. Single. Step. It was this: Step. “Ugh.” Step. “This. Sucks.” Step. “Why is it so steep?” Step. “Are we there yet?” Step. “This is tall. Step. “Why is it so steep?” Step. “Can we take a break?” Step. “I hate you dad.”

Luckily, Leela didn’t do nearly as much complaining. Actually, she was the complete opposite. She loved it, and loved being able to be off the leash because there was nobody around. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone how rebellious I’m being by not keeping her on the leash 24/7 on park land.) The hike was certainly steep going up, but not quite as steep as the Fort Hunter Conservancy hill I did the day before, nor as bad as I had remembered it with the girls. Granted, this time I was in hiking boots instead of running sneakers, but I doubt that made much more of a difference. Maybe the year of hiking and trips and walking more helped? Or maybe being just me and the dog it felt differently? No clue.

But, I can say, it was certainly bitter and at times quite windy and when the wind really got going it was a fair bit cold. I was in just jeans and a Pizza Boy t-shirt (with the hiking boots), and I certainly felt the cold at times, especially at the point where I got to the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower.

Pictures on my way up to the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower (by way of Rattling Run). You can see how windy it is, how bitter it was, and how spring hasn’t quite fully awakened yet along the path. Leela can be seen walking ahead, beside me, and behind me at times.

The main walk / hike is up the hill via Rattling Run. Basically a car size stone road leading up to the top. It does get pretty steep in some places but never to the point of being outrageous or too extremely difficult. The weather was a bit bitter and cold and windy, and plant life wasn’t quite fully emerged yet, so it was still a lot of ‘dead winter’ looking trees, a lot of browns instead of greens, and not a whole lot of animal life. Some squirrels, a few birds circling overhead or heard in the distance. Not a soul to be found, so I allowed Leela to be off the leash (kept the leash in my back pocket). She stayed mostly with me, sometimes going ahead, sometimes hanging back for a sniff here or there, but she did really well for an 11 year old Border Collie. It took about an hour and 20 to 30 minutes to get to the top and the plateau.

The plateau area (or top of the hill / mountain) is mostly flat, with a few little dips and such. Its mostly open spaced with some trees along the sides of the paths. You can see off the hill / mountain on the one side and it has some nice views. It was about another two miles to get to the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower.

The tower itself sits on an area of the trail that is technically the end of the Rattling Run trail I took, and is also a part of the H. Knauber Trail, and I believe one or two others (would have to check AllTrails other trails to find out and correlate). At this point, it would be the end of the trail on the out and back portion, so here you would turn around, and go right back the way you came. The tower sits in a small square barbed wire fenced area and is off limits, though there obviously has been recent attempts to get in (successfully too it looks). The one side of the fencing paneling was removed. I walked a little of the surrounding area which was part of the H. Knauber Trail, before returning to the tower and then back the way I came towards Rattling Run.

At about the six mile mark of my journey I made it back to the intersection of the Water Tank Trail and the Rattling Run Trail I had been taking. When I first passed it, I decided I would think about taking this way on the way back down, and once I reached it, I made the decision to take it. Figured it’d be more interesting to make a loop and to see new areas rather than just re-walk the area I had already previously been to.

Water Tank Trail leading to the Stony Creek Rail Trail and back to the Rattling Run beginning

The Water Tank Trail was extremely difficult going down. Firstly, for some of it, its just the water spillage from the top of the hill / mountain, and that’s also the same as the trail, so you have wet sloggy, muddy, rocky, terrain…. then you get to the real fun. At this point, the water is on both sides of your “path” (and I use the term loosely) and it does offer a beautiful waterfall view on each side. But, your movement down, is completely loose rock, shale and other stone, and each step down causes small avalanches of rocks tumbling down. The path is somewhat marked, but it is hard to see, and at times I found myself looking for a good minute before seeing the blue markings on the trees.

As you can see in the pictures above, both Leela and I had a hard time going down the hill / mountain this way, but we did make it. I would rate this portion of the trail difficult to extremely difficult depending on your skill level. I wouldn’t recommend it without hiking boots.

The view going down was beautiful though. The water cascading on each side of the path was tremendously beautiful, and the lovely gurgling sounds of the water was really pleasant the whole way down. The trees were still bare and wintry though, so not much in the way of vegetation or animal life to observe, but the water cascading on each side made it all worthwhile.

It does taper out at the bottom of the hill and becomes easier to walk, at this point it just becomes a slightly rocky walk through the woods. It then connects to the Stony Creek Rail Trail, which is a biking, hiking, walkway / trail for people to take. I walked this for a few miles til it connects to the road that led me to the access point for Rattling Run trailhead. The flat area of the Rail Trail was nice, and offered a nice view looking down over an embankment, which looked like it had several little trails one could access if one wanted (I didn’t try any).

Conclusion

This was a fun hike. Granted I went when it was still somewhat wintry (thanks Pennsylvania “Spring”) and I didn’t bring a sweatshirt or hoodie, but the actual hike itself was nice. Going up Rattling Run and down Winter Tank Trail was moderate to difficult I would say. I think most can go up the Rattling Run if they are in good health and have no ankle or knee issues that would be too much for most other hikes. Going down the Water Tank Trail was a bit more difficult due to the loose and moving stone under foot. Perhaps different seasons it might be better, and there might also be less water to see cascading down on each side.

There isn’t anything exceptional about seeing the Stony Mountain Lookout Tower, and since its closed, you can’t access it and go up it, so it’s not quite the impressive landmark that it could be (like the tower at Governor Dick for example), but it was still nice to get to go and see it, especially since I didn’t get to do that last year with my daughters.

Dogs should be fine on the hike as well, Leela is an 11 year old border collie (will be 12 in November / December) and had no issues. (She is a great hiking dog and loves going on long walks and hikes.) I would recommend a leash for your pet just in case, as I expect the trail sees more activity in better weather. I know when we went last summer there was a lot more foot traffic on the Rattling Run trail (some runners, some walkers, some hikers, various ages, a few dogs on leashes).

All in all, I would recommend the hike. Maybe not as a first time hiker or a novice, but as someone experienced enough and energetic enough. It also doesn’t have the most amazing vistas or anything, but the find of waterfalls on the Water Tank Trail on the way down was nice and a welcome surprise. It was just over a 10 mile hike, and took me nearly 4 hours to complete (counting time to take pictures, hiking, going a bit past the areas of the map, etc.).

I hope everyone enjoyed the first ‘hike’ blog post here on The Beer Thrillers. If people tend to like these, I will certainly post more in the future. I know I have done some in the past that correlated with breweries I / we / us visited afterwards; but this was the first hiking blog article that was more in the vein of the beer reviews (and now also book reviews) that I’ve done on the blog. I hope people will like the divergence from the beer related articles and themes of the site and enjoy and indulge me on my “side projects” or “vanity projects” if you will. There will certainly be plenty more book and hike reviews and stories in the near (and far) future here on the blog if people don’t mind indulging me.

As always, be sure to leave a comment or question if you have anything to say, as I would love to hear from all of you. Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow us, here on the blog as well as our social media pages. I hope everyone is doing well and safe and getting vaccinated so we can get back to the old normal instead of the new normal. As always, thanks for reading, and cheers!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Double Nugget Nectar (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)

BKline — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 19:50:44 +0000

Side by side of Double Nugget Nectar and Nugget Nectar (regular / original) by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

The above is from last night, after a day was had, in which most things – none of the things – played out as intended, by any means, plans, expectations, and happenstance. This is a beer review, and more, and its almost more of a commentary. This is a beer review and talk of how things can be handled, how things could be handled better, and more. This will be an interesting beer review, because I might actually spend more of the review discussing things like hype, market, promoting your brand, etc; than I do on the beer itself. This will not be a rage long into the night or a damnation or a fight. It also won’t be a fan boy esque crushing on a brewery or much more. I think this will be a reasonable review – at least I hope so. But I think it will also be a realistic review.

Hopefully.

Also, before we get into it – kudos to my man Ming with the photobomb.

How to alienate, annoy, anger, and upset your fans and followers in three easy steps….

That should probably be the main title for this. By now, 11AM Friday the 22nd (2021), we all know the story. Anyone whose reading this has access to the internet, and most likely has seen the large amounts of complaints on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. lobbed at Troegs Brewing. From various Facebook groups – like Beer Gods, Beer Nerds, Breweries in PA, Central PA Whalerz, etc, there was much angst, anger, and bitterness at Troegs.

So what went wrong? What led to all of this bitter hostility and anger?

Well, this will probably get long winded. This might also get dogged down into debates and discussion on business practices. I want to be upfront here and say I do not work for Troegs Brewing, I do not receive free stuff from them, and I haven’t received this beer in lieu of review. I normally don’t mention this when doing my reviews, because practically always I buy the beer myself that I review. I say “Hey, I wanna try that beer” and I go and buy it or try it in some fashion and then say “Hey, I wanna review that beer” and I go and write a review of it. Simple as that. I am mentioning this here, because I think its relevant for the discussion that this beer review – blog post – will have. And some of that discussion centers around brand, hype, and marketing. I know some local bloggers Billy Five Caps (Bearcat on Beer), and others might have a very positive spin on things; especially Bearcat as he’s a big time Troegs fanboy (and as his Twitter stated, he was first in line yesterday). (His blog often mentions how he received things from Troegs directly, their Mad Elf cheese, or a beer, etc.)

This will be a tempered discussion. And it will be what I think is realistic, but also my thoughts and opinion. There will be some “so and so said” or grapevine comments, but the main parts and points will be my opinion on what I think was done and why it was done.

So firstly, lets start by breaking this down and starting from the very beginning…

A new dawn is cracked and the day begins

I was at my friend’s house late Wednesday into Thursday. We were doing a stream for his Knights of Nostalgia page. where we played Mega Man V (5). We started the stream around 9:45PM, and ended around 3AM or so, we went pretty late. I then sat around and chatted and bullshitted with him til about 5, got gas, and went home. I woke up at 8, and kind of snoozed / vegged in the bed before fully getting ready and starting my day.

Around 930 AM I was starting to see things pop up on the various Facebook groups that people were already lining up at Troegs. I wasn’t really sure if people were joking around or not. (As it turns out – no, they weren’t joking around.) Struggling to get up from the late night drinking session and streaming, I finally get my shower at 10AM. Get to my car at 1015 and head to Troegs. Living in Hummelstown, its about a five-ten minute drive depending on the traffic on Hershey Park Drive. Coming up on the Troegs Brewery, I can already see the parking lot is completely packed, I can see a car parked on the side of the road, and right before getting into the entrance I have a car cut me off and enter the brewery’s lot.

As I pull into the lot, I can see the line stretches from the door, through the patio garden area, past the parking lot on the walkway sidewalk they have (asphalt) and stretches all the way back to nearly the train tracks. Two guys quickly run through the parking lot and get ahead of me, I get in line, and soon after another three enter the line behind me. The last of those three is the first to be on the grass where the asphalt sidewalk ends.

The time is 10:35.

I stand there reading – “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” by Pierre Bayard. Guys around me in the line are chit chatting. Up ahead I can see a woman with a stroller and a small child (probably around nine years old) playing in the grass.

The line to get into Troegs Brewery for Double Nugget Nectar – at 10:35. They open at 11.

Already I knew I was in for a long day, and knew my expectations and how I thought this day was gonna play out were not gonna happen. My original plan was to pop into the general store, pick up two four packs (one for me, one for my buddy), and then go into the restaurant, have the hop fries and order a flight with Double Nugget Nectar and regular Nugget Nectar, to be able to do a side-by-side tasting; specifically for this blog.

Welp…. that ain’t gonna happen.

Its 10:50AM do you know where your Double Nugget Nectar is?

At 10:50AM a woman for Troegs starts working her way up the line stopping at spots to make an announcement. She explains the situation. There is 40 cases for online only sales, 80 cases for in-person sales. There is no limits. First come first serve. Starting with the line. There is 10 kegs for in-house. This means behind the bar in the restaurant and in the store for crowlers and growler fills. When its gone its gone. The online sale would start at 11:00 and the line would begin moving and letting people inside at 11:00.

Immediately everyone gets out their phones and look to try and order online. First pick up would only be 1PM though, but people don’t seem to care. At 11 they can start shopping. By 11:01AM the online sales are complete and sold out. Many people, in line – in person, as well as online in the various Facebook groups and Troegs Brewing page, said that their carts would be full but they weren’t able to check out in time due to how quickly it sold out online.

The line begins moving, first steady as the first wave went in, then in spurts as people would leave they would let others in. By about 11:30 I’m up to the arbor – wooden arch – that leads to the pergola and outdoor seating area. About five minutes later I’m off the road and into the little walkway area around the picnic tables. The people in the line are beginning to be pretty disgruntled.

Specifically the guy behind me who says he came from Wilmington Delaware. The guy in front of me says he came from near him and was supposed to be at work. They both said it was a two hour drive. At this point we can now see the people leaving the store with their goodies. One guy walking out with three cases. This was when the real bitching, moaning, and complaining set in with people in the line.

The guy behind me everytime some one exits with a case, “Oh c’mon, save some! I’ll buy a can off of you right now for 10$. You’re not drinking all of that!”

There is now a line to get into the restaurant. Running halfway down the ramp. And its now 11:45 and the announcement comes out, as I’m standing about three feet past (towards Troegs) the food truck: “No more cans! No more cans!” A collective groan goes up over the establishment.

The employee comes out and gives an update: “The cans have sold out. We do have the kegs in both the store and in the restaurant, you can buy crowlers and growlers in the store.”

Note here on pricing: the four packs were 17.99$ for a four pack (4 16oz cans – total oz of 64oz). The crowler fill is 14.50$ (32 oz), and a growler fill was 22$ (64oz).

I finally get to the steps, and soon after get inside. At this point its 12:10. The inside of the store is a zoo. Employees all running overtop of each other. You get your crowlers or growlers paid at the register, and then wait in a line til they have them canned up (or growlers filled) and then you get yours. I order two crowlers, and pick up a six pack of the 12oz Nugget Nectar cans.

The line is too long for the restaurant and with the limited seating, who knows when they’ll let people in.

The line to get the crowlers is about eight people, and we wait til they fill each person’s allotment of cans that they ordered. In the line with me, a woman gets 10, another woman gets 6, the guy in front of me gets 4, and the guy behind me gets 8. I get my two crowlers, and leave. Running into a shift manager for swing shift that I work with, and my one friend in the line. I explain the situation inside to them. And said if I had thought of it, I could have just saved them the time and ordered their crowlers for them and just handed it to them when I came out.

My little “haul” from Troegs

By this point its 12:40PM, and I had been there since 10:30AM. I was hungry, and to be honest, it was just all so hectic, that I felt a bit frazzled. I can only imagine how the poor employees working felt. And most likely they got few and sparing tips since everything was store purchases rather than drinks at the bar.

How My Thursday Unfolded

The original gameplan for Thursday was to meet up with Drew at his place and do another stream at night. He was waiting for a special HDMI cable to come in so he could play GameCube and Wii games for his streaming page. As it turns out, the piece never arrived.

I ate lunch at Rubber Soul in Hummelstown. And what a world of difference that was. No lines. No angry, angst ridden people, no complainers, etc. I even picked up a four pack of their newest beer – Fiddler’s Elbow – a Belgian Dubbel. The four pack was 15$. I had the Italian Wedding Soup that I love there, and the Soul Patch Pilsner.

I then needed some hiking time. So I did a quick Google Search for hikes and places I never been to within an hour drive. And I came up with this one called Reed’s Run Preserve. The original place was Tucquan Glen Nature Preserve, 1 hour and six minutes from Rubber Soul. I picked it because the pictures showed some beautiful waterfalls.

So off I went in search of trying to get some peace and serenity.

House Rock

The big feature of the place was House Rock. I couldn’t get to Tucquan Glen Nature Preserve because all of the parking lots were closed up due to it being winter, so I hiked the Reed Run Preserve and House Rock Preserve. A 3.16 mile hike. Just me all alone in the woods, and with a gorgeous view ontop of House Rock.

House Rock

Had me my normal hiking beer (Nugget Nectar), had some meditation time on House Rock drinking it and taking in the view. The hike took about 2 hours and was 3.16 miles. Afterwards, I did my normal “whats nearby” search for breweries and found a few I haven’t been to before. Raney Cellars, Pig Iron Brewing, Columbia Kettle Works (in Columbia), Our Town Brewery in Lancaster.

I decided on Raney Cellars which is in Millersville. While there, I got the message from Drew saying we wouldn’t do the stream tonight, and that he was going to do an online poker tournament. So I messaged Ming and told him I was basically in his backyard. Him and Don and their friend Justin were going to play cards, so they invited me out.

So I quickly hit Columbia Kettle Works on my way to their house (it was on the way… sort of…) I had been to the Columbia Kettle Works 2nd Gear location in Lancaster with my friend Rory a few years back when we saw Dropkick Murphy’s there. But this was my first time at both of these locations (Raney Cellars and Columbia Kettle Works in Columbia). Both were great and the beers were great. I’ll be doing a post about them in the upcoming days, so stay tuned for that if you’re interested.

Got to Ming and Don’s around 7:20-7:30PM for dinner (Shepherd’s Pie) and then some games of Rummy. Also cracked open the crowler of Double Nugget Nectar, had the remainder of the six pack of Nugget Nectar, and had the Fiddler’s Elbow I picked up at Rubber Soul. (Even cracked a Miller Lite at the end of the night – 3AMish, when we were out of everything else.)

Ok… so enough of all of the day’s events, lets finally get to that beer review, probably the only real reason you are here anyway!

Beer Review: Double Nugget Nectar – Troegs Brewing

Double Nugget Nectar (left) and Nugget Nectar (right) by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

Beer: Double Nugget Nectar
Brewery: Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
Style: Red Ale – Imperial / Double
ABV: 9.5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: Let’s take Nugget and double it. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but it sure was a fun balancing act. To start, we boosted the Simcoe, and this complex hop’s notes of apricot, peach rings and bright citrus are the star of the show. Azacca enters the picture to add hints of juicy orchard fruit, and Munich malt brings a bready sweetness. To strike a balancing note, Columbus joins Nugget hops, grounding this limited release with a layer of dank pine.

Appearance looks similar to the regular Nugget Nectar. It looks hazier, a bit more cloudy than the original, but also looks lighter in overall color. Still has that same reddish to amber to orange sunset look to it, a harvest moon type coloring. Coming from the crowler and canned only about 8 hours earlier, it still had great carbonation and a nice thin head. Left great lacing on the glass.

Aroma is super hoppy. You can tell this is an amped up Nugget Nectar. Its got the malt aroma, its got the hop aroma, and you can smell a sweetness to it. The hop nose on this is extremely strong and powerful and is the best feature of the beer. It just smells like an amazing beer.

Ok, lets get into the beer itself. First thing’s first: is it worth the hype? ….Yes and No. It is… but to a degree. Nugget Nectar is a universally beloved Troegs offering. So doing a double version of it immediately hypes it in and of itself. This deserves that level of hype. It does NOT deserve the hype of people waiting in line at 9AM to get into a brewery at 11AM. Its not “I better get 3 cases” of it hype. (Outside of the turn around sales.) This is a really well done beer though. Its extremely tasty. And I could easily drink three cases worth…. (not in one night of course!) but overall in months. I would go for this over regular / original Nugget Nectar. That being said, I’ve had many better beers, and many many worse beers. This is a wonderfully tasty beer though. Thankfully, luckily, its not a malt bomb. It is malty, and it is sweet, but not moreso than Nugget Nectar (original) is. In fact, I think Nugget Nectar is sweeter than this. With the hopped up nature of this one, its a bit more bitter, a bit more hoppy than the original. Probably more than a ‘bit’ – a lot more hoppy, but only a bit more bitter. There is some bready taste to it with the malt, as well as peach, citrus, and pine from the hops. It all strikes a nice balance. The 9.5% makes it a bit stronger than the original which was 7.5%. So its on par with a lot of DIPAs (Double IPAs) as far as strength. But the ABV is pretty well hidden, and doesn’t really kick you in the butt, even in a 32oz crowler. I do like this beer and think its an improvement over whats already one of the better Red Ales / Amber Ales in the area. I will be interested to see if they decide to try and make this a regular seasonal in the future, of if they shelve this.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.49 (as of 1.22.21)

(For reference sake – my Nugget Nectar Untappd rating was originally 4.5 when I first had it checked in, so so so so many years ago, and have in the past few years adjusted it to 4 caps.)

My Final Thoughts and Opinions

So, circling this back to the beginning of the post, and my subheading there: “How to annoy, anger and alienate your fans in three easy steps…”

This is what Troegs did in a big way. Will it make an impact in the long run? Probably not. I think a bigger question here is – was it intentional or poor planning? Either answer is not a great look for Troegs. And is kind of a shame really. Troegs is not known for their line life, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever waited in a line, outside of five-ten minutes due to COVID over this past summer just to get in. This isn’t Tree House, or Trillium, or Imprint, or back in the day Tired Hands, where you had to wait to get the new release.

So… did Troegs just not expect the turn out? Or did they do it on purpose?

If they did it on purpose, their “plan succeeded”. It made and built hype for this beer, it makes them look like a hype brewery, and it gets them talked about over and over and over again in online circles. Publicity cheap. Advertisement done by others. As the old saying goes: “Even bad publicity is still publicity.” “Negative attention is still attention.” The over hype on this will create a second market, and the beers will sell higher now. My own co-worker offered me 25$ for the crowler I got and paid for at 14.50$. More than likely, that guy who walked out with the three cases was either there for a lot of friends, or was going to sell online in various FT/ISO and mule groups. Will he upcharge? Who knows; but more than likely.

The comments section on Troegs page is a bit interesting right now. A lot of entitlement, and a lot of anger. People saying Troegs is forgetting the locals, the people who helped build them up to where they are. A lot of people who never lost out on limited release beers before, and it shows to a pretty high degree in the comments section.

So, maybe it was just handled poorly? This is believable. Maybe Troegs didn’t believe their own hype? Maybe they didn’t think it would really sell out the way it did. I don’t know. I do know how it was ran, was pretty poor. They bungled the pre-sale on Monday by posting it up on Sunday despite initially telling everyone it would be Monday. Then they didn’t put limits on the beer. And they tried to mitigate things COVID wise, but in reality, not really. If I had to take a guess at how many people were in the line when I got there at 10:30, I would say 250-300. And once inside, the store would hold 24 people at a time, and people went about touching everything, being close to each other, etc.

The beer completely sold out by 1:30PM. That counts the 10 kegs they had for on-site and growler / crowler fills, as well as the 80 cases for in-person and the 40 cases for online. That means in 2 and a half hours they sold 10 kegs and 120 cases of their beer. Impressive.

Going forward, what would be some solutions? The most obvious is limits. Two to three four pack limit. Does this completely negate everything? No, because people can come in groups, and buy up still, but it does limit that. It also gets the beer in as many hands as possible. Their online sales could have been improved so that carts didn’t get voided because people couldn’t type in their credit card info quick enough.

Will the lesson be learned? It will be interesting to see. Did Troegs do it on purpose? Thats debatable. My gut tells me – yes, they did it on purpose, to create their own hype. But, some friends think they just didn’t realize their own hype. That they were just this woefully unprepared.

I do want to give a big shout out to the workers there though. This had to be an extremely trying and tough day, and I can only imagine how the tap room was once the last keg kicked.

Would I recommend getting it on the secondary market? Depends. Obviously on price point it depends a lot. The four packs went for 17.99$ in person. If your paying more than 25$ for a four pack, I would say its probably not worth it, but that is up to you, so who knows. Your tastes and money mileage varies.

I will be curious about the fall out from this, if Troegs will offer an apology, if they will try and remedy it, if they try and brew this again to sell. Will be interesting. Will have to wait and see.

Either way, lets all be kind to each other, the brewery, the workers, ourselves, etc. Happy New Year. New Year, New You, New Happiness. Yesterday at 9:21PM was a very interesting time. Especially at 9:21:21. It would have been the 21st second, of the 21st minute, of the 21st hour, on the 21st day, of the 21st century. Very cool.

Would love to hear everyone’s experiences with Troegs and the Double Nugget Nectar release in the comments. Let me know. Were you there? What was your experience? Feel like you got lucky? Missed out? Etc. Let us know! I’m very curious to see everyone’s reactions!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Double Nugget Nectar

Beer Review: Mutant Temple (Strange Roots Experimental Ales)

BKline — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 23:46:28 +0000

I’ve had several beers over the years from Strange Roots Experimental Ales (aka Drai Laag), and I’ve never had a single bad beer from them. Mostly known for their sours, saisons, and the like, this one is actually an IPA.

When I go hiking, I like to enjoy a good ‘hike’ beer, especially at the top or vista point of a beautiful hiking trail. In this case, it was Pinnacle Point in Kempton, Pennsylvania. (Just outside of Hamburg Pennsylvania.) (This beer was also covered in my travelogue about Pinnacle Overlook, Pinnacle Peak, and Pulpit Rock and the hike there, you can check that out here: Pinnacle Overlook, 1787 Brewing Company, and Schaylor Brewing.)

This is another case of beautiful can art. Also, since this was a trail beer, I didn’t have a glass, and drank it straight from the can; like a heathen, a barbarian, an outdoors man, a rogue hiker, a man’s man. …or well, just a person who didn’t feel like carrying around a glass, and hiking for four hours and eight miles carrying a glass that could break, especially while his hiking buddy is a four legged beast that best resembles a wolf on her best days….. (don’t worry Leela, I still love you).

So, this review will be forgoing the “appearance” section, though, I have seen pictures of it on Untappd, and it looks in the pictures I’ve seen, like a light straw colored IPA / saison looking beer, but I won’t go into details, since I did not see it with my own eyes.

Mutant Temple on the hike leading up to Pinnacle Overlook

For any people familiar with Pinnacle Overlook and the hike there; right before you get to the gorgeous vista of the Pinnacle Overlook, there is a giant cairn. Cairn works… but not really. Most people associate cairns with tombstones and what people would do to bury people in places they couldn’t dig the earth up or make a grave for, so they would dig as much as they could, and then cover them in rocks to keep prey from getting to the remains. But the true definition of cairn is: “a heap of stones set up as a landmark, a monument, a tombstone, etc.” (Dictionary.com Definition: Cairn.) (For more about graves…. you can read my beer review on Shallow Grave by Heretic Brewing …. yay for cheap plugs! I feel like Mick Foley!) Anyway, its right before you get to the overlook, its a giant stone and rock heaped pile. The very first time I went and hiked the trail, I almost thought – this was it. This giant pile, this cairn, this heap of rocks and stones, was it, and this was the “view” and the Pinnacle everyone was talking about. (Pinnacle being the height of something.) Thank goodness I walked past it and saw this gorgeous overlook….

Pinnacle Overlook in Kempton, Pennsylvania

Needless to say, this view is a lot better…. A LOT…. better than just a pile of stinking rocks (or non-stinking rocks). To get to this point, it was about a 3.5 mile hike. (Going back down, since I took a different route, and stopped at Pulpit Rocks, it was another 4.5-5 miles, making it 8-8.5 miles all told of just the mountain, plus getting to and from the car.) So, I camped out here a bit with my dog, Leela, which by now anyone reading the blog regularly has heard of quite a bit or seen in the background of pictures (she’s an 11 year old border collie that is commonly mistaken for an Australian Shepherd, named after Leela from Futurama). I didn’t bring food with, since I was going to visit 1787 Brewing Company in Hamburg afterwards, but I did enjoy my beer on the ledge with my faithful furball companion, and then did the treacherous, very rocky hike back down – which is the Appalachian Trail path.

All in all, if you are ever near Kempton or Hamburg area of Pennsylvania, and love beautiful views, where you can see and feel the turkey buzzards, hawks, and other large birds soaring right past your head, this is definitely a great hike and a beautiful view. From Hershey its roughly a 45-50 minute drive.

Mutant Temple by Strange Roots Experimental Ales

Beer: Mutant Temple
Brewery: Strange Roots Experimental Ales
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 5.3%
IBU: 5
Untappd Description: IPA dry hopped with Citra.

Since I’m not doing an appearance segment for this beer review, let me just say, I thought this cairn was the perfect picture opportunity for this beer. It looked alien, strange, mutant like, and would be a Hollywood esque temple location; like something filmed for a Star Wars planet or something. Also, the can art for Mutant Temple is phenomenal to, here it is:

Mutant Temple can art by Strange Roots Experimental Ales

Here also, I want to bring up Strange Roots Experimental Ales. According to Untappd, they are a micro brewery out of Gibsonia Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh). They have 394 unique beers with over 102K ratings, and a global average rating of 3.86. The Untappd description reads: “Strange Roots exists at the intersection of farmhouse brewing tradition and creative, locally-driven experimentation. We’re passionate about celebrating our environment through the use of local ingredients, varying fermentation methods and micro flora, and strive to create unique artisan ales inspired by our surroundings here in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.”

Ok, now lets get back to the beer review.

(Skipping the appearance… sorry folks…. moving right along to aroma…) Coming out of the can you get a very citra hoppy aroma. Not surprising since this is a Citra dry hopped IPA. Citra has probably become the most used hop in America in the past two years, primarily for New England IPAs, and primarily because of that. Its a very juicy hop, and gives off a ton of lime, citrus, grapefruit, some peach, some mango, and tropical fruit notes. Both aromatically and in taste. Due to the proliferation of New England IPAs in the past two years, its market has exploded, usually used in conjunction with mosaic. (Cue up the Hallmark Christmas movies meme of Mosaic & Citra.) This is a strong IPA, but not as potent as most New England IPAs, and its definitely not a New England IPA, but it has a very strong citrus, lime, aroma; some notes of grapefruit and peach and mango.

Tasting this, (out of the can, not from a glass, just for perspective’s sake), this is definitely not a New England IPA; but a classic American / West Coast IPA. But its not full blown hop bitter West Coast IPA. Its nothing like Perpetual IPA, or Hop Slam, or something extremely high IBU or hop heavy. This is smoother, but not New England smooth, its not pure juice, but its still a juicer IPA than most West Coast styled ones. Theres a great deal of hop flavor , and some hop bitterness, but I think its smoothed because its dry hopped, especially with it being dry hopped with such a fruity hop like Citra. You get some earthy hop notes, a bit of pine, a wee bit of grassy-ness, to it, but overall the citra elements kick it into ultra drive on this, and you get a lot of the fruitier, more notable hop tastes from the citra; like lime, citrus, grapefruit, bit of peach, bit of mango, some tropical fruits, and the like, and this rounds it out and makes it a lot more tastier, seems to give it a lot more to the beer. I wouldn’t call it an extremely fruity or floral or juicy IPA or beer, but its got a lot of fruit forward flavors, its still definitely an IPA, there’s still the bite and the hop – ness to it, still some bitterness to it; still a “beer’s beer”. There is a nice body to it, and its got a good mouthfeel, it doesn’t feel too light or weak or watery. It’s also only 5.3% ABV, so thats really not bad, almost in the low regions by most beer standards nowadays. Most IPAs clock in the 6-7.5% range; and DIPAs then going from 7-9%. (Of course, then there’s also TIPAs and QIPAs even nowadays too.) I like the low ABV on this, especially for hiking, and despite picking it up at Breski’s as part of a mix-a-six, I could definitely dig this in a four pack and crush it. Would make for a great mowing beer, or working around the house, or shower beer, something where a nice beer would fit, but you don’t need or want to get hammered or pounded or anything. The Untappd description also lists it at only 5 IBU, but it does (still) have a hop bite and some bitterness. There’s no off flavors or after taste, nothing you’ll be burping up hours later, nothing off, or cloying, just a nice drinking beer. Great for hiking up a hill / mountain with your pooch!

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.93 (as of 12.26.20)

Untappd actually has a checkin spot for Pinnacle Overlook, you can see it here: Pinnacle Overlook on Untappd. I love how for even far to reach hiking places and spots where not even WiFi exists, or I even get internet, there’s still Untappd check-in spots. Thank. Goodness.

Thank you all for reading. 2020 is winding down, and we’re getting near to the end of the year. January 4th will be soon here too, and hopefully Governor Wolfe will be updating the mandates, and letting us get back to drinking and eating indoors at breweries, pubs, restaurants, and bars. In the meantime, get out there and help support local breweries. Support your favorite places, and tip your favorite staff, they all need it! (I know as someone furloughed / laid off / unemployed because of this recent shut down, its a tough time and a tough season, especially with it being the holidays too.) So help out wherever and however you can.

As always, make sure you are taking all the precautions everyone. Stay safe out there, mask up, wash your hands, don’t lick doorknobs, etc.

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Some recent beer reviews:

Mutant Temple by Strange Roots Experimental Ales

The Trip to Indianapolis: Day Three: Salt Fork State Park, Southside Brewing Company, Blackhand Gorge, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, Land-Grant Brewing Company, The Wandering Griffin

BKline — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 01:23:00 +0000

Salt Fork State Park

The subtitle I used for the recap article about Day Three was “I woke up in Washington and ended up in Dayton, how did I get here?” And its pretty accurate. Counting West Virginia (which I was only supposed to be in for all of about six to eight minutes) I traveled in three states and a fair bit of distance. So lets discuss how I got from Washington (Pennsylvania) to Dayton (Ohio) all in one day, and what all I did therein.

Also, before we go on, I believe my picture above of the lake at Salt Fork State Park is an optical allusion (that or maybe I’ve finally fully lost it and I’m going nuts); but to me it feels like if you stare at the picture long enough it looks like the waves are moving. Let me know if you see it… or if I have just lost my marbles. (Maybe its both?)

Day three saw me leaving my hotel outside of The Meadows Casino around 9:30AM, and heading to Ohio. Unfortunately, I have to go through West Virginia to get to Ohio in this part of the region… and that involves me getting pulled over by a West Virginia State Trooper. Sigh. So it goes I guess, but it does suck, and is a needless 190$ expense to add to the total cost of my trip, it also made me a bit later getting to my first stop which was the Salt Fork State Park.

Salt Fork State Park

There is a large beautiful lake at Salt Fork State Park, as well as several hiking trails over by the golf course. The lake was gorgeous and so serene, and at 10:30-11AM the park and lake area was completely empty. Just me, some blobby dead jellyfish looking things on the beach, lots of deer footprints, and the sad, quiet, solemn sound of the waves of the lake lapping onto the beach. I sat by the beach for a fair bit of time, just taking in the quiet and solitude, the solemnity of the here and now and the sereneness of it all.

The wooded trails there were nice though easy and not much to see, but they were quiet, serene, and peaceful. The whole place had a very serene atmosphere, a malaise or laze-faire peace and serenity to it all. Seeing nobody in sight pretty much the entire time I was in the state park certainly helped add the elusive nature of the place, like I had stumbled back in time and found a beach and lake and small wooded grove that only I knew about and nobody else ever would.

From here I traveled further into Ohio on my way to Columbus. Stopping briefly at a brewery / winery / restaurant / pizzeria on a hill. The restaurant was called Georgetown Tavern on the Hill; the brewery located there was called Southside Brewing Company. Had a gorgeous view of a vineyard and down an impressive hill.

Georgetown Tavern on the Hill – Southside Brewing Co.

The pizza was very good, and the beer was refreshing and nice on a beautiful, gorgeous, sunny day.

Blueberry Wheat

Beer: Blueberry Wheat
Brewery: Southside Brewing Co.
Style: Wheat Beer – American Pale Wheat
ABV: 6%
IBU: 30 IBU
Untappd Description: Traditional wheat beer with a hint of blueberry.

It was refreshing, and nice and there was a hint of blueberry. Perfectly acceptable on a sunny day in early November as a quick-stop pint to grab while breaking up the drive through Ohio.

My Untappd Rating: ***.5
Global Untappd Rating: (Only 9 ratings, not enough for a global rating yet.)

Next up, I stopped at Blackhand Gorge. Which was a series of trails on two sides of a main road. On one side, you had a trail along the creek / river which also included being able to walk down into what was the remains of the Erie Canal; and on the other side you had a walk that took you through a rock tunnel and you could also climb to the top of this giant rock plateau. The one side of the river was more of a bike trail that stretched for miles and miles, the other was a hiking trail. Both were very cool, and had numerous spots to stop and take pictures.

Blackhand Gorge

The drive to Blackhand Gorge was interesting. At one point on the highway a firetruck was coming up behind me, so I got over for it, and soon after it passed me, its hose came unattached from the top, and followed behind the firetruck like a long kite tail until it eventually completely unattached. The firetruck unaware the entire time kept speeding on. I was making sure to keep a good 10 – 15 feet back from the hose, which was trailing for probably about 20 – 30 feet from the firetruck itself. Once it became unattached and flew back, I had to quickly swerve so it didn’t hit the car, and it nearly clipped the car behind me who was riding my tail pretty aggressively.

After the Gorge it was finally time to head into Columbus. On the way there, I passed the Longerberger Basket building, office, headquarters, what have you. Reminded me of my aunt who used to sell their baskets, as well as my (ex) mother in law who did as well.

Longerberger Basket Building

Once in Columbus, the first brewery to hit was Wolf’s Ridge Brewing. Parking was about a half block away, and was only 3$ for 6 hours, which for a city, is fantastic. Also, next to the parking lot was Elevator Brewing, where they were working on inside – unfortunately they weren’t open yet, and were still doing the work on the building, so I had to skip them. Wolf’s Ridge Brewing though more than made up for it.

Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company

Due to COVID, instead of eating and sitting inside, they turned the alley to the side of their brewery into a make-shift patio with a construction set barrier around the place. I had two full drafts there while reading and talking to an amazing bartender / server. Very beautiful and sweet lady who chatted with me about their brewery, my trip, Indianapolis, Harrisburg, and all kinds of things.

Buchenrauch

The first beer I got was the Buchenrauch. I can’t turn down a Rauchbier when I see it on a menu. I just can’t. Always have to give it a try, just to see how the brewery handles doing such a hard beer style. Luckily (and unsurprising for anyone who knows Wolf’s Ridge Brewing) they absolutely nailed it.

Beer: Buchenrauch
Brewery: Wolf’s Ridge Brewing
Style: Rauchbier
ABV: 5.7%
IBU: 20 IBU
Untappd Description:

2016 Gold Medal winner: San Diego International Beer Competition

2016 Gold Medal: Alltech Commonwealth Cup

2017 Silver: Alltech Commonwealth Cup

2016 Bronze: Indiana Brewers’ Cup

2015 Bronze Medal winner: San Diego International Beer Competition

This traditional smoked lager style hails from Bamberg Germany. The name literally means “beech smoke,” which pays homage to the time honored tradition of smoking the malt over beech wood to create the signature smooth smokiness. Mahogany in color and rich in flavors of campfire smoke and crusty bread. Buchenrauch is crisp and savory. The lager yeast and cold aging provide smooth drinkability and will leave you wanting more than just one.

Delicious, lovely beer. Compared to the medals and awards this beer has won, my recommendation means very little, but I do certainly highly recommend it. If you are in the Columbus area, this is worth the stop at Wolf’s Ridge Brewing alone.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.69 (as of 11.27.20)

Dire Wolf

Beer: Dire Wolf
Brewery: Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Russian Imperial
ABV: 10.4%
IBU: 50 IBU
Untappd Description: 2017 Gold: Beer Army Beer Wars

2016 Silver Medal: Best of Craft Beer Awards

2015 Gold Medal winner: San Diego International Beer Competition

Canis Dirus, or “fearsome dog,” is the scientific name for the Dire Wolf. One of the largest known breeds of wolf, the Dire Wolf went extinct at the end of the last ice age. Similarly, the Russian Imperial Stout was a beer style destined for extinction until craft brewers in America began to resurrect historical styles. Our Imperial Stout is named for the Dire Wolf because it is big, bold, and fearsome. Brewed with copious amounts of oats and brown sugar. Black as night with a dense tan head and chewy texture. Notes of dark chocolate, caramel, and espresso stand against a hefty bitterness to balance this monstrous beer.

Another style I absolutely love – Russian Imperial Stouts (RIS). For any Game of Thrones geeks out there, the name is great too. This was a boozy, heavy, delicious, rich, strong and very powerful beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 4.04 (as of 11.27.20)

Sadly, I had to move on and say goodbye to the bartender and the great brewery. I had enough time to hit one more brewery in Columbus before heading out to Dayton, my stop for the night (to shorten the trip for the next day). The second brewery I got to try out in Columbus was Land-Grant Brewing Company. Which was kind of set in a hipster like location, right across the street from BrewDog Ohio. Their ordering system was all on the phone, and was actually a bit of a challenge, as you had to pick your flight of beers all from their online menu which made things a bit more difficult than need be, but I don’t begrudge any breweries right now with strong COVID-19 / coronavirus safety protocols.

At Land-Grant Brewing, I ordered a flight that I had to wolf down pretty quickly to be able to get to Dayton in time for both the brewery there and the hotel and to call it on the day, and be somewhat near Indianapolis for tomorrow. According to Untappd, Land-Grant Brewing is a micro brewery; obviously located in Columbus Ohio, it has 531 Unique Beers, and over 163K ratings, with an average rating of 3.7 (as of 11.27.20). There is no Untappd description for the brewery.

The flight I ordered was:

Beard Crumbs
Make Mine Irish
Skull Session
Son of a Mudder
Bottomless Coffee

Beard Crumbs by Land-Grant Brewing

Beer: Beard Crumbs
Brewery: Land-Grant Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Oatmeal
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 42
Untappd Description: Beard Crumbs is a smooth dark stout teeming with notes of chocolate, coffee, and an extra punch of holiday cheer via the addition of carmelized raisins. It delivers the joy of an oatmeal raisin cookie, minus the crumbly clean up.

It’s a festive ale that old Saint Nick himself would love.

This was a fun, tasty oatmeal stout. Ginger, nutmeg, or cinnamon rounded out the chocolate and coffee to make it feel more ‘festive’ and like a Christmas or Thanksgiving beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.71 (as of 11.27.20)

Make Mine Irish

Beer: Make Mine Irish
Brewery: Land-Grant Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Coffee
ABV: 8.4%
IBU: 33
Untappd Description: Sometimes a well brewed cup of coffee isn’t quite enough on its own. Sometimes a well brewed glass of beer needs a little something extra to push it over the top. Both benefit from a warming dose of whiskey. For that reason we brewed this hearty Irish Coffee Stout with Stauf’s whiskey-barrel-aged coffee beans, creating a compound of smooth chocolaty stout, roasted coffee, and rich, smoky whiskey. So when you’re craving a beer, a coffee, or a whiskey, might as well make yours Irish.

A good ‘Irish’ coffee stout. Strong and bold and powerful. Good full stout flavor even in a taster, very nice.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.89 (as of 11.27.20)

Skull Session by Land-Grant Brewing

Beer: Skull Session
Brewery: Land-Grant Brewing Company
Style: Lager – Red
ABV: 5.8%
IBU: 15
Untappd Description: This easy drinking Scarlet Lager owes a tip of its cap to a timeless autumn tradition. A chance to clear your mind before Saturday’s main event. This beer draws its ruddy hue from Red X malt, while maintaining a bright, classic balance from the addition of Tettnang and Chinook hops. This is a lager that’s in formation and ready to march.

An interesting lager. A lot going on flavor wise, but still pretty crispy. A fun and interesting take on the lager style. Wouldn’t mind trying some more Red Lagers in the future especially back home; see how other breweries do the style.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.63 (as of 11.27.20)

Son of a Mudder by Land-Grant Brewing

Beer: Son of a Mudder
Brewery: Land-Grant Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale – American
ABV: 6.1%
IBU: 30
Untappd Description: Nevermind the conditions. This Brown Ale’s father was a Mudder, and his mother was a Mudder. This is a true and true American Brown Ale with a subtle hop presence at the turn and toffee, caramel, and coffee notes waiting at the finish line. When they’re calling for rain, dig in deep and grab a Mudder. It’s a sure thing.

I love brown ales, and I think the older I’m getting (ugh, scary thought) the more I’m enjoying them even moreso. This was no exception. Fantastic brown ale that is true to the style.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.6 (as of 11.27.20)

Bottomless Coffee by Land-Grant Brewing

Beer: Bottomless Coffee
Brewery: Land-Grant Brewing Company
Style: Lager – Vienna
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Perfect any time of day, this easy drinking Vienna Lager gets a rich, roasty pick-me-up from a big old pot of Stauf’s India Malabar Coffee beans—roasted right here in Columbus, Ohio. Grab a stool, get comfortable, and we’ll keep your cup topped-off.

Another interesting lager take. A coffee Vienna lager. Not your normal thought for a lager is coffee. This works really well though actually, and I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. I always love it when a beer exceeds my expectations.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.51 (as of 11.27.20)

Sadly, I pretty much had to wolf these beers down and bolt, and couldn’t stay and enjoy the ambiance of the place. In an outdoor patio next door looked like there was a big game of trivia going down. Not sure if this was tied in with Land-Grant Brewing or with the BrewDog from across the street. It might have been a communal area or for just the one brewery. If I had to guess, I would say it was tied in with Land-Grant Brewing or maybe the old school bar nearby too. I don’t think it was tied in with BrewDog. But it looked impressive with a big seating area, a huge screen for the trivia, and a lot of people…. hopefully socially distanced and wearing masks when not drinking.

The inside of Land-Grant Brewing Company

But, I was off now to my last stop, and had to book it too. I had to get to Dayton, and had to get there fast. I was heading to The Wandering Griffin, a brewery just outside of Dayton (technically considered Beaver Creek, Ohio) and right by my motel stop for the night. From Land-Grant to The Wandering Griffin its a 1 Hour and 1 Minute drive if Google Maps is to be believed. I wanna say I made it there a bit faster than that… but not going to incriminate myself.

The Wandering Griffin (courtesy of their Facebook and media pages)

I get to Dayton (or Beaver Creek) just before shutting down. I sit outside on their patio and enjoy a pint of Oktoberfest (2020). The place had an Applebee’s turned brewery vibe to it, or pick your own chain restaurant type place. Chili’s, Red Robin, Jiffy State, or whatever is local to your area type place. Not taking anything away from the place, it was nice, great patio area, nice bartender / server / worker, and the beer was good too.

According to Untappd, The Wandering Griffin is a brew pub in Beaver Creek, Ohio. They have 41 Unique Beers with 2,400+ ratings and an average global rating of 3.66 (as of 11.27.20). Their description reads: “We are The Wandering Griffin Brewery. We brew some really killer beer. We have lots and lots of room (over 10,000 square-feet) for you to drink our killer beer. Our floor is brown. We also have one really big ass patio. You can drink our killer beer there to. We also make some really killer grub. Did we mention that our beer is really good? We look forward to seeing you soon. Really. Parking? We have the largest parking lot in Dayton. Bring the bus! Brewery, full-service restaurant, beer garden and 3 bars. Great space for your event – large or small! Conveniently located off 675 exit 15 near WSU, WPAFB and Nutter Center.”

I ordered the Oktoberfest (2020), and went out to the patio to sit, it soon started to drizzle slightly, but nothing horribly, and I had a table umbrella over my head, so I enjoyed my pint.

Oktoberfest by The Wandering Griffin

Beer: Oktoberfest (2020)
Brewery: The Wandering Griffin
Style: Lager – Amber
ABV: 6%
IBU: 28
Untappd Description:

Prost! Our 2020 Oktoberfest is brewed using a blend of select German hops, Pale, Munich, and Vienna malts. Together, these ingredients bring notes of freshly toasted bread and a touch of fruit character to the brew. At 6% ABV and 28 IBU, this year’s Oktoberfest is a big yodel to beer’s biggest party…Even if we’re doing it from 6′ apart.
Küss unseren Arsch COVID!!!

I enjoyed it. It was a little weaker than some Marzens – probably because (according to their Untappd page for it) its a Lager – Amber rather than a Marzen, but it was still serviceable, especially after I’ve already stopped at two breweries in Columbus and the one earlier in the day (like a lifetime ago) in Georgetown. Was a nice enough end cap to the day.

My Untappd Rating: ***.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.63 (as of 11.27.20)

After bidding adieu to the bartender / server I hopped the two blocks over to my motel and finally crashed for the day. Day three in the books. It brought me from Washington Pennsylvania to Dayton Ohio. As I carried my stuff into the motel, it started raining (more than a drizzle, but not hard), my friends at home said it had poured earlier in the day. Fun note – this would be the only rain and “bad weather” on the entirety of my trip. And it was overnight while in Dayton. Can’t say a bad thing about the weather I had in early November while traveling from PA to IN. I got extremely fortunate there. So as Tuesday came to a close, I had another wonderful day on my trip. I went to a State Park, went to another hiking place (Blackhand Gorge), visited four breweries in three different cities of Ohio (Georgetown, Columbus, and Dayton) and pretty much traveled the entire way across Ohio. Tomorrow brings on Day Four and takes me into Indianapolis to finally make it to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library – the reason and purpose for my trip. So make sure to come on back to check in with us here at The Beer Thrillers for that! We still also have Days Five, Six, and Seven to get through! Be sure to come back to read the conclusion to the whole trip!

Thanks for reading everyone. Hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, happy Thanksgiving, Black Friday, etc. Make sure to shop craft beer and not just scoop up the Goose Island Bourbon County crap, help the local breweries in these hard times, especially as the virus numbers keep getting higher and higher and shut downs look imminent. Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis – Full Articles:

Day One: Thousand Steps Trail, Juniata Brewing Company, Ghost Town Trail, Levity Brewing
Day Two: Rock Furnace Trail, Allusion Brewing Company, Couch Brewery, Riverview Park, Hop Farm Brewing Company, The Meadows Casino
Day Three: Salt Fork State Park, Southside Brewing Company, Blackhand Gorge, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, Land-Grant Brewing Company, and The Wandering Griffin
Day Four:
Day Five:
Day Six:
Day Seven:

The Trip to Indianapolis – Recap Articles:

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

Monocacy Battlefield Road Trip:

Visiting Reading Pennsylvania:

A Visit to Reading
The Birthday Trip to Reading Pennsylvania – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

A Road Trip to The PA Grand Canyon:

Visiting Wellsboro PA and the Grand Canyon

Hiking Hawk Rock

Hiking Hawk Rock and Visiting Liquid Noise Brewery

Hiking Pinnacle Trail and Pulpit Rock

Hiking to Pinnacle Overlook, Pulpit Rock, Visiting 1787 Brewing and Schaylor Brewing

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania:

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania – Pour Man’s Brewing, Black Forest Brewery

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse:

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse in Shippensburg Pennsylvania

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

My Article for Breweries in PA:

Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

Also, be sure to check out some of our other beer reviews in recent history:

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!

The Trip to Indianapolis: Day Two: Rock Furnace Trail, Allusion Brewing Company, Couch Brewery, Riverview Park, Hop Farm Brewing Company, and The Meadows Casino and Racetrack.

BKline — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 03:40:00 +0000

Woke up bright and early in Indiana, Pennsylvania and checked out of my hotel early early. My first of several hotel stops, and nearly the entire trip comes undone when I can’t find my wallet before leaving. A twenty minute search finally yields it behind the bed, it must have fallen off the nightstand back behind there. Whew, dilemma and catastrophe averted, I was on my way to towards Pittsburgh.

My first stop of the day was a morning wake up hike. I was wanting to hike and see the Jackson Falls… but unfortunately, despite Google Maps saying you could access them, the land for Jackson Falls (recently?) became purchased by a water company and was considered private property and you were unable to use the road to them; it was now a private road / driveway for this water company.

The Kiskiminetas River along Roaring Run Trail

But, there was a nearby hiking trail that went along the creek called Rock Furnace Trail, and I did hike that, and it led out by the river and was a bike / walk path called Roaring Run Trail, and I walked some of that as well. The trails were located in Apollo Pennsylvania, and the river that ran alongside Roaring Run Trail is called Kiskiminetas River. It was a beautiful path (both the Rock Furnace Trail and the Roaring Run Trail), the creek alongside Rock Furnace Trail was pretty, low, meandering, and the Kiskiminetas River was big and roaring with lots of rapids. Unfortunately, no real waterfalls or cascades to see, I assume all of those were at the Jackson Falls that were now on the private property.

Rock Furnace Trail, Roaring Run Trail, and Kiskiminetas River

After hiking and walking the two trails / paths, it was about 11AM when I left Apollo and made my way to Vandergrift Pennsylvania, for my first brewery stop of day two. Vandergrift was a small, quaint, old time town, that reminded me of the town from Back to the Future. Not sure why, but it just did. I walked a few blocks of it before / after drinking and eating at Allusion Brewing Company.

Vamdergrift Pennsylvania

Allusion Brewing Company is a micro brewery located in Vandergrift Pennsylvania; just outside of Pittsburgh. According to Untappd it has 18 unique beers, with 542 ratings and has an average rating of 3.8. The Untappd description simply reads: “Vandergrift’s hometown brewery.” The oldest created unique beer was on 12.26.13, but then the next wasn’t until 5.24.14. It certainly seems like it’s a relatively new and small brewery, but the beers were great, the building was beautiful, and the staff – Jim – was wonderful. If you get a chance to go by Vandergrift, make sure to stop in, visit Allusion Brewing, and see Jim as bartender, wonderful guy, very nice, informative and talkative.

Allusion Brewing Company

I got a flight at Allusion Brewing, which was in an old card catalogue holder from a library, which was pretty neat. My flight was:

Oh, Bother!
One Inning More
Baker St. Brown
V.I.Porter

Oh Bother

Beer: Oh, Bother!
Brewery: Allusion Brewing Company
Style: Blonde Ale
ABV: 4.75%
IBU: 28
Untappd Description: A sweet malty golden colored blonde ale brewed with caramel malts and Canadian honey malt to achieve a sweet honey taste. A beer to enjoy in the Hundred Acre woods.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.74 (as of 11.23.20)

One Inning More

Beer: One Inning More
Brewery: Allusion Brewing Company
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: 5%
IBU: 45
Untappd Description: American Style Pale Ale brewed with Pale and Victory malts and bittered with American Willamette and Cascade hops to produce a balance beer with hints of earthy, floral, spice from the hops. Let’s hope the Mighty Casey won’t strike out so that you can enjoy another inning of entertainment and great beer.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 11.23.20)

Baker St. Brown

Beer: Baker St. Brown
Brewery: Allusion Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale – English
ABV: 3.5%
IBU: 15
Untappd Description: Traditional Mild English Brown Ale brewed with English floor malted maris otter, English chocolate malts, and English Fuggle hops for a light drinking sessionable ale with hints of caramel and toasted bread. Sit back and enjoy one while you solve your latest mystery.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.75 (as of 11.23.20)

V.I.Porter

Beer: V.I.Porter
Brewery: Allusion Brewing Company
Style: Porter – American
ABV: 4.8%
IBU: 38
Untappd Description: American style robust porter brewed with various caramel malts and black mat to achieve hints of roasted coffee and dark chocolate. Sit back and enjoy your beer knowing that proceeds from each pint goes toward projects to help the local community.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 11.23.20)

Bidding Jim a farewell, I was off to Pittsburgh proper and made it to the city roughly around 12:30-1PM. For the second time now, Google Maps has led me astray with the Rodef Shalom Biblical Botanical Garden. I took my daughters through Pittsburgh last summer – August – and it was closed the day we were there, despite Google Maps saying it was open. Same thing, again, Google Maps listed it as open, but it was closed (closed for the season on September 15th). I have since figured out the issue – the synagogue that the garden is attached to is open year round, and Google Maps based the hours for the garden on that of the synagogue and not the actual hours for the garden. Le sigh. At some point I will get to visit the garden and walk through it. I swear it!

Rodef Shalom Biblical Botanical Garden

From there, I got a special treat, I was invited by Bobby – the head brewer for Couch Brewery – to visit Couch Brewery (on a day they were closed) for a personal tour and sampling of the beers. He was in the building kegging up their upcoming release for their Black Friday stout bash; a collaboration he did with friends (home brewers and other breweries in the area) called The Four Horseman. This was an utter blast, and Bobby is a fantastic guy, funny, down to Earth, and very knowledgeable about beer, brewing, stouts, home brewing, bars, breweries, etc. Was a blast getting to hang out for a few hours, check out the brewery, and try the entire run of their beers on tap.

I will be doing a full article on just the brewery tour (look for that most likely tomorrow), so there will be plenty more to go than just what I list here, so be sure to check that article out.

Beers I got to sample at Couch Brewery:

Recliner
Morning Wood
Hippie Blackberry Sour
Sofa Quemando
Fest Bump
F1 Hazy IPA
Thicc Ric
Macho Man
Atomic Clock
Stardust – Mango Passion
The Four Horseman (collaboration)

Recloner

Beer: Recliner
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Stout – Oatmeal
ABV: 6%
IBU: 30
Untappd Description: A delicious yet unconventional oatmeal stout brewed with the wrong hops, or so you would think. It delivers a wonderful silky smooth mouthfeel with a refreshing hint of citrus, a little bit of chocolate and a touch of coffee.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.67 (as of 11.23.20)

Morning Wood

Beer: Morning Wood
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Stout – Coffee
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4.5
Global Untappd Rating: 3.87 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Hippie Blackberry Sour Ale
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.68 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Sofa Quemando
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Stout – Other
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Mexican Stout.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Fest Bump
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Festbier
ABV: 5.3%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.7 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: F1 Hazy IPA
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.56 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Thicc Ric
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.53 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Macho Man
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Wheat Beer – Other
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Hibiscus Raspberry Lime Wheat
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.82 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Atomic Clock
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Red Ale – American Amber / Red
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.57 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: Stardust – Mango Passion
Brewery: Couch Brewery
Style: Hard Seltzer
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 3.5
Global Untappd Rating: 3.52 (as of 11.23.20)

Beer: The Four Horseman
Breweries: Couch Brewery, Fury Brewing, 2 Homebrew Collaborators
Style: American Brown Ale

There is no Untappd listing for this, and I don’t recall if Bobby gave me information on ABV / IBU / etc. (No official rating for Untappd for me or for others either then; but I would give it a 4.25.)

Couch Brewery Tour

Bobby also gave me a four pack to go, which included Macho Man, Sofa Quemando (for Drew), Atomic Clock, and Morning Wood. Couch Brewery on Untappd is listed as a micro brewery in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with 113 unique beers, over 12 thousand ratings, and an average rating of 3.59. They have no Untappd description for their brewery.

I finally had to bid Bobby a fond adieu and promised if / when I’m back in the Pittsburgh area I would definitely be stopping in, at a time when the place is open, and hopefully with some friends. The brewery is great and he was an utter blast to hang out with.

After Couch Brewery, my next walking / hiking activity was Riverview Park at the top of Pittsburgh where the Allegheny Observatory is. I made a few mis-turns and went up and down those massively steep hills a few more times than I wished or would have liked to, and actually even went past the chapel where I took the girls last year – St. Anthony’s Chapel – (they have a piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on) (I did not stop in) – but I finally made it to the top of Pittsburgh Hill or whatever its called, and walked the park and walking trails.

Riverview Park in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

The park and walking trails were really nice. Nothing crazy intense, but just a good walking area for families and for people with dogs or what have you. Some pretty views and sights. Lots of deer too that were pretty tame an would walk right up to you. The Old Zoo trail was really nice and interesting to see old broken paths, old Zoo enclosures and buildings (like the Bear Pit) and old crumbling buildings and infrastructure. The whole area was very busy, but people were keeping distanced and walking within their own families and friends. It reminded me of ants crawling around on an ant hill with everyone going this way and that and doing their own thing, and looking at things or seeing different views, and just meandering around, getting exercise and fresh air.

Once it got dusk and dark I finally left after a good three or so hour walk. While up on Troy’s Hill I passed the Penn Brewery, but unfortunately they were closed. I still stopped for a picture of their building because its a very beautiful building.

Penn Brewery in Pittsburgh

Across the street from Penn Brewery, an old Bottling Company

My next stop was a brewery – that … fingers crossed, God Willing, and Google Maps hopeful – was open… and huzzah it was! Hop Farm Brewing Company. ….but they were at max capacity so I had to wait for someone to leave. I walked the block and came back and thankfully someone was leaving just as I came back, so I was able to snag a table.

Hop Farm Brewing Company

Hop Farm Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Lawrenceville Pennsylvania. Lawrenceville is in between Pittsburgh and Washington (where the Meadows Casino is). Its still basically Pittsburgh, but not fully in Pittsburgh. Untappd lists them with 209 unique beers, over 49 thousand ratings and a global average rating of 3.65. Their Untappd description reads: “Hop Farm Brewing company is a independently partner owned brewery by Matthew and Emily Gouwens, in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Our focus is on sustainability and local sourcing while producing hoppy ales, farmhouse ales, sour ales and various other interesting brews.”

While there, I had a delicious hamburger and two beers. I had the Kulak and the Pittsburgh Pale Ale.

Kulak

Beer: Kulak
Brewery: Hop Farm Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Russian Imperial
ABV: 9.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (blank)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.23.20)

Pittsburgh Pale Ale

Beer: Pittsburgh Pale Ale
Brewery: Hop Farming Brewing Company
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: (none listed)
IBU: (none listed)
Untappd Description: (blank)
(….well that was all very informative huh?)
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.23.20)

After leaving the brewery, I went to The Meadows Casino and Racetrack. I scoped the place out, talked to a few dealers about COVID and how things have been going there for them (compared to my work) and played a little bit of dice. (26$ thrown down on the table – 12 on the 6 and 8, dollar each for the dealers. Hit the 8 twice, didn’t press, got 28$, then seven’ed out, so dealers made 2$ off me, and I made 2$ and I was done. Meh.)

The Meadows Casino and Racetrack

I stopped over at the bar, and tried to have a beer with a hot dog as it was starting to get late – 10:30ish, I saw a brewery I hadn’t had before – Sobel’s Obscure Brewery and got a pint, it ends up kicking after just a little bit of it, so I ended up with a Hazy Little Thing by Sierra Nevada (the bartender didn’t quite get what I meant by “local craft beer” and kept suggesting Yuengling Lager………).

Watched a little bit of the Monday Night game while there, then got back to the hotel at 11PM, to pretty much fall straight to bed.

Tomorrow’s article should be the Couch Brewery Tour and Sampling, so be sure to check out that. Then it’ll probably be followed up with a few beer reviews, and then I will pick back up with the Trip articles. The next will be me entering Ohio, Salt Fork State Park, and Columbus and Dayton. Lots more great pictures, hikes, and breweries to go, so stay tuned and don’t miss it!

Thank you all for reading! Love to hear from you, so be sure to leave a comment or talk it up with me, you can also check out our social media pages and comment and talk to us there as well.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis – Full Articles:

Day One: Thousand Steps Trail, Juniata Brewing Company, Ghost Town Trail, Levity Brewing
Day Two: Rock Furnace Trail, Allusion Brewing Company, Couch Brewery, Riverview Park, Hop Farm Brewing Company, The Meadows Casino
Day Three:
Day Four:
Day Five:
Day Six:
Day Seven:

The Trip to Indianapolis – Recap Articles:

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

Monocacy Battlefield Road Trip:

Visiting Reading Pennsylvania:

A Visit to Reading
The Birthday Trip to Reading Pennsylvania – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

A Road Trip to The PA Grand Canyon:

Visiting Wellsboro PA and the Grand Canyon

Hiking Hawk Rock

Hiking Hawk Rock and Visiting Liquid Noise Brewery

Hiking Pinnacle Trail and Pulpit Rock

Hiking to Pinnacle Overlook, Pulpit Rock, Visiting 1787 Brewing and Schaylor Brewing

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania:

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania – Pour Man’s Brewing, Black Forest Brewery

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse:

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse in Shippensburg Pennsylvania

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

My Article for Breweries in PA:

Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

Also, be sure to check out some of our other beer reviews in recent history:

The Trip to Indianapolis: Day One: 1000 Steps Trail, Juniata Brewing Company, Ghost Town Trail, Hoodlebug, Levity Brewing

BKline — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 01:45:00 +0000

The 1000 Steps Trailhead

Its now been a week since I’ve returned from my trip (my last day of my vacation and trip was last Saturday – November 14th, 2020; and today is now November 22nd, 2020). Each night I posted a quick recap of each day, and you’ll be able to find the links to that at the end of this article, as well as the links to the full articles as well.

I was debating how I wanted to do this, if I wanted to do them daily, with a new article for each day, or if I wanted to break it up into two or three day chunks (like day one through day three being one article), or just one giant article with all seven days in one. I’m not sure whats best, but I last second decision, I’m doing them as daily articles, and might do one long combined one as well (just copy and paste of the seven articles into one with some added post-scripts) for ease of readers who prefer one larger article.

I can’t easily break into geographically, because I go from Pennsylvania through West Virginia into Ohio, to Indianapolis, back to Ohio, jumping into Kentucky, to West Virginia, back to Pennsylvania – with days in between each state, so doing it geographically wouldn’t work; so I was left with just doing this chronologically.

For those of you used to my beer reviews and other articles, these travelogues are more rambling, more stream of consciousness remembrances of my trips and how they transpired. I keep things chronological, and I remember and recall them in order of how they happened, but I’m more prone to digressions, discussions of what happened, and I do a little less editing, so some of this might seem like rambling, or like George R.R. Martin writing a feast. But hopefully, you find it entertaining, and at least enjoy the read.

Firstly, an overview of my trip. I was given six days off – Monday through Saturday (with my natural days off work being Thursday and Friday; so I was really given Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday – four days off). I called off Sunday (day one of this trip) to give myself a full seven days off. Ironically, due to having to ‘quarantine’ when returning, I got myself an extra ten days and it turned into a seventeen day vacation. But I’ll get to that later, probably at the end of the whole series.

Work has been hectic with vacation days due to how COVID-19 and the shutdown / lockdown and quarantine earlier in the year screwed up pretty much everyone’s vacation days. Once coming back we weren’t allowed vacation days or even PTO / requested days, and once they posted when vacation days were allowed, everyone jumped on them before I could even get to it. Despite being top twenty seniority, I was low man on the totem pole due to not signing up right away.

So, I was only given four days off rather than the standard week (whatever your week is, since we have different weekend off days). My plan was to drive out to Indianapolis, to be at the Vonnegut Museum and Library, on November 11th, Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day, Kurt Vonnegut’s birthday. And then drive back home. I wanted to stop out and do some hiking trails on the way out and back. And hit up a lot of breweries too of course. Planned hiking trails were Hocking Hills in Ohio, 1000 Steps Trail in Pennsylvania, and Ohiopyl in Pennsylvania.

I am not much of a driver, not a huge fan of it. Not really a big fan of driving for an hour just to get somewhere, and I think its one of the main reasons I’ve never been a huge traveler or even brewery jumper; I mean, I’ve hit every brewery near by, but unlike these guys in some of the beer groups and beer trading groups and such on Facebook / Twitter / etc, I’ve never been the most willing to drive an hour and a half to a brewery just to pick up a four pack (or a ton of four packs and mule them back) and then turn around and drive an hour and a half back home. The breweries I’ve visited were usually a result of being in the area for some form of vacation, trip, etc, especially when I was married and with my daughters. Go to the beach, hit a brewery in the area. Go to the Crayola Factory, hit a brewery in the area. Etc.

But, now that I am single (…hey ladies….) and divorced, and by myself, I have found I’ve been driving a bit more. Could be the single-ness and being by myself, could be COVID and having a lot more free time this year, but I’ve found myself driving an hour to go find a hiking trail and walking a hiking trail, like going to Pinnacle Overlook and Pulpit Rock in Hamburg, and then stopping at 1787 Brewing (check out my Hamburg Travelogue for more on that).

Last year, I had taken my daughters, just me and them, out north and west in Pennsylvania. Going up to Elk Country, to Kinzua Bridge, to Pittsburgh, to Bushy Run, and Johnstown, and back home. Was a way to escape and get away from the divorce that was beginning and happening, and the separation that wasn’t separating (hard to really call it a separation when she asks for the divorce and still stays in the house and lives in the same house for a while), and we had a wonderful time. You can check out those stories in the travelogue section as well. So this trip was going to follow a similar pattern, but instead of having with, it was just me. Not even my faithful canine companion Leela. Just me. On a six – now seven – day trip out to Indianapolis and back.

I did very little mapping for this, and did a lot more of the ‘winging’ it variety. Looking up some places in the morning / night before at hotels, and figuring out what I wanted, where I wanted to go, what I wanted to see and what I wanted to do. Typically I tried to break up my driving so I never drove more than an hour and a half at a time, and I would hit a small walk path or hiking trail or a brewery, just something to break up the monotony of driving, especially once you get into Ohio where its just all flat land.

Realizing that just Monday and Tuesday would probably not give me enough time to get to Indianapolis and hit some hiking trails, and do some drinking at breweries, I called off work Sunday, and started my trip a day early. I had to go to the Hershey Library and drop off some books, and so my trip started pretty much where it will end. Rubber Soul Brewing for a quick snack breakfast and wake up, then Hershey Library, and then on the road. Rubber Soul is right in town (Hummelstown) and will be the beginning and end to this trip, to give you some indication of my trip.

Google Maps recap of Day One

The above map shows you my first day’s trip and travel. Rubber Soul to Hershey Library, to Thousand Steps, to Juniata Brewing Company, to Ghost Town Trail, to Levity Brewing, and then right next to Levity (right across the street) was the hotel I spent the night in.

I typically tried to find a hotel / motel right (a block or two, or three at most) from the brewery I was last visiting, for many reasons, time, travel, safety, etc. Figured it was the best idea and limited issues that could pop up.

So, after dropping off books I had to drop off at the Hershey Library, I was on the road, about an hour or so to get to the Thousand Steps trail.

The parking lot / area for this hike path, is right along the highway. You pull off into a parking area and pull into parking spaces, and then walk about forty to fifty feet to the trailhead right alongside the highway. It was a gorgeous day, and I must say, I got extremely lucky for my entire trip. The first several days were the hottest, warmest, sunniest days of November that I can ever recall in my thirty five years of existence in Pennsylvania. The place was packed, so while everyone immediately went up the stairs, I turned left and took the Standing Stone Trail (North), which connects with the Thousand Steps trail.

Standing Stone Trail

This was a relatively simple trail, just at high altitude, and was off the beaten path of the Thousand Steps trail (which is primarily what everyone comes for). Didn’t pass a single soul on this two – three mile trail (a back and forth trail). Once back to the crossing with the Thousand Trails, I then went up the stairs.

I thought I was in shape. Really, not…. well, not “in shape” in shape. But at least not, dying any second, morbidly obese, shape either. Thirty five, I walk my dog a lot, I hike, I lift weights, but…. a thousand stairs / steps up, is pretty damn brutal, I won’t lie. I felt it. I think I gained one of those “booties” everyone is always talking about getting, just from walking up all the stairs.

My favorite quote, was, around the ledge, at I believe it was just over the 400 step mark, a rather rotund younger boy (probably 10 – 12) huffing, and puffing, leans against a tree, and says: “Thank god…. I’m never gonna do this again!” To which his dad then proudly points out that they are kind of at the halfway point. The look of pure dread and despair that crossed that poor boy’s face…. oh my.

Standing Stone Trail, Thousand Steps Trail, Overlook, Dinky Shed – gallery

These were all the pictures I took on the Standing Stone Trail, the Thousand Steps Trail, the various overlooks at the top, and the Dinky Shed at the top. (Its a large gallery, so you can either space your way through it or skip it.) (Yes, let this be your warning, that these travelogue posts will be including lots of pictures, and thankfully none of me, but lots of nature, waterfalls, lakes, parks, and of course… beer.)

While at the top, my internet kicked back in my phone, and as all the notifications and texts and everything pinged and pinged and came in, it was while sitting there at the top, that I got the notice that Alex Trebek passed away. I obviously never met him, and he never knew me or heard of me, but, I did grow up watching Jeopardy with my father, with my grandmother, and he always seemed like a person and a spirit that made the world better for having him in it. This is an unfortunate loss, to many, but he did fight, and he put up a good hard fight in the battle against Cancer. Hopefully some day we will defeat it, but in the meantime, its a fight that a lot will take on, and its not an easy one.

All told, my hiking was about 6 miles, and by the time I made it back to my car (where I nearly got hit by a dude flying on the highway, because I had to walk around a large SUV that didn’t want to fully pull up into their parking space) my legs were pretty tired. Nearby was Juniata Brewing Company, so that was my first brewery stop of the trip (outside of counting Rubber Soul at home).

Juniata Brewing Company

This was a very nice location. Small, with a nice outdoor seating area. They had their own hops growing by the picnic area where you sat. And they did flights (which is my preferred method when traveling and trying new breweries for the first time). I got a flight of five.

My flight consisted of:

Standing Stone Stout
Rowdy Viking
GAPA IPA
Oktoberfest
Raspberry Wheat

Standing Stone Stout

Beer: Standing Stone Stout
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Other
ABV: (None Listed)
IBU: (None Listed)
Untappd Description: A delicious stout brewed with Huntingdon’s own Standing Stone Coffee.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 11.22.20)

Raspberry Wheat

Beer: Raspberry Wheat
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Wheat Beer – Other
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 15
Untappd Description: Lightly tart, slightly sweet. A good springtime companion!
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.78 (as of 11.22.20)

Oktoberfest

Beer: Oktoberfest
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Marzen
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 25
Untappd Description: A classic marzen with light toasted and roasted flavors and a slight bitterness. Dark amber in color.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.96 (as of 11.22.20)

GAPA IPA

Beer: GAPA IPA
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Black / Cascadian Dark Ale
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 40
Untappd Description: This Black IPA balances caramel notes and a slight rye spice with the resinous aroma of Chinook hops and a pleasing bitter finish. Collaboration brew with Our Culture Brewing out of Atlanta GA.
My Untappd Rating: 3.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 11.22.20)

Rowdy Viking

Beer: Rowdy Viking
Brewery: Juniata Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale – American
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 20
Untappd Description: A honey brown ale: malty, roasty, with a dry finish. Notes of honey and floral hops.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 11.22.20)

On Untappd, Juniata Brewing Company is listed as a Micro Brewery from Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. They have 22 unique beers, 1,100 ratings, and an average rating of 3.89. They have no description on the site.

After leaving Juniata Brewing Company, I drove to the Ghost Town Trails at the Hoodlebug connection. Apparently, this is much more of a bike path and trail than it is a walking path, especially at this conjuncture – if you want to see anything. It was also starting to get a bit darker (one of the problems about this trip being in November, was that by 4:00PM it was becoming dusk, by 4:30PM it was near dark, and at 5:00PM it was completely dark). There is a lot to see on the Ghost Town Trail, old abandoned buildings and such, but not where I walked. I walked the path for about 2-3 miles, and did the loop of the playground, and went back to my car.

Ghost Town Trail and Hoodlebug

After this, I drove up the fifteen or so minutes to Indiana and visited what was a wonderful brewery. Top three breweries of my entire trip, and in all of my travels, probably a top ten brewery I’ve visited (total, out of all the countless breweries I’ve visited) (thus far).

Levity Brewing Company

I absolutely loved my time here, had two wonderful flights, got to talk to Eric, who was a fantastic bartender, and as it turned out, was a co-owner, who even sent me on my way with some free beer. (Without even knowing about my blog, after my flights, and when I was leaving, he was asking me what my favorite beer from the flights were, and I told him, and he gave me a can of it to go.)

Eric was top notch, talking to me, coming by to check on me, asking about my trip, the book I was reading, etc. I cannot recommend this brewery enough.

Levity Brewing

Firstly, I’m not a foodie, I’ve mentioned this several times here on the blog, food is an afterthought to me. Much to the chagrin of many of my fellow brewery travelers, who go to visit breweries just as much for the food as they do the beers. (Deuene being a prime example.) But, these Yolo Dogs from Levity, are absolutely phenomenal, and if you are ever at the brewery, they are a must buy. Two hot dogs, covered in bacon, beer cheese, scallions, onions, and a ton of potato chips, go perfectly with two flights of amazing beers. You can’t go wrong with that.

I had gotten two flights, watched the Dallas – Steelers game, which being near Pittsburgh country, I was inundated with Steeler fans (ugh…. as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, coming out to Pittsburgh and through the area is always rough, especially football season), read my book about the President’s office (The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson), and enjoyed amazing food and drinks.

My flights included:

ICFC Straight Red
Hoodlebug Brown Ale
Headlamp Stout
Knock and Howl (2019)
Debacle Doppelbock
Haze Frehley
End of Haze
Punky Bruiser

Levity Brewing Company (according to Untappd) is a brew pub in Indiana, Pennsylvania. It has 65 unique beers, with 34, 226 ratings and a global average rating of 3.76. The Untappd description for the brewery reads: “Levity Brewing Company is a small brewery and pub in Indiana, PA-about an hour east of Pittsburgh. We aim to brew clean, crisp, and dry examples of style and bring a diversity of beers to our community. At any time we offer a variety of IPAs, kettle-soured fruit beers, oak-aged wild beers, etc, etc, etc..”

ICFC Straight Red

Beer: ICFC Straight Red
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Red Ale – American Amber / Red Ale
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 18
Untappd Description: This soccer club amber ale – initially developed for the Indiana County Football Club – is an easy drinking but flavorful pick me up after the big game. Lovely amber, bready, nutty, crisp. Toss one back with your team, the competition, maybe even the referee.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.64 (as of 11.22.20)

Hoddlebug Brown Ale

Beer: Hoodlebug Brown Ale
Style: Brown Ale – American
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 34
Untappd Description: This easy-to-love beer is loaded with caramel malts and is gently hopped. Well-rounded, great with your dinner, not too filling. This beer has hit a sweet spot with our customers making it one of our best sellers. Named after the Hoodlebug Trail – a popular rails-to-trails path right next to the brewery. And a portion of sales are donated to trail maintenance!
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.76 (as of 11.22.20)

Headlamp Stout

Beer: Headlamp Stout
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.9%
IBU: 53
Untappd Description: Just like the coal mines under us in Western PA, this beer is deep, dark, and complex. Cherry cordial sweetness shines through the dark roast and chocolate creating a fascinatingly rich, desert-like beer
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.22.20)

Knock and Howl

Beer: Knock and Howl (2019)
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: American Wilde Ale
ABV: 7.3%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Our wild brown ale aged in well used bourbon barrels. Roasted oak and cherry pie on the nose. Sour cherry and caramel candy flavors with a Concord red wine finish
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 11.22.20)

Debacle Doppelbock

Beer: Debacle Doppelbock
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Bock – Doppelbock
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)
My Untapped Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.52 (as of 11.22.20)

Haze Frehley

Beer: Haze Frehley
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 42
Untappd Description: Hazy, juicy, grapefruit flavors out of this world. If you like IPA’s you are sure to enjoy this one. Bravo, Citra, & Mosaic, hops. You can smell the big tropical grapefruit aroma a mile away.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.79 (as of 11.22.20)

End of Haze

Beer: End of Haze
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Sabro and Moutere hops are our secret weapon to defeat the powers of darkness invading our world. Combined, they hyper-blast out a fruity, tropical, citrus beam of pure energy.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 11.22.20)

Punky Bruiser

Beer: Punky Bruiser
Brewery: Levity Brewing Company
Style: Porter – Baltic
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Baltic Porter is a lager that’s smooth, clean, and delicate from a long cool fermentation. Plum floats perfectly with the dark chocolate, and toffee flavors, but never overpowers.
My Untappd Rating: 4.5
Global Untappd Rating: 3.66 (as of 11.22.20)

Overall, both Levity and Juniata Brewing were great breweries. Levity Brewing gets my nod for being my favorite of the two, and Punky Bruiser gets my gold star for favorite beer of the day. Out of my hiking for the day, I really enjoyed the Thousand Steps trail. Was a beautiful trail, hard, but not impossible, with amazing, gorgeous views at the top.

I almost forgot to mention, that, I ran into a group of hikers all in various brewery / hop logo attire (shirts / hoodie), and I was wearing my Boneshire Mug Club shirt, and we were talking about Boneshire Brew Works, and the one was saying he had a roommate who worked there, and the woman was saying how she kept going back to their tent at the Gettysburg Brew Fest they went to. I had ran into the brother-in-law of Matt Trevan, a bartender at Boneshire Brew Works, when I went to Hawk Rock (you can read about that in the travelogues section).

After leaving Levity, and talking to some bikers (cyclists), and Eric, and Nathan the other bartender, I made my way over to the Wyndham across the street, got my room for the night, and promptly crashed. I believed I started watching some of the Sunday Night Football game, and I can’t even recall who it was, if it was the horrible Tampa Bay / Saints game or if that was the Monday night game, I don’t even remember, because I was soon fast asleep.

The next update on this series, will take me into Pittsburgh and to Washington, and then day three begins my trip into Ohio.

I hope you enjoyed this. You can read more about the individual days in quick recap form below, and you can read and see the many other travelogues I’ve done. You can also check around the site for beer reviews, brewery reviews, brewery news, brewer interviews, and what have you. Please comment, follow, and subscribe, I always love hearing from you guys.

Thanks for reading, and please stay safe out there everyone, as we get near the Thanksgiving season, this has certainly been a trying and difficult year, hopefully everyone stays safe for the holidays, and we all make it to 2021 safe and sound.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis – Full Articles:

Day One: Thousand Steps Trail, Juniata Brewing Company, Ghost Town Trail, Levity Brewing
Day Two:
Day Three:
Day Four:
Day Five:
Day Six:
Day Seven:

The Trip to Indianapolis – Recap Articles:

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

Monocacy Battlefield Road Trip:

Visiting Reading Pennsylvania:

A Visit to Reading
The Birthday Trip to Reading Pennsylvania – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

A Road Trip to The PA Grand Canyon:

Visiting Wellsboro PA and the Grand Canyon

Hiking Hawk Rock

Hiking Hawk Rock and Visiting Liquid Noise Brewery

Hiking Pinnacle Trail and Pulpit Rock

Hiking to Pinnacle Overlook, Pulpit Rock, Visiting 1787 Brewing and Schaylor Brewing

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania:

Hiking Around Ephrata Pennsylvania – Pour Man’s Brewing, Black Forest Brewery

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse:

Hiking Sunset Rocks and Checking Out Maxie’s Brewhouse in Shippensburg Pennsylvania

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

My Article for Breweries in PA:

Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

Also, be sure to check out some of our other beer reviews in recent history:

Two Beer Reviews: Hazy Burd (Ship Faced Brewing) and Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch (Janky Brew Co) at Maxie’s Brewhouse after hiking Sunset Rocks

BKline — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 03:30:00 +0000

Hazy Burd and Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch

So tonight’s post won’t be your typical beer review. This will be a double beer review, and even though I’ve done a few of them in the past, this is a bit different than that. I’ve done a couple of multiple beer reviews in the past (typically flights at a brewery), and I’ve done two other articles that were dual (two) beer reviews. They were: Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale (by Troegs Brewing) and Pineapple Kolsch (Desperate Times) and Dry Irish Stout (Riverbend Hop Farm and Brewing). (Riverbend Hop Farm and Brewery just recently closed their doors which makes that review interesting in hindsight, you can read about their closing here – Riverbend Hop Farm and Brewery Announces Closing.)

Today’s double review comes from Maxie’s Brewhouse in Shippensburg. Its two different breweries / brewers that I’m reviewing (Ship Faced Brewing and Janky Brew Co). Maxie’s Brewhouse is kind of interesting. Its like an agglomeration of home brewers that rotate on their tap list and you can order. A friend of mine – Matt Kauffman – who ran the beer blog TBC (Tribeeratops Beer Club), which was a blog for him and a bunch of his friends, and he began homebrewing and turned it into TBC – Tribeeratops Brewing Company.

When we stopped in, they had a sheet of their draft specials. I’m not sure what their full menu was, or how many different beers or brewers were on tap, but on the sheet they had a 4$ beer from Olde Bedford, a 4$ hard cider, and then some 3$ draft specials from Ship Faced Brewing and Janky Beer Co. I had messaged Matt on my way in, and he told me he no longer brews for them. So I’m not sure what all else they had on tap, but these were the ones they did have on tap for certain. Their Facebook page showed a flight with different beers than I saw on their draft special sheet, so they must’ve had a pretty good variety of beers on draft but I just didn’t see a menu list of them anywhere. You can find Maxie’s on Facebook here: Maxie’s Brewhouse LLC.

Yesterday, I had hiked the Pine Grove Furnace State Park and did Pole Steeple with my dog Leela. Today me and my friend Ming hiked Sunset Rocks and some of the Appalachian Trail and did some of Camp Michaux and the walking tour of it; which is all in Gardners Pennsylvania. Shippensburg was about a fifteen – twenty minute drive from the hike, and I hadn’t been to Maxie’s yet to get to try some of these new brewers, so we hopped over there for our lunch / beers.

On the Sunset Rocks / Appalachian Trail hike my hiking beers for the day were – Green Machine by Boneshire Brew Works and Animal I’ve Become by Ever Grain. Both fridge pulls that were of IPAs that are starting to get up in age (canning for this Green Machine was a bit ago), but both still held up very well and were excellent trail beers.

Animal I’ve Become and Green Machine – my hiking beers

It was a very nice hike, we did about 5 some miles of hiking counting the Camp Michaux walking tour and CCC / POW camp that we walked through, as well as the Appalachian Trail we walked through. The Sunset Rocks overlook view was very pretty, even with the cloudy weather. Temperature wise it was great, hot and sweating when we were hiking, but not too cold or too warm when we were standing still.

I’ll post some pictures of the overlook view, Appalachian Trail, and Camp Michaux at the end of the article if you want to see them. I also have some links for more information about Camp Michaux at the end as well (mainly, because I knew nothing about this camp before we hiked the area, so hopefully this will be informative for other people as well).

But in the meantime, let’s get to the two beers and review them.

First up….. Hazy Burd.

Hazy Burd by Ship Faced Brewing

Beer: Hazy Burd
Brewery: Ship Faced Brewing
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Ship Faced Brewing is listed on Untappd as a nano brewery from Shippensburg, and has 13 unique beers, 199 total ratings and an average rating of 3.76.

This is a bright yellow to golden New England style hazy IPA. Thin white head to it but with nice bubbles and left nice lacing on the glass. Its hazy and opaque with some sediment and floaters. Its light looking and a bit watery looking.

Aroma is pretty hoppy, floral and citrus. No earthy or grassy or pine hop notes. Some creaminess or vanilla aroma but very mild. Mostly floral or citrus hop notes, some peach, mango, maybe faint grapefruit aroma.

This is a pretty solid and standard New England IPA. There’s not a whole extreme lot to discuss, but it is a solid beer. Its a bit watery, a bit papery thin in mouthfeel, but it has good flavor. Its smooth and has either lactose, vanilla, or a lot of flaked oats to give it a smooth / silky taste and slickness to it. Its easy drinking and pretty crushable. No hop bite, no real IPA bitterness, just the juiciness that comes from a New England IPA. Hop flavors are peach, mango, light grapefruit, perhaps a bit of melon rind, no earthy, no zest or citrus, no grassy or pine or bitterness. I can’t say anything bad about this beer, its good, clean, juicy, tastes great, has a little bit of sediment, a little watery and thin, but nothing bad, no off flavors, no bad aftertaste, nothing you’re burping up hours later. This is a perfectly fine and delicious beer.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.77 (as of 11.21.20)

Next up is…. Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch.

Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch

Beer: Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch
Brewery: Janky Beer Co
Style: Blonde Ale
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: 30
Untappd Description: Brewed with local coffee and has a dash of pumpkin spice with Tahitian vanilla bean

Janky Beer Co on Untappd is listed as a Contract Brewer through Shippensburg Pennsylvania. With 45 unique beers, 895 ratings, and an average global rating of 3.92. Their Untappd description reads: A one off one of a kind brewery working in Maxie’s Brew Pub.

This was an interesting beer. It looks and doesn’t look like a blonde ale, and doesn’t taste much like one at all. (None of these things are negatives, just statements.) It more reminds me of a pumpkin beer or yam beer than a blonde ale, especially the tastes. The appearance is a hazy, darker blonde ale than normal, with more of a darker golden orange coloring than a lighter yellow to golden look.

Aroma is one hundred and ten percent spice beer, like any pumpkin beer, the spices are overwhelming and all you smell. I couldn’t even smell coffee on this or any distinguishable characteristic of a blonde ale, but got lots and lots of spices. Nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and probably some other spices I’m not really able to distinguish. I don’t think its ‘too much’ but it is a bit overpowering, and I would go as far as saying its definitely more than a ‘dash’ of the spices.

This is an interesting and tasty beer. I got very little coffee but the spices are very overpowering on this. There might be coffee that intermingles and makes the taste of the spices jump out more, but what you take notice upfront and right away is the spices. They really leap out and tackle your tastebuds. This has a stronger and heavier mouthfeel than the New England IPA earlier (Hazy Burd), but its still somewhat light being only a 4.5% blonde ale. Its smooth to drink and has a nice slick, smooth, creaminess most likely from the Tahitian Vanilla Beans, but you don’t really taste the vanilla. This isn’t boozy or heavy, but it also feels heavy, mostly I think because it has a good mouthfeel and the spices, so its more of a sipping beer than one to drink quickly, and I certainly wouldn’t drink a four pack or anything of this at one sitting due to the spices being a bit overbearing. This was an enjoyable beer, a bit overhanded on the spices, (I was burping the taste of this beer for a few hours afterwards), but still a good, well crafted beer that I’d get again.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.7 (as of 11.21.20)

Overall both beers were enjoyable. I wish I would have asked about what their full menu was and maybe did a flight or something, got to try more than just the two, but for 6$ the two drafts were not bad. Ming got cheesesteak egg rolls for 8$ and we shared fries for 3$, so not a bad bit of food and drink for relatively low price. (They might want to do a better job of saying what all beers they have than just that special list, maybe it was on a different part of the QR code, not sure.)

If again in Shippensburg, I’ll make sure to stop in. When we were there at 3:30-4, it was empty (we were the only ones in until a couple came in right before we left). They were doing live music in the evening though so I’m sure it would pick up.

The following will be the pictures and the links about Camp Michaux.

Pictures of Sunset Rocks overlook:

Sunset Rocks Overlook at Gardners, Pennsylvania

Pictures of Camp Michaux:

Camp Michaux and Appalachian Trail to Halfway Spring

Links for further reading on Camp Michaux:

Tomorrow I will – hopefully – fingers crossed – toes crossed – hopefully – have the first article from the Indy trip done. (No matter what, I will have an article, as I’m still doing my November 30 for 30.) So be on the lookout for that.

Also, be sure to check out some of our other beer reviews in recent history:

Thanks for reading everyone, hope you enjoyed the ‘dual beer’ review, and enjoyed the pictures from the hike.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indy – Day 7 Recap: There and Back Again – A Drunk Hobbit’s Tale (WhiteHorse Brewing LLC, Gearhouse Brewing Company, Rubber Soul Brewing)

BKline — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 04:30:00 +0000

Cucumber Falls at Ohiopyl State Park

Started the day waking up in Morgantown West Virginia to the full cacophony of noises one can only hear at an Econo Lodge at 5AM. After getting situated, getting gas, mountain dew for the drive, basic necessities, I made the hour and a half trek to Ohiopyl Pennsylvania. There I made landfall in the state park at 10:30AM.

I started at the parking lot by the Cucumber Falls (pictured above) and took the long yellow trail. It was about 6 miles out and back to get to Flatrock and then Cascade Falls. (I’ll post pictures of them in the full recap.) This was a more difficult hiking trail than some I’ve done on the trip. The Meadow Run rapids and the Cascade Falls were equally beautiful.

There was a few other things to do in Ohiopyl, but since this was my last day, and by 3PM (the time I finished the hike), I figured it would be best to head home. It was roughly a 2.5-3 hour drive home, so I wanted to get moving. If I took the turnpike (and selected tolls) on my Google phone GPS maps whatever, it was going to be 2 hours and 15 some minutes (plus stops). If I did no tolls, it had me drop into Maryland just below the Mason-Dixon line and then come back up and be 3 hours and 34 minutes. Or something like that (don’t quote me on it exactly, I didn’t write it down).

But, I didn’t take either of these routes. I wanted to at least try a brewery in the area, since I most likely won’t be in this area again. So the closest, most local brewery, was Whitehorse Brewing LLC in Berlin. So off I went. Forty minute or so drive there.

Whitehorse Brewing LLC

I was a bit surprised by this place, because it looked like a typical development / suburban house and garage. (And I’m pretty sure it was, just converted into a brewery.) Inside was the brewer and a bartender and they were extremely nice, generous, and talkative about the area. I got an Apple Butter Cream Ale and enjoyed it outside by the fire before moving on.

Instead of driving for 2-2.5 hours straight home, I decided to break it up and hit another Pennsylvania brewery I hadn’t been to yet….

Gearhouse Brewing

Gearhouse Brewing in Chambersburg. I’ve heard nothing but good things, and know the brewers and many people who frequent it, unfortunately, getting down to Chambersburg hasn’t been in the cards until now. So I stopped there, had a flight, a delicious hamburger, and then it was ontowards home.

Sort of.

Earlier in the day my friend Drew texted me saying if I was home by 5 he’d be at Rubber Soul; well that didn’t work out, but my mom had wanted to go to Rubber Soul to try their Italian Wedding Soup (as did I; being a huge huge huge fan of Italian Wedding Soups), so I drove to my parents place, and we walked over to Rubber Soul for dinner.

Rubber Soul flight

And while I was gone, they had released four new beers I hadn’t had yet, so I got a flight of the beers I’ve missed (enjoyed all of them by the way, especially the blueberry pomegranate IPA and the sticky stout). Showed mom the pictures of my trip, the museums, the waterfalls, etc. Discussed how her grandmum (pure 100% Italian) made wedding soup, and my mom even went so far as to say this was her favorite Italian Wedding Soup she’s had not made by her family. Which for her would be extremely high praise.

Finally got home, and got to be reunited with my dog who I hadn’t seen since Sunday morning when I left. My ex-wife took good care of her, but she was still so super eager to greet me and take another walk that she basically pulled me the entire way.

Leela at home

The above picture doesn’t do justice to how excited she was to see me, and I have to say the feeling was very mutual. I sure missed my pup.

After taking her for a long walk, came home to see that I had a beer mail package from a buddy out in Bristol PA.

Beer Mail

We did a trade 2 cans for 2, and he threw in the extra – 12 oz can of Dulachan by Lavery – for me to review for the blog, free of charge. Thanks Steve! So be on the lookout for all three of these being reviewed soon.

Well, it is 11:30, and I am exhausted and its been a long seven day trip and I can finally rest and sleep in my own bed, so that is exactly what I am going to do.

Goodnight everyone and cheers, and thanks for following along on the trip!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis: