World MS Day

World MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Day is tomorrow May 30^th (it is recognized every year on the May 30^th).  A day to celebrate global solidarity and hope for the future; according to World MS Day Org.

Tomorrow The Beer Thrillers will recognize and support World MS Day (Event) in Frederick Maryland at Idiom Brewery Idiom Brewing Company is awesome enough to support the cause by donating a portion of the proceeds to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.  Every year we are working BUT this year we are both were able to take some time to escape and support such a worthy cause.

We will definitely be trying to the special brew for the day in honor of World MS Day. An Orange Creamsicle Smoothie Sour. Orange is the Multiple Sclerosis awareness color and it’s just so fitting.   Last time The Beer Thrillers visited Idiom Brewing it was after an awesome hike at Annapolis Rocks and we visited 3 other breweries all along Carroll Creek.

One of the best parts of the brewery community is the unwavering willingness to support such worthy causes and also, we’ve witnessed the brewery community’s support of other breweries too!  When we start to think about which breweries we want to go check out on any given day with free time, a brewery with this amount of thoughtfulness for a worth charity will always pop up first on our list.

Research, treatment and disease modifying therapies (DMTs) for Multiple Sclerosis have come a long way in the past 10 years.  What is MS?  According to the National Multiple Sclerosis website: Multiple sclerosis is an immune-mediated disease. This means that an abnormal response of the body’s immune system causes the disease. In this case, the immune system attacks the central nervous system (CNS) by mistake. The CNS is made up of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.

Multiple Sclerosis is a relentless disease that when a patient is finally diagnosed it impacts entire families.  There is currently no cure or way to repair the damage MS has already done by the time a DMT is given to the patient.  The multiple sclerosis community will always have support from The Beer Thrillers.  Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us to connect on any future non – profit fundraising events at breweries.

Multiple Sclerosis / MS Articles

We have previously covered the Brewfest for MS, which you can read more about here:

• Brewfest for MS

Articles About Idiom Brewing Company

• Beer Review: Level Up (Idiom Brewing Company)
• Impromptu Two-Day Trip to Frederick Maryland
• Road Trip to Monocacy Battlefield (June 19th – June 20th, 2020)

For More Info About Idiom Brewing Company

The following information comes from Untappd. Idiom Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Frederick, MD. They have 339 unique beers and over 75,800 ratings with a global average rating of 3.9 (as of 5.29.23). Their Untappd description reads: “Idiom Brewing Co. has a simple goal in mind – To bring people from all walks of life together, to enjoy themselves and each other. Whether you’re a hop head looking for explosively juicy IPAs; are one of the adventurous few looking to try boozy, sour or complex flavors; or you’re just looking to enjoy classic styles and seasonal favorites, we’ll have a little something here for you!”

You can follow them on their social media pages:

• Idiom Brewing Company – Facebook
• Idiom Brewing Company – Twitter
• Idiom Brewing Company – Instagram
• Idiom Brewing Company – Official Website
• Idiom Brewing Company – Untappd

Thanks From Amy

Thank you all for reading. This was a fun busy three day weekend involving Zoo America, two Memorial Day picnics (one at our house), and much more. Scarlet is beat, and so am I. But we got a fun busy day tomorrow! Can’t wait!

Drink More Beer!

-Amy

Amy’s Column Series

This is a two – fer article weekend for Amy’s column. This article about World MS Day, as well as the Beer Devil IPA beer review.

Since getting back to writing for the blog after a short hiatus, Amy has started up a weekly column style writing for the blog. You can find these articles here:

• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• Beer and Pretzel Review: Legends and Lore (St. Boniface Brewing Company) and Garlic Parm Pretzels (Pretzels.com)
• Peanut Butter Eggs, Easter, Beer, and YAH Brew’s Shimmy Shake (Beer Review)
• Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots
• Amy’s Day Off
• It Was All A Dream (A Visit to YAH Brewing)
• Just Another Weekend (A Hike at Saint Pete’s Trail and Hares Hill Brewing)
• I’m Pretty Darn Lucky (Happy Mother’s Day)
• Ready to Kick of the Summer
• Beer Review: Beer Devil IPA (Niagara Brewing Company)
• World MS Day
• You can find all of Amy’s articles here: Amy’s Archive of Articles.

Thank You For Reading

Ben jumping on real quick. Been a busy few days. Friday, Drew and I went to YAH Brew, and then did some filming back at Knights of Nostalgia studios, Saturday we took Scarlet to Zoo America at Hershey, Sunday (yesterday) we had a Lunch and Dinner picnic at my sister’s (we were also supposed to go to Cox Brewing Company for a homebrewing meet up, but timing didn’t allow it), and today, we had a parade in Hummelstown (which Scarlet slept through, including the firetrucks, Civil War re-enactment gun blasts, Lower Dauphin band, and more), and then had a picnic at our house (was also supposed to go to Drew’s for a Knights of Nostalgia filming with Josh from MasterMind X Studios, and streaming session, but once again, timing didn’t quite work out). So its certainly been a busy weekend!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

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The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – VOTING LINKS

Since this is the landing page post – survey, I will keep all of the voting links here for quick reference and jumping point, and so they don’t get lost in all the muddle.

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

(Updated: 10AM – March 1st, 2021. Continue on for the original introduction to The Battle of the Breweries [2021] – March Madness tournament – article.)

Who’s ready for some March Madness? Like everyone else, in March, that means we need to fill out some brackets! And we here at The Beer Thrillers are no different!

BUT….

Instead of filling out NCAA or college basketball brackets, we are doing our own take on it – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

So how’s this going to work? Who all is invited? What all breweries are going to be in it? How many breweries? How’s voting going to work? Who decides whose in and whose out? Whats the seeding? Why is Rick such a jerk to Morty? Why is Jurassic Bark the saddest episode of Futurama ever? Why is it also B. Kline’s favorite episode? What does that say about him? Why is the sky blue?

Ok…. enough with the questions!

The procedure for this ‘tournament’ will be similar to most other March Madness style tournaments. Similar to the ones you’ve seen Untappd and Breweries in PA have done, but with a bit of a twist. Because we here at The Beer Thrillers have a terrible time making full fledged decisions, the list of competitors will be 48 instead of the normal 32.

How did I decide what breweries will be involved? Simple. Only breweries that I have physically visited in person. The voting is based on the brewery and their beers; but to be included on this list, I personally had to have been to one of their locations.

How is seeding decided? Thats also pretty simple, the seeding is based on global average Untappd ratings. So the decision of the seeding is out of my hands. Also, bonus, you can’t get mad at me for the seeding. “Why is X above Y? Why is Z below D?” Its all decided by Untappd.

So whats the tournament structure? One total grouping of 48 breweries (in lieu of teams), divided by two conferences of 24 each, which is divided further into a total of four divisions of 12 each. So break down is simple: 4 divisions of 12 each, with two divisions per conference, of 24 teams in each, for a total of 48 competitors / teams / breweries.

How did we decide on who is in what division? Simple – random number generator. I rolled the dice (a D4 to be exact, thank you to my old nerdy DnD days, I just ‘happened’ to have one of these lying about). Rolled the dice for each brewery to locate them into a division. If one division was understaffed and another overstaffed, I re-rolled until they were evened out.

Let’s Meet Our Competitors

So who all do we have facing off in this crazy free for all of brewing expertise? Quite an assembly of breweries actually. There are a heavy abundance of local (Central PA local) breweries but there is an assortment of breweries from my various travels and across a few states. We have a few breweries from the Rochester area of New York; some breweries from Maryland, a Delaware brewery, some from Ohio, one from Indiana, and one from Kentucky as well.

Surprisingly; it actually took a while to curate the list. At even 48 entries, I still had many more to include, and even removed a few to make it a bit more diverse. I wanted to try and make this as diverse as possible (so removed a local brewery for one out of state, etc.). Possibly in the future, maybe the 2022 iteration of this, or the 2023, who knows, it’ll expand to even more breweries.

This has taken up pretty much my entire night to create the list, and to roll the dice for their divisions, and then checking their Untappd scores to get them into the correct seedings. In the case of matching Untappd scores, I did make my own decision, and that was primarily based on my thoughts of their size, notoriety, branding; so there is a few judgment calls due to a few ties, but there isn’t too many of them.

Conferences and division names…. I had to decide on what to pick. I was going to go by hop names, but I saw at last second, that the Breweries in PA have done that this year, instead of their normal divisions based on geography, it appears they decided to use hop names for their divisions, so thats out. I debated doing Jedi and Sith for the conferences and then doing different Jedi or Sith Masters for the division names…. but… instead decided to go with WWF/E names due to WrestleMania 37 approaching.

So I present you two conferences. One is based on HEELs and one is based on FACEs. The names of the breweries are listed in the order of their seedings, and will have their location and their Untappd (global average) rating behind their names.

The Heels Conference

First up, is divisions one and two of the HEELS conference. Triple H and Ric Flair.

Division One: Triple H

• Fourscore Beer Company (Gettysburg, PA) (4.09)
• Urban Artifact (Cincinnati, OH) (3.90)
• Mad Chef (East Petersburg, PA) (3.79)
• Levity Brewing (Indiana, PA) (3.77)
• Swiftwater Brewing Company (Rochester, NY) (3.77)
• Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY) (3.75)
• Sun King Brewery (Indianapolis, IN) (3.71)
• Highway Manor (Camp Hill, PA) (3.70)
• Gearhouse Brewing (Chambersburg, PA) (3.68)
• ZeroDay Brewing (Harrisburg, PA) (3.69)
• The Ministry of Brewing (Baltimore, MD) (3.64)
• Black Forest Brewing (Ephrata, PA) (3.62)

Division Two: Ric Flair

• Dewey Beer Company (Dewey Beach, DE) (4.08)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (Annville, PA) (3.96)
• Yellow Bridge Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.88)
• Troegs Independent Brewing (Hershey, PA) (3.79)
• Twisted Bine Brewing Company (Mount Joy, PA) (3.79)
• Cox Brewing Company (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.71)
• Chatty Monks (Reading, PA) (3.71)
• Land-Grant Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.70)
• Saucony Creek Brewing Company (Kutztown, PA) (3.70)
• Desperate Times Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.69)
• Couch Brewery (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.60)

The Faces Conference

The faces conference is made up of two divisions led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. First up, is Division Three, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Division Three: Stone Cold Steve Austin

• Ever Grain Brewing (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.93)
• Idiom Brewery (Frederick, MD) (3.90)
• Breaker Brewing (Wilkes-Barre, PA) (3.85)
• ShuBrew (Zelionople, PA) (3.85)
• Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.84)
• Liquid Noise (Marysville, PA) (3.84)
• Boneshire Brew Works (Harrisburg, PA) (3.83)
• Rough Edges (Waynesboro, PA) (3.82)
• Tattered Flag (Middletown, PA) (3.79)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown, PA) (3.74)
• Three Heads Brewing (Rochester, NY) (3.71)
• Mount Gretna Craft Brewery (Palmyra, PA) (3.58)

Division Four: The Rock

• Cushwa Brewing (Williamsport, MD) (4.11)
• Jackie O’s Brewery (Athens, OH) (4.02)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (Enola, PA) (3.88)
• Mellow Mink (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.84)
• Moo-Duck Brewing (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.83)
• Logyard Brewing Company (Kane, PA) (3.78)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.75)
• Olde Bedford Brewing Company (Bedford, PA) (3.75)
• Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (Cincinnati, OH) (3.72)
• Isle of Que Brewing (Selinsgrove, PA) (3.69)
• The Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.56)

Alright, that’s all 48 competitors. Tomorrow the brackets will be published and you will be allowed to vote on the first round matchups. Here’s where things get a bit screwy…. mainly because I don’t do math so good (sigh, sad subject, really, since I work at a job where I do math all day). Well, what really happened, is that I didn’t think through the breakdown. 32 breaks down easily for each round…. 48…. not so much. So…..

Week one will be divisions with 6 matches in each divisions. After that, the divisions will break for week two, and it will be by conference, with 6 matches in each conference. After this, we break apart the conferences, and do another 6 matches. This leaves us with 3 final competitors, for a triple threat for the ending.

So…. I kinda sorta walked myself into a corner…. and kinda… sorta…. walked my way out of it. Glad I chose to use wrestler themed people, so that the finale “Triple Threat” makes more sense.

*Smacks head* D’oh!

But anyway, there will be 7 days of voting for each round. With the final round taking the remainder of the month and ending on the 31st.

Voting

Each day you will be able to come to the site to make your votes in the polls. It will be set-up by IPS, so it limits you to voting just once per day per vote. You can vote as many times as you want per round, but only once per day.

Following each round, I will update the brackets and post them and make up the new polls for voting. Round one begins on March 1st, 2021 and will last until March 7th at Midnight, when it will then become the next round.

I suggest helping your breweries out and sharing the poll pages so that as many of your friends and brewery lovers can vote as well. Good luck to all of the competitors… err… breweries!

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline