End of the Year

Its the end of the year, and what that usually entails is a whole slew of “end of the year lists”. Top 10 this… top 38 that… top 69 (heeheehee) this and that…. Top 314.181928102810 Pies, etc.

We are going to post a few this year. In the past we’ve kinda shied away from posting these sorts of articles, because the metrics and information is kind of… biased in a way. Its basically just reading off Untappd’s information and lists and going with it. For example, recently Breweries in PA did a final end of the year Top 10 Pennsylvania Breweries listing article, using Untappd’s information, and well… it was received as well as you can imagine. Mainly because they didn’t put in any filters or restrictions or limits to it. So just before the list was posted, Country Club Brewing Company (see an article about them here: Country Club Brewing Company Announces Opening) had their grand opening. They had roughly 1,000 check – ins on the Untappd app, and being a grand opening most of them were very favorable (mostly four caps or better). So needless to say this put a lot of readers and breweries themselves up in arms about it. It actually listed them at number three (out of ten). (The other thing that irked most was that Other Half Brewing Company was listed, when they have several non – Pennsylvanian locations.)

But… I’m gonna go out on a limb and use Untappd to post some of these lists. If nothing else we can look back at them as just data charts and analyze them for the statistics. At best, they prompt some conversation and discussion (and we all know how well that goes on the internet). So first up, let’s take a look at The Top 10 Regions for Most Check – Ins.

The Top 10 Most Checked-In Regions of 2022

So how drunk do you think your area and region is? Do you think your state had the most check ins? Well lets find out!

Remember, all of this information is correlated by Untappd and is dependent on their app. So its just analyzing, and adding up all of the check ins on their app. I will post a link back to Untappd’s full article afterwards. But first, let’s get to the list:

• 10. North Carolina (United States of America) – 1,762,020 Check Ins
• 9. Florida (United States of America) – 1,768,811 Check Ins
• 8. Ohio (United States of America) – 1,844,993 Check Ins
• 7. Illinois (United States of America) – 1,905,864 Check Ins
• 6. Bayern (Munich, Germany) – 1,999,890 Check Ins
• 5. Massachusetts (United States of America) – 2,393,759 Check Ins
• 4. Pennsylvania (United States of America) – 2,582,779 Check Ins
• 3. Vlaanderen (Belgium) – 2,903,569 Check Ins
• 2. New York (United States of America) – 3,902,956 Check Ins
• 1. California (United States of America) – 4,695,384 Check Ins

(All statistics as of December 9th, 2022. All statistics are from January 1st – December 9th 2022).

Congratulations Pennsylvania

Since we’re based out of Central PA (Harrisburg / Hershey / Hummelstown area, to be even more precise really), I’m going to highlight Pennsylvania and talk about how impressive it is to be number four on the list. Not sure how GOOD of an impressive thing it is, but it is impressive. Everyone always talks about Wisconsin and Milwaukee being the ‘alcoholics capital’ of the United States (and the world), but they don’t even hit this top 10 list. Now, that can be for many reasons – lack of check ins, lack of using the app, drinking liquor instead of beer, etc. But if you watch Red Letter Media you would think they got us beat on beer too (plus they have New Glarius Brewing Company, so why not?).

But, fourth place is nothing to sneeze at – in the sense of volume of check ins. Given that New York and California easily has Pennsylvania beat on population, its quite impressive. 2.5 million check ins is also a lot of check ins.

Good job Drunkies!

Untappd’s Article

For more information, you can check out Untappd’s article and blog where they break down the data a bit more, and discuss their own choices and links to curated travel guides to each of these regions.

• The Top 10 Most Checked-In Regions of 2022 (Untappd Blog)

Typically they list a few breweries key to each state / region after their usage in the above list. For Pennsylvania they discuss Human Robot and Dancing Gnome breweries. (Read our article about Human Robot’s Milko Pour here: Human Robot – The Milk Tube.)

So they picked a brewery at each end of the state – Human Robot for Philadelphia and Dancing Gnome for Pittsburgh. But there are a ton of great and fantastic breweries spread out throughout the state – many of them here in the middle of the state along the Susquehanna. Breweries like Troegs Independent Craft Brewing, Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery, Selin’s Grove Brew Pub, Shy Bear Brewing, Ever Grain Brewing Company, Mellow Mink Brewing, and so many more (and those are just the ones more in the Central PA area and located closer to the Susquehanna). (Check out our article about Brewery Tour and Brewery Visit to Mellow Mink: Brewery Visit – Mellow Mink.)

Thanks For Reading

Thank you everyone for checking out the article. We enjoy having you come to the site! In the next few days I’ll be posting a few more lists and variants and such. So be sure to stop back out each day for that.

Like I said in our previous post, lots still going on here at the blog despite it being the end of the year. I’m also heading back to work in a few days time, so things will be picking up work wise as well. So it’ll be holidays, work, baby Scarlet, and the blog. Busy. Busy. Busy. But, like I did say on the last post, Josh and I were invited out to Central PA Pour to do a podcast, which was an absolute blast. We filmed and recorded that on the 18th, and that will be going live just before New Years. So look for that. Should be entertaining and fun. We had a blast.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

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

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

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

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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

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

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!

Hop Culture, a popular site that has organized brewfests and events like Beers With(out) Beards, Juicy Brews, and others, is a digital beer (craft beer) website, blog, and brand. Hop Culture LLC is based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Next Glass is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Next Glass has a lot of different software, app, and other systems already in place, and the acquisition of Hop Culture adds to their growing list of websites, apps, and other beer and beverage related brands and products.

From the Forbes article about the acquisition: “Hop Culture founder and CEO Kenny Gould says the partnership will help Next Glass develop a suite of business tools — a “cohesive ecosystem,” if you will — to streamline experiences for consumers and provide operational efficiencies for businesses in the beverage alcohol space, from producers to wholesalers to retailers.”

In a long piece that Kenny Gould published to Hop Culture after the announcement, he stated: “But first — know that I’m not going anywhere. Neither is my team. Although they’re not regularly in the limelight, Hop Culture Managing Editor John A. Paradiso and Head of Partnerships Grace Weitz each played essential roles in Hop Culture’s growth and development, and we all plan to continue our work with the company in expanded roles.”

From the PRNewswire press release about the news: “The Hop Culture team has built an engaging and important platform with voices and events that resonate within the industry,” said Trace Smith, CEO of Next Glass. “We’re excited and proud to welcome a brand and team with values and a vision that so closely mirror our own.”

Founded in 2017 by journalist Kenny Gould, Hop Culture got its start promoting small, independent craft breweries via their Instagram and digital magazine. Over time, the company also grew to include a popular merchandise line and event series.

“Hop Culture couldn’t be more excited about this partnership,” said Gould. “At Next Glass, Trace and his team have put together the largest network of beer drinkers in the world, and we look forward to working with them to continue producing compelling content and world-class events.”

Untappd was founded on October 22nd, 2010 by Greg Avola. From wikipedia: “Untappd is a geosocial networking service and mobile phone application founded by Greg Avola and Tim Mather that allows its users to check in as they drink beers, and share these check-ins and their locations with their friends” As of 2017 it was estimated that Untappd had 9 Million Users and 125 Internal Employees.

Beer Advocate was founded in the early days of the internet (and craft beer) – in 1996 as a website for rating and cataloging beer. It along with Rate Beer (founded in 2000) were the pioneers for beer rating systems, until smart phone technology and apps paved the way for Untappd.

Gould: “Breweries (and other alcohol producers) operating a lot of different systems have to rely on disparate tools, and you start to see why that’s a problem when you look at scale, going forward, they’ll have one company and endless integration for a seamless back end experience.”

Gould claims that Hop Culture will keep its same journalism, with the same editors, and same workers (working from home currently) despite the buy-out. He states that it is a mutual buy-out that will offer Hop Culture and Next Glass much for the future. While Hop Culture gets to stay relatively its own thing, Next Glass gets out of the deal – is someone to oversee branding (both internal and client / external needs), a ready to go team that is already connected to the beer community (and with strong ties to a thriving craft beer scene in Pittsburgh), and a brand that has demonstrated success at hosting small, medium, and large scale events and festivals.

According to the Forbes article (under why the purchase was made in 2020): “Seven-year-old Next Glass has grown tremendously this year, from buying Hop Culture, Oznr and some of BeerAdvocate’s assets, to naming a new CEO, taking in investment from Providence Strategic Growth, and hiring its first consort of executives and managers.

Just as Gould gets excited talking about his newfound ability to draw on a far greater pool of resources than his four-year-old beer-magazine startup ever allowed, Next Glass CEO Trace Smith says the deal with Providence, which went through in March, gives his business the resources to do more in the future, including boosting its presence in Europe; recover from COVID losses; and launch initiatives to help the hospitality industry much sooner.      

“We certainly hope this is a temporary speed bump, and we understand that the economic conditions might be soft coming out of it,” Smith tells the Greater Wilmington Business Journal. “But that additional capital will help us regrow more quickly post-COVID-19 and will help us bring more (furloughed) team members back.” For his part, the 30-year-old Gould’s instincts haven’t led him astray. The Pittsburgh son and grandson of entrepreneurs started the Hop Culture website in 2017 as a way to highlight positive stories in the craft beer world. As Gould, who also works as a freelance writer and Forbes contributor, says, “I never set out to start a business. I set out to write about beer.”

Gould is hoping that with the purchase, Hop Culture can expand its efforts to be more inclusive in the beer community. With the goal of expanding Beer Kulture (black / African – American promotions), Beers With(out) Beards (women promotions), and starting a queer beer festival.

About Next Glass (from the PRNewswire Article): “Founded in 2013, Next Glass develops software and creates experiences that connect enthusiasts, retailers, and producers in the beverage alcohol industry. The Next Glass family of brands serves the unique and varied needs of the industry via multiple platforms. Its award-winning Untappd mobile application and BeerAdvocate website are used by millions of beer enthusiasts around the world and its menu publishing software tool, Untappd for Business, enables venues to streamline publication and promotion of their beer, wine, cocktail, and food menus while Oznr, the leader in direct to consumer technology for the craft beverage industry, partners with craft producers to manage their membership programs, can/bottle release pre-sales, and event ticketing. The Company’s recently-introduced Untappd Marketplace enables alcohol resellers to streamline ordering of beer, wine, and spirits from wholesalers and self-distributing breweries. The Company’s Live! division produces world class festivals and events for the Untappd and BeerAdvocate communities.”

Kenny Gould wrote a long article on his site, giving a history of Hop Culture, as well as telling why he sold to Next Glass. He details the early years, how they became a business, their first festivals (the first of which was in October 2017),

He goes on to discuss the ‘glory years’, and ‘turning the wheel’, and then goes into the search for his ‘future’ rather than just looking forward to the weekend. As he says in his article: “So I began my search. Luckily, I wasn’t under any sort of deadline. Over the past couple years, the team and I worked against the odds to build an awesome little engine that supported us, our projects, and a great team of freelancers. I could afford to be choosy. I could steward my baby toward a solution that offered the greatest potential for a continuation of the mission, practices, and values we found important.

At first, I thought about approaching venture capital. I gathered my materials and started the research to find a great partner. But before I could send my first email, a Forbes interview changed my life.

Back in 2018, during a Brewers Association dinner at the Union Square Café, I met a Forbes writer who told me her friend in the food and drink section was looking for new contributors. What the hell, I thought. I can always do some more writing. So I threw my name in the hat and started contributing a couple articles a month, mostly highlighting underrepresented voices in brewing and the beer industry.”

You can read more from Kenny Gould at his article on Hop Culture here: “The Next Chapter”.

From his article on Hop Culture, Gould says: “Additionally, thank you. The past four years have exceeded all expectations I had for an exciting life. And I’ve been moved and inspired by every single person I’ve met along the way. From brewers to distributors, from retailers to fans and everyone in between, I’m in your debt. This ride has been nothing short of incredible.

And the best part? We’re only getting started.”

And to think, says Gould, Hop Culture started as a “glorified blog. I was doing it because it was fun.” (This certainly sounds familiar…….. I think I’ve used this line often times when co-workers, friends, and family ask me how my silly ‘blog’ thing is going; I’m just doing it for fun.)

For more information on the purchase, you can check out the following links:

• Forbes: Untappd and Beer Advocate’s Parent Company Accelerates its Buying Spree with Purchase of Hop Culture
• PRNewswire.com: Next Glass Acquires Hop Culture
• Hop Culture: Kenny Gould: The Next Chapter, or Why I Sold Hop Culture
• WRAL Tech Wire: Wilmington’s Next Glass showing a taste for deals, with latest buy
• Craft Brewing Business: Next Glass adds excellent craft beer hub Hop Culture to its portfolio

You can check out some of our latest craft beer news, brewery news, and industry news here: “BREWERY / INDUSTRY NEWS”. Including our latest about the BREW – The Museum of Beer, which is set to have an online exhibit opening on December 15th (Tuesday), 2020. The Museum will eventually be open in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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!

Thank you everyone for reading. Any comments, questions, or anything you want to discuss at all, just leave a comment and I’ll make sure to get right back at ya. Love chatting with you guys about craft beer and breweries! Be sure to stay safe out there and keep supporting your small breweries and businesses, times are getting tough again, and all your support, no matter how little, can make the difference in a brewery staying open or shuttering their doors for good. Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

For more information, you can check these references:
www.untappd.com
www.untappd.com/business
www.beeradvocate.com
www.oznr.com
www.untappd.tv
www.hopculture.com
www.instagram.com/hopculturemag

Be sure to check out our other articles on brewery openings:

• A Sneak Preview of Rubber Soul Brewing (Hummelstown)
• Midwest Coast Brewing Opens (Chicago)
• Rally Point – Cox Brewing Taproom Opens (Elizabethtown)
• Boneshire Brew Works to Open Second Taproom in Harrisburg (Harrisburg)
• Irv’s Pub Rebranded as Rotunda Brewing Pub (Hershey)
• Official BBQ (Pizza Boy Secondary Location) (Rutherford)
• The Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing
• Pilger Ruh Brewing Needs Your Help (Pottsville)
• Highway Manor Brewing Co. (Camp Hill)
• Grand Opening: Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown)
• Tap Room Opening: Howling Henry’s Brewery (Hummelstown)
• Little Fish Brewing Extending into Dayton
• Levity Brewing Expanding Taproom and Opening Second Location in Altoona
• BREW – The Museum of Beer

You can read about more brewery closures here:

• Stoudt’s Brewing Closing
• Crystal Ball Brewing Closes
• Voodoo Brewery Lancaster Closes
• Spigot Brewing Closes
• Full Pint Brewing Closes
• Night Shift Brewing Cancels Expansion
• Mikkeller Brewing NYC Closes Permanently