Riff Mountain

I first tried this beer (the first iteration / the first version of it / the first variant of it) when kicking off my three – week furlough from my full-time job. Of course, I decided to kick off my work furlough, while celebrating still having a full-time job, by joining friends at South County Brewing Co. It was a wise decision. Riff Mountain took me on a smooth hop ride that was fitting to kick off a three – week furlough to disconnect from work and a global pandemic.

Beer Review

Beer: Riff Mountain #7
Brewery: South County Brewing Co
Style: IPA- Imperial/Double
ABV: 8.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: There is no description for #7. (However, the first two have descriptions listed.)

#1 This is a rotational double IPA series.  Mainly focusing of process technique and hop combinations within the New England IPA style.  Each release will be numbered in the date code.

#2 Waves of tangerine pineapple, sweet coconut, dark green and fresh orange juice.

The description on the website “ 8.8% ABV. This series focuses on big bodied, massively dry-hopped New England style double IPA’s. The use of malted oats, flaked oats and white wheat malt creates a rich, almost silky, texture. The yeast fermentation profile has been developed to drive tropical and fruit esters. Each rendition will be denoted by numbers e.g. #1,#2, #3 etc”

Seven different Riffs in this series and I am in love with every single one.  I don’t know if I could pick out the different numbers in the series.  But each time the guys at SC canned a fresh batch I am either picking up at the brewery or picking up at my local distributor.

Each one is a mountain of hop flavor but sneakily at the same time very light on the palate.  That first nose is a citrus grapefruit but quickly escalates to a soft glide on a tropical ride.  And just when you think the citrus and tropical flavors are over, they linger on the tongue followed by a dank and grassy taste but still very light on the palate.

RM will continue to take you on this adventure with each sip.  This very hazy DIPA carries such a mix of these flavors you are take on a cozy ride and even at 8.8% you don’t taste a boozy sip. 

Typically, I would say to drink a hazy IPA in the warmer months, but this riff ride can take you out all year long.  It’s a cozy but light ride to that relaxation we all need while navigating life during a global pandemic.

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Average Untappd Rating: 4.19 (as of 12.28.21)

Thanks For Reading

Drink more beer!

Cheers,

Amy

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!

Crank it Up

Another one of the many yearly but seasonal beers of Troegs that is highly anticipated is Double Blizzard, and it just released today. Blizzard of Hops was released a few weeks ago, and now its time for the smaller, more limited run of Double Blizzard to be hitting the tap room and cans and distributors.

Double Blizzard is a much anticipated beer each year. Blizzard of Hops is a perennial favorite, but Double Blizzard is kicking that up another notch. Its not quite the exclusive event that Double Nugget Nectar was, nor does it have the hype train running full steam behind it like Double Nugget Nectar did, but its still a well beloved beer that everyone keeps track of each year.

While at work today my co-worker mentioned its release and how he was stopping at the brewery to pick up some to go. I planned to stop at the Giant on 39 to grab mine. But after his mentioning it, I decided to stop at the source and get some as well. (So needless to say, I also went to Troegs, had it on draft, and picked up a four pack there, as well as later picked up a four pack at the Giant on 39).

Blizzard vs. Double Blizzard

For comparison’s sake, lets take a quick look at the two brews. What does Blizzard of Hops look like – versus – what Double Blizzard looks like.

Blizzard of Hops Stats:

Beer: Blizzard of Hops
Brewery: Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.4%
IBU: 80
Untappd Description: We created this Winter IPA to toast hop growers around the world for another successful harvest. This storm of hoppy citrus and pine notes is a bright reminder the end of the Hop Cycle is only the beginning. #4 of 4 in our Hop Cycle seasonal series.
Global Average Rating: 3.77 (as of 12.6.21)

Double Blizzard Stats:

Beer: Double Blizzard
Brewery: Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description:

This is Blizzard of Hops … turned up to 11. For Double Blizzard, we used a cooler temperature for the kettle hop additions, softening the character of the Centennial, Chinook and El Dorado. On the cold side, we dry-hopped with four pounds per barrel of Chinook and Galaxy. At 8.3% ABV, we’re into semi-hazy Double IPA territory, and we like it here.
We taste: huge citrus and pineapple notes, soft pine.
Global Average Rating: 4.01 (as of 12.6.21)

So as you can see, its definitely getting bumped up and juiced up. One is a small little storm dropping a few inches of snow, and the other is a big nor’easter sitting over Central PA dumping a foot or more of snow over two days.

Everything is ramped up, you are going from 6.4% to 8.3%, going from a small time hazy IPA to a big time New England double hazy, and its now dry hopped, which just brings out the flavor profile so much more profoundly than before.

Beer Review

Beer: Double Blizzard
Brewery: Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description:

This is Blizzard of Hops … turned up to 11. For Double Blizzard, we used a cooler temperature for the kettle hop additions, softening the character of the Centennial, Chinook and El Dorado. On the cold side, we dry-hopped with four pounds per barrel of Chinook and Galaxy. At 8.3% ABV, we’re into semi-hazy Double IPA territory, and we like it here.
We taste: huge citrus and pineapple notes, soft pine.

You can tell this is a juicy New England hazy IPA just from the appearance. Not typically a style Troegs Brewing does a whole lot of, or many of; but this is certainly one of them, and they have nailed it. Along with Nimble Giant this is one of my favorite IPAs they release each year. This is a bright, beautiful, orange, lovely looking New England styled IPA. It looks hazy, it has a wonderful frothy and full head, with great retention, and it just has a wonderful overall appearance.

Aroma is a wonderful tropical New England hoppy nose. You get a wonderful citrusy and bright hop aroma from the Chinook and Galaxy that they dry hopped into it. This really makes the aroma pop when you dip your nose into it. The Centennial and El Dorado adds some a nice background hop aroma (and flavor) profile as well, but the heavy lifting for the nose on this is done with the dry hopping.

This is definitely as advertised – Blizzard of Hops cranked up to 11! Its bright, its bold, its strong, its beautiful, its dry hopped, its explosive hop aroma and flavor, its juicy and fresh. It is downright delicious. Like I said, there’s a reason why this is one of the more anticipated releases each year for Troegs Brewing. You get all of the bold flavor of the dry hopping right out the gate and it hits you pretty good and hard. Lots of hop aroma and flavor that just nails it, citrus, pineapple, some tropical notes, a little bit of lime, grapefruit to a small extent, and just a wee bit of earthy / grassy hop flavor as well. This is extremely juicy and tasty, the haziness is not a sediment hazy, but just a good New England IPA hazy. The mouth feel on this is incredible too, it drinks just right, its not watery, not thin, not too heavy or cloying, the haze has no sediment, so your not drinking any particles or anything, your drinking a smooth beer that just looks on the hazy end of the spectrum. There is no off flavors, nothing off putting in this, it is brewed well, methodically, and there is nothing off putting or upsetting with it at all. No bad aroma, no bad flavor, no bad appearance. No horrible aftertaste, no bad post beer burps or anything like that. This is just a great beer for the winter months, even though its not a stout, its still a wonderful wintry beer, filling, full, heavy, with a good ABV to it (8.3%), that leaves you feeling warmer after having drank it. And it pairs so well with a wonderful dinner after a long day at work, that it just makes you wanna cozy up in bed afterwards and fall right to sleep.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Average Rating: 4.01 (as of 12.6.21)

For more Troegs Independent Craft Brewing beer reviews, news articles, and more, click here:

• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing on The Beer Thrillers

Thank You For Reading

Thank you for reading everyone, hope you enjoyed another one of our beer reviews. We are moving through December pretty quickly it feels. Before you know it, it’ll be the end of December, and that means Christmas and New Years, and with that means all of the “end of the year” reviews and things like that. Also means Christmas time and stuff. Be on the lookout for many great articles coming your way everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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!

Another streaming session with my good friend Drew of Knights of Nostalgia means me drinking some fine craft beers and of course, that also then means, future beer reviews of said fine craft beers. And I couldn’t think of a finer craft beer I had that night than Adroit Theory’s ‘The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I’ (Ghost 907).

My buddy and co-writer here at The Beer Thrillers – Josh Doncevic – absolutely loves and raves about Adroit Theory and is constantly pushing their beers. And I can see why! I’ve had a few in the past, but sadly not many, and hopefully now in the future I will be getting to try plenty more!

(See Josh’s Adroit Theory reviews here):

• Beer Review: Colonization (Ghost 779)
• Beer Review: Octagonal Stairway (Ghost 859)
• Beer Review: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782)

Lets Have a Discussion on Can Art….

First, lets have a discussion on can art. I think Adroit Theory is absolutely nailing it. (Here is an article I found from January 31st, 2015 about the can labels for Adroit Theory: Shawn Johnson Signs Can Labels for a Contest). If you are a fan of Warhammer 40K, or steampunk or futuristic dystopic landscape looking art, Mad Max, Fury Road, stuff like that, you’ll love these can labels. Here is a link to The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I on Adroit Theory’s page, it gives some of the same information thats on the can label here; such as pairings, ingredients, percentages, etc. (It is for a different version of this beer, but the artwork and information mostly holds up.)

For those unaware, Warhammer 40K is a massive tabletop miniatures game that has been around since at least the 90s (back in the day when I used to play it at Omnidon’s in Hummelstown, and then when they moved to be Twilight Games in Paxtonia). My faction of choice was the Chaos Space Marines and the Chaos army in general with the Chaotic God of Korde. Warhammer 40K has gone on to be a massive book library with hundreds of books, as well as some video games, and I believe there is a movie or a Netflix TV show in the works.

Here is a sampling of artwork from Warhammer 40K courtesy of “Inside the Artwork of Warhammer 40K”:

For comparison sake, here is a small sampling of Adroit Theory artwork:

You can definitely see some interesting comparisons between the two. And I absolutely love it. Its gorgeous artwork and deserves all the praise it can get. I also love how Adroit Theory does dabble a bit into the pop cultural realm (they’ve sported GI Joe and Cobra beers this past summer over quarantine / COVID-19 as well as the above Cthulhu reference. Interesting note to point out, in the past I did a beer review about Azathoth – see above reference to Cthulhu for why I am mentioning this. You can find that review here: Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewery)

But keeping this to a discussion on the can art, I have to continue my gushing and say about how much I love it. I can admit to being guilty and buying quite a few beers based on can labels and beer art – usually due to some pop cultural or nerd culture reference (and oh boy, is there a long list of them that I’ve reviewed here on The Beer Thrillers; I’ll post the full list of links at the bottom of this post), but I am also just as guilty of buying beers based on beautiful artwork as well. And this can be a hit or miss practice. I’ve been burnt many a time, as well as been uplifted and surprised by how good a beer is. Thankfully this provides a wonderful segue here, speaking of beautiful can art…. ….and beautiful can liquid…..

Beer Review: The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I (Ghost 907)

Beer: The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I (Ghost 907)
Brewery: Adroit Theory
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: A pillowy texture, slight bitterness, and an aroma of tropical fruit with Pineapple and Mango forward notes and Berry and Pine on the finish.

Appearance for this is a beautiful orange, golden glow, and very hazy. Holds up perfectly to the style. Nothing transparent or translucent here, this is pure golden, hazy, dank New England (D)IPA goodness. Wonderful head to it as well, nice carbonation, head retention, and lacing on the glass, with nice dispersed and varied bubbles.

Hmmmm hmmmm hmmm the aroma on this smells just perfectly wonderful. Like a beautiful fruity hoppy aromatic dream. You get a great hop nose-kicking aroma right as soon as you crack open the can, and it mixes in with mango, pineapple, and a wee bit of pine notes from the hops, edging and giving the tropical fruits something to combine with.

Good great Wilbur’s ghost this is a wonderfully smooth beer! It is delicious, tasty, smooth, all the main characteristics of a great New England (D)IPA. There is a wee bit of hop burn at the end, some nice hop bitterness with those pine notes, that makes this not a completely full juicy bomb, and thats just perfect. It compliments the overall hop experience so perfectly well. You get mango, pineapple, berry notes, and the pine notes from the hops, providing a very nice, smooth, fruity, flowery, fluffy like New England (D)IPA. This is (or should be) a standard for the New England IPA and DIPA and TIPA style, like textbook, “Oh you want to learn how to make a New England DIPA? Or you want to know what a really good New England DIPA tastes like? Well here you go!” Textbook definition excellence. The mouthfeel is on point, not too heavy, not watery, not thin, no cloying notes to stick to your tongue or mouth, just a well drinkable beer. The 8% ABV is very nice too; thats a good middle ground. Its not substantially high and its not terribly low either. (For comparison’s sake – Troegs Brewing’s Perpetual IPA – their flagship IPA – is a 7.5%, and Nugget Nectar – their flagship Amber Ale / Red Ale is a 7.5% as well.) So this is really only .5% higher than those two beers, and with how smooth this is, its probably a good thing it’s not much higher. Sometimes too smooth and high ABV just don’t go well together…. especially the next morning. This is a beautiful beer too, well crafted and well made, and an exceptionally terrific smelling beer. The hops work really well in this, and the flavor profile is perfect and on point. The mango, pineapple, pine, and berry are all superb and work so well in conjunction with each other that this is just so extremely tasty. Perfect for a video game session with a buddy.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.14 (as of 2.4.21)

Adroit Theory

Ah, don’t worry, I didn’t forget to include it. Previously, in my last beer review I did – Dunkel Shaun (by Great Barn Brewery) I mentioned that going forward, in each beer review, I will devote a section to the brewery behind the beer. In the above mentioned, previous, beer review, I did it before getting to the review, but due to my beautiful segue in this review, I figured I’d post it at the end. So here you have it.

The following stats all come from Untappd. Adroit Theory is located in Purcellville, Virginia. They are labeled a micro brewery and they have a total of 139 unique beers and just a few shy of 354K ratings. They have a global average rating of 4.04 (as of 2.4.21). Their Untappd description reads: “PUSHING BEER BOUNDARIES IN LOUDOUN COUNTY VIRGINIA Located in Purcellville, Virginia, Adroit Theory makes esoteric + style challenging beers with an emphasis on Hazy IPAs, Fruited Sours, Pastry Stouts, and Barrel Aging Projects. CONSUME LIFE x DRINK ART We typically have 16 beers on draft plus 10-20 options in bottles or cans. Be sure to check our constantly changing Tap List and our full Menu. Message of the Day: ​METAL + EVIL = DESTRUCTION.”

You can find their social media and website links below:

• Adroit Theory: Facebook
• Adroit Theory: Twitter
• Adroit Theory: Instagram
• Adroit Theory: Website

Thanks For Coming

Thanks for checking us out here at The Beer Thrillers. We really appreciate everyone reading our beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, hiking adventures, book reviews, and all kinds of other news and notes we post here on the site and blog. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to leave us a comment here. You can also contact us through our FEEDBACK – CONTACT US page. And as always, be sure to like, follow, subscribe; here and on our social media pages.

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

I’m off to Breski’s Beverage to take advantage of their mix – a – six double discount for the remainder of the week (leading up to the Super Bowl Sunday), as well as picking up the New Trail collaboration expedition pack. I’m sure you’ll see quite a few of these beers up here on the blog soon reviewed.

As always everyone, stay safe out there. (Here in Central PA it looks like their calling for another snowstorm Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, possibly giving us another foot of snow. So be careful!)

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Pop Culture Beer Reviews

As promised, here is all of our “pop culture” / “nerd culture” / etc. beer reviews:

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
• May the Fourth Be With You
• Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)

Space Balls:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

• Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)

The Simpsons:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)

Back to the Future:

• Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Scrooged:

• Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

A Christmas Story:

• Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)

Pro Wrestling:

• Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

• Beer Review: Terpenes in Time (BAREBottle Brewing Co)

HP Lovecraft / Cthulhu:

• Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Other:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)

Seriously. F*CK 2020. I don’t think I’ll hear too many disagreements with this statement. F*CK it. 2020 has been everything everyone keeps saying it is: a train wreck, a dumpster fire, a dumpster fire full of dog excrement traveling on a train headed right for a train carrying a dumpster fire of ostrich excrement, it sucked, it blew, etc, etc, etc…..

This has been a crazy time for all of us. Terms like “unprecedented times” became the norm for news stations, hundreds of thousands of people dying to a pandemic level virus, ….a pandemic level virus!…., shut downs and lock downs and quarantines, civil unrest, altered sports leagues, massive economic changes, unemployment and furloughs from the shut downs and just loss of jobs due to the pandemic, all in all,…. yea…. F*CK 2020 and F*CK COVID-19.

This has been a hard time here for me, and for The Beer Thrillers in general as well, as I’m sure its been for a lot of you. Dealt with two lock down / shut downs by the government that closed my work and forced me into unemployment twice. (The latest of which, due to how horrible our unemployment system, I still haven’t received a penny for the three weeks I was unemployed – thankfully I’m back to work now.) A divorce amidst the pandemic and quarantine and lockdown.

But, it hasn’t been all bad (no year is all bad); I did get to do a lot more hiking. I did get to do a little bit more traveling due to now being single and having a lot more extra time, I got to hike lots of new places that I never did before, got to visit 57 (new to me) new breweries. And I got to do a lot more work on the blog and site here. Which has been a great bit of fun. My friend started his streaming and got do do that a lot with him, and we got to do some more podcasts with his podcast group.

(I will have a whole “End of 2020” and recap of the year, as well as a “Looking Forward to 2021” post coming soon, the site migration and things have kind of made things wonky with getting it all moved over and posts published up, due to us hitting our bandwidth wall on the old site and having to migrate, so some things got all garbled up.)

I went to Breski’s Beverage and had to pick up a four pack of this – and knew – I needed to make it the last beer of 2020 and the first beer of 2021. Thankfully it’s a fantastic beer and its not just a “cool name / bad beer” like some of the other cool name, cool can art, cool pop culture reference beers, I’ve had in the past. I also picked up the RBG beer as well as Breski’s.

So my 31st was pretty simple; being by myself, with no places open, and my first New Years Eve / New Years Day off in quite a while – due to the shut down of Pennsylvania. Early in the day I went to Breski’s and picked up the four packs. Despite the rain, I took my dog (Leela) to the Greenbelt walk off of Derry Street, stopped at Boneshire Brew Works for my last pint of 2020 at their location, and then stopped at Rubber Soul Brewery for take-out (pierogies…. *drools like Homer at thought of food*….) and then pretty much just went home, read, wrote, and stayed in my bed. My friend did an overnight stream on his site – Knights of Nostalgia – and I had that up on one screen and tuned in just for the last 2 minutes to a ball dropping ceremony on another screen. All in all – a lame New Years Eve. Which about sums up how 2020 was.

So I also started this post and beer review on December 31st, but with the bandwidth limits, and the problems of the migration, I didn’t get to finish it until January 1st. So this is a “two year project”. Hahahahaha…. oh I crack myself up. It was written and finished on January 1st, but with the bandwidth and everything, and having to re-upload media, I’m not sure when it’ll finally get published, hopefully soon into the new year.

I’m not too great and technically savvy, so this move of nearly 300 blog posts, and several pages, as well as a homepage, users, links, followers, and everything else, was a lot harder than I imagined it would be. I started everything on December 31st, and wanted it all set to go on January 1st, but noooooope….. that didn’t happen. Was really hoping everything would go smoothly into 2021…. but 2020…. said NOPE to that, and I’m thinking 2021 might have a rockier start than we all wanted it to have.

But anyway…. we have beer!

So let’s do it and drink!

Beer Review

Beer: F*CK 2020
Brewery: Abomination Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 9.1%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: “Fuck 2020” is a slightly amped up 9.1% version of our Fog series, double dry hopped with a blend of two of our most popular variants … Galaxy & Citra.

Abomination Brewing Company has had some amazing beers, and they have done a ton of collaborations with a lot of local Pennsylvania breweries. Rotunda Brewing Company, Tattered Flag, and stuff with multi-collaborations with Pilger Ruh Brewing, Snitz Creek Brewing, Wolf Brewing Co, etc. Untappd lists them as a micro brewery from North Haven, Connecticut. They have 159 unique beers on Untappd with a global average rating of 4.04 out of 140K+ ratings. Their Untappd description simply reads: “Crafting liquid chaos. #beermonster”

Starting off with appearance; this has a beautiful golden orange hue. A gorgeous looking New England IPA appearance, its got a nice dank hazy orange look, its not full of turbid and sediment, but its still dank and hazy looking, and its opaque and not see through. It had a thin white foamy head and great carbonation from the can.

Aroma is a lovely hoppy New England IPA nose. The nose comes through with the galaxy and citra very heavily, you get lots of tropical fruit, citrus, some peach, mango, and wee bits of passionfruit, guava, and grapefruit. It smells juicy, it smells delicious.

Whooo…. this is the way to go out of 2020! With a banger of a good beer and a way to say F*CK YOU 2020 with both middle fingers up like Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was just a delicious all around good beer. A perfect end note to 2020 and a wonderful start note to 2021 (drank one early in the day of 2020, had one right before midnight, and cracked open another one two minutes into the New Years). Galaxy and Citra hops are wonderful hops and work very well together. You get a very heavy dose of citrus, peach, mango, the tropical fruits, and there is so much more hidden and buried underneath that adds to those heavy hitter flavors – like the passionfruit, guava, and grapefruit. There’s a right balance to all of this. The mouth feel feels right on, not oily, slick, not watery or thin, no cloying; just a nice drinking NE IPA. This is is a consistent beer and reason for why the New England IPA style has caught on so much with craft beer drinkers. There’s a bit of hop bite, but its covered in all of the fruity wonderful flavors, there’s no bitter aftertaste, no bad off flavors, and its a really drinkable beer. Even the 9.1% ABV is hidden by how wonderful the flavors are. You don’t taste that ABV, and you don’t even notice it until you’re done. This isn’t a crushable beer where you could drink the whole four pack in one sitting, but you could have two, and be happy and content afterwards, especially with a really good meal to go along with it. This is a great ‘nap inducer’ as I like to call some of the mid-range double IPA area beers (8-9.5/10%), especially with a meal, it just fills the belly and makes you sleepy. This was the perfect way to end out 2020.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Average Untappd Rating: 4.34 (as of 1.1.21).

So this might be the first post of 2021, or it might not be; and it might be the first post on the new The Beer Thrillers page, or it might not be. Who knows with migration, work starting back up, moving domain hosts, moving links, uploading pictures (since the bandwidth put a halt to that), etc. There’s a lot of other posts that are in various states of being done, that also will be published soon too, once again, with the migration and start of the new year, who knows. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Been a little hectic here.

I hope everyone had a wonderful end to 2020. Hopefully despite everything, you still had a great 2020, and lets hope 2021 starts off so much better. Things are looking up. The vaccines are rolling out. Hopefully by the end of 2021 we are back to a level of normalcy. One can only hope. I want to get to some brewfests in 2021!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

See some of our latest beer reviews here:

• Beer Review: Mutant Temple (Strange Roots Experimental Ales)
• Beer Review: B-52 Belgian Dubbel (Cox Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: The Soft Glow of Electric Sex (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: This is The Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Snow Tracks (New Trail Brewing Co.)

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!

So Thursday was certainly an interesting day for the restaurant, bar, brewery, …. well just the service industry in general in Pennsylvania. I was out walking my dog and doing yard work, and then I had to grab my daughter Lily to run to the Hershey Library before they closed (had a book that was due), and while at the library and on the road with her, all hell broke loose basically.

Had about a hundred texts from co-workers, people in the brewery industry, my parents, everyone wanting to know whats going on, or telling us whats going on, or saying ‘where do we stand now’ or ‘should we defy orders’ etc.

Needless to say, I get Lily back to her mom’s, I handle some of the texts I can, and head home. Reading the news then at home, I see we had until Friday night at midnight to do our inside dining. Drew invited me out to his place as he was starting a stream, I told him I needed to get something to eat, so I walked down to Rubber Soul, ate in – had their fantastic and delicious pierogies and their newest release – Soul Breaker (beer review coming soon), and then walked home. Then went over to Drew’s.

He was playing Super Mario RPG for the SNES on his stream – Knights of Nostalgia. So I joined him and drank along with him as he played. His brother in law from New York sent him a shipment of beers he tells me, a whole assortment of beers, so I check out his mini-fridge and “oh hot damn!” moment, the beer is stocked full of Other Half beer! His brother in law sent him Other Half. Drew loves his craft beer, but didn’t know just how great Other Half was. So we proceeded to drink four and share some others while he finished out his stream.

(Oh, and for those who were wondering – yes, Drew was able to beat Super Mario RPG for the stream. Sorry, spoiler alert.)

I finally left Drew’s at 5:20AM. Now that the mandates and restrictions, both me and Drew are effectively unemployed for the next three weeks. So, you will probably get a lot more streams, and a lot more content here on the blog. Enjoy!

Now, lets get to the beer review!

Beer: Space Broccoli
Brewery: Other Half Brewing Co
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 7.9%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Our classic Broccoli recipe with Mosaic, Simcoe, Hallertau Blanc and then we swapped the Cascade for a ton of Galaxy.

For those ‘not in the know’ Other Half Brewing Co is one of the top notch East Coast breweries, and one of the more traded and sought after breweries from New York. Other Half started in 2014, they have 975 unique beers according to Untappd, with over 2.4 Million (nearly 2.5 Million) ratings. Their average rating is 4.24. Which is just incredible to think about considering the sheer volume of ratings and number of unique beers. Their Untappd Description reads: “In 2014, Sam Richardson, Matt Monahan and Andrew Burman founded Other Half Brewing Company, a local brewery in New York City with a simple mission: to create beers that they wanted to drink from a company that they wanted to be a part of. Their vision was to build a passionate team that brewed great beers in the state of New York—done so with effort and thoughtfulness—to represent the “Other Half” of the industry. Today, Other Half craft beers in their Brooklyn brewery and are dedicated to collaborating with breweries both in New York as well as across the world in an effort to constantly move the industry forward while elevating the craft. The Other Half team believes that local breweries play an important role in their communities which is why they partner with these other likeminded brewers and brands in local nabes across the country and the world—but always return to their home state of New York and their Brooklyn taproom.” Their top beers are listed as – Forever Ever, Green City, All Green Everything, and a lot of various double dry hopped variants of their other beers.

Firstly, this is basically a New England IPA. It doesn’t say that on the label or on Untappd, but thats what it is. As you can see from the picture, it is a gorgeous, beautiful beer. Perfect New England hazy IPA look. Its bright orange, like orange juice, its hazy, cloudy, opaque, beautiful head to it – white, with interspersed and varied bubbles, and left a lovely lacing on the glass as I drank it down (quickly too).

Aroma is a heavenly bouquet of hops. It has that nice heavy handed hop aroma that comes with a very juicy New England IPA. The Simcoe and Mosaic hops come through on the nose the most. The Galaxy is a nice addition, and probably helps this better than the Cascade would have, I do love Galaxy Hops.

Wooooh booooooy….. this drank waaaaaaaay too easily. Especially for a DIPA…. not that I’m really complaining, and really at 7.9% its not too crazy ridiculous high, though its getting on the higher end of the spectrum. (I consider 7.5% the tipping point.) This is one of the best New England IPAs / DIPAs I’ve had, in a long time, or period, for that matter. Its downright juicy and so tasty. This is very smooth with no hop bite, no bitterness, no acidity at all. The mosaic hops give this a nice berry, fruity, stone fruit taste. The simcoe gives it a piney, earthy undertone, and the galaxy hops give it a very strong peach, citrus, passionfruit. The hops blend together very nicely in this. Nothing is too overpowering or too strong. You don’t get too much pine or too much berry or too much peach or citrus or passionfruit, you get them all in equal measures, and this works very well together. Its a very nice conjunction of hops and tastes and flavors, with nothing being too strong, nothing being off, nothing tasting funky or wrong or different. It all just blends so well together, like its a peaceful orchestra harmony or some kind of poetic crap like that. This is a beautiful New England Double IPA. Hands down, it looks beautiful, it tastes wonderful, its just amazing and fantastic. So mad props to Drew for letting me snag this from him (he got some of it too), and for his brother in law shipping quality beers like Other Half down to Harrisburg, and of course to Other Half itself for brewing such a great beer. Seriously, if you’ve never had the pleasure of Other Half, make a note, make ten notes, but make sure you get yourself some Other Half at some point. You won’t be disappointed, I know that much, their IPAs and DIPAs and TIPAs are complete ‘fire’ right now as all the cool kids would say. If you’re not from New York or NYC, your best bet might be to look up some Facebook beer trade groups or Beer Advocate and try and get it that way (trade or $); though $$ might be expensive with secondary mark up. But it will still be worth it. But in the meantime, in the Pennsylvania area, support your local breweries; first, otherwise they might not be here in the future. Anyway, I digress. Summary: Fantastic beer. Delicious. Great NE-DIPA. End summary.

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 4.24 (as of 12.13.20)

Alright everyone, this is technically day two of the mandatory restrictions. I know a lot of places, restaurants, bars, breweries, etc, are disobeying the Governor’s orders. Its your decision on who to patronize and who to help and support. I’m not taking a side here or there. This is a tough climate and tough decisions for all of these businesses. I know its going to make things harder with them staying open, and gives the Governor more cause to keep the mandates and things going, but hopefully not, and hopefully the numbers will start lowering soon. Fingers crossed. The vaccines are rolling out. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Lets just get there! I want to go to some brewfests in 2021 dammnit!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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!

For some other beer reviews check out:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing)
• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order – Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)

First, Tattered Flag is one of my favorite local breweries, and secondly, its a Mandalorian themed beer, and thirdly…. Pandas. Seriously, what could go wrong here?

Absolutely. Nothing.

So, since I am still doing some ‘at home’ quarantining after my trip out to Indianapolis from work, yesterday I did a bit of day drinking and had to make sure this was one of the several wonderful beers I had, and as you can see, I made sure to use my new glass I got from the Vonnegut Museum and Library.

On The Beer Thrillers we have done several Mandalorian and Star Wars themed beers before, so it should be obvious to any reader of ours that I am a huge Star Wars fan. You can see our Mandalorian themed beer reviews here:

• Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)

And our Star Wars themed beers here:

• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co.)
• Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co.)

Space Balls themed beer:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

If you use our search function on our blog and type in STAR WARS, these are some of the various articles where I mention Star Wars in them: STAR WARS on THE BEER THRILLERS.

Rotunda Brewing Company in Annville (and their brewpub in Hershey) are re-releasing their Chewbacca beer this weekend, a black IPA which I have had before. I am going to be getting a can and doing a review for that as well. (Can never have enough Star Wars themed beers to review on here, believe me. So if you know of any, or have any and would like to see me review it, contact us through the CONTACT US page.)

As you can see, like I said above, I am also using my brand new Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library glass. It has such a great quote of Vonnegut which he also used in Slaughter-House Five:

“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.”

Story had it, he would drink and call people, just to basically yell something poignant and quick to them over the phone, and then slam the phone down. Not to strangers or random numbers, but to his friends and colleagues. I can certainly relate to some late night drunk texts (I think a lot of people can actually). So I see where he is coming at with this.

Alright, now that we’ve established the background for the beer and for the glass, let’s actually review this beer shall we.

Beer: The Pandalorian
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Hazy Imperial IPA made from a blend of base malts, generous wheat addition, oats, and flaked maze bring forth a sweet backbone complimented by Sabro in the kettle and a massive Sabro Cryo dry hop. Expect sweet coconut ? up front followed by citrus lime and a sweet creamy finish.

As you can see above, this is hazy, but on the lighter, softer orange – yellow – golden scale. Not the deep heavy dank, but a lighter, softer looking hazy New England style IPA / DIPA. Justin, the head brewer for Tattered Flag does a lot of New England style IPAs (and a lot of sours) and does them all very well, making them different from each other too, which is sometimes hard to do with the style. You have some that look bright orange to golden with a very dank and heavy haze, and then you have some that are lighter softer yellow to golden like this, with some haze. There is some orange here, but I would say its mostly yellow and golden. There is a thin head to it, and great carbonation, and left nice lacing on the glass.

Aroma is a blend of hop, mainly a blend of coconut, tangerine, the fruity and citrus hop aromas. Sabro is a pretty strong hop and gives this a very strong hop presence and nose. On the nose you get coconut, tangerine, hint of cedar and mint, with some cream, some lime.

This is a very smooth and drinkable DIPA. At 7.5% its in a middle ground of ABV for IPAs and DIPAs. In comparison, Troegs Brewing’s Perpetual IPA (their flagship West Coast IPA) is a 7.5% (and right there is where the comparison between the two of these stop). 7-8% is a good middle ground area for IPAs and DIPA’s I feel. Its enough to get you to notice the ABV, but not enough to make it boozy, to heavy, or to get you too drunk. A nice general buzz is all that is needed and required. This looks and tastes similar to New England IPAs, but its not a generic New England IPA / DIPA. The Sabro hops gives it a very different taste than most New England IPAs, as Sabro isn’t really a much used hop, especially in the Cryo style. This gives The Pandalorian an interesting start with a different finish to it. It has a coconut, tangerine, citrus, taste at the beginning, but it ends on more of a zest lime, cream flavor. Overall its a silky smooth drink that is very easy to drink. There is a bit of an ending bite as you get to the bottom of the glass, but that is typical for most IPAs especially as you get closer to the finishing last sips. Despite the Sabro hops and the nose, there isn’t much of a cedar or mint flavoring that I was able to pick up on, but I did get tangerine, coconut, lime, and cream. My one friend suggested grapefruit, but I wasn’t able to pick up any grapefruit, and thats also not typically a characteristic of Sabro hops either. I very much enjoyed the smoothness of this, and the flavor profile, the aroma was on point, and the ABV was nice for a good buzz, a four pack is nice for sharing with buddies while streaming (which me and my friend did during the Konami games live stream we did on Knights of Nostalgia). This adds to the growing list of good and great New England IPAs that Tattered Flag has put out over the recent year. Definitely make sure to check this out, either for namesake or for the beer itself. Not sure how much longer the four packs will last at the brewery, so if you want the great can art be sure to pop in soon, they also have it on draft which will probably last a bit longer. This is a good smooth, tasty New England DIPA that will certainly not disappoint.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.84 (as of 11.20.20)

You can check out more beer reviews I’ve done from Tattered Flag below:

• Beer Review: Flavor Guided Juice Missile (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Tattered Soul (Tattered Flag and Rubber Soul)
• Beer Review: Social Distancing (Tattered Flag, Abomination Brewing, and Pilger Ruh Brewing)
• Beer Review: Going Rogue (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Member Berry (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Inexplicably Juicy (Tattered Flag)
• And many more at the TATTERED FLAG search.

Also, Tattered Flag now does statewide shipping through their SUPPLY DROP. Make sure to take advantage of that if you live anywhere in Pennsylvania and are unable to make it to their brewery.

On Black Friday they are doing a big bottle release at their upcoming Lancaster Barrel House location. More details can be found on their Facebook page – Tattered Flag @ Facebook and Tattered Flag Barrel House @ Facebook. I will be doing an article covering that shortly as well.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I got the pint glass from the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. You can visit them and donate as well as order online, and if you are a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, I highly recommend it.

You can read about my trip (in recap form) to Indianapolis and back through the following:

The Trip to Indianapolis:

• The Trip to Indy
• The Trip to Indy – Day One Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Two Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Three Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Four Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Five Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Six Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Seven Recap
• Recap and Stats

My time in Indianapolis is covered specifically in the Day Four recap.

The books behind the beer in today’s blog post are: “Happy Birthday Wanda June” by Kurt Vonnegut, “Armageddon in Retrospect” by Kurt Vonnegut, and “Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron” by Alexander Freed.

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

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)
• Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)
• Beer Review: I Voted Today (Tired Hands)
• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)

Star Wars themed articles:

• May The Fourth Be With You
• Revenge of the Fifth (Cinco de Mayo)

You can check out the tabs at the top of each page to visit our BEER REVIEWS, BEER EDUCATION, TRAVELOGUES, etc. Be sure to check out all the latest beer reviews, as we’re pumping a lot out in recent time.

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!

Thanks for reading everyone, please stay safe out there, I know cases are on the rise and spiking, so make sure to wash your hands, stay distant, enjoy your craft beer, and wear a mask. Cheers and May the Force Be With You!

-B. Kline

Like I said before, I can’t turn up a good pun beer, especially when its a Godfather themed beer pun. How can you resist when the name of ‘Growfather’ the hop cone looks great on the can and kind of works in a reverse way of the puppet look from the novel, the font is the same / near same as the book and movie, and its by a good brewery like Stickman Brews?

Its like the can made me an offer… and I couldn’t refuse it. (I know… I know… low hanging fruit, but I couldn’t turn it up.) This is just one of those iconic lines, like Vader telling Luke he’s his father (oh my god… spoilers!), like a little boy telling Bruce Willis he sees dead people… (The Fifth Element?), etc. Its constantly punned, constantly quoted, and done. I couldn’t refuse doing it either.

There’s nothing personal about doing the joke, its just strictly business. …oh no… I went and did it again, reaching out and hitting the lowest hanging fruit on the tree. Like picking the hops near the bottom of the vine instead of at the top. Ugh. Sorry…. maybe I’ll grab some coffee and come back and re-start this beer review….

Sigh. Oh, sigh. Well, lets move on, shall we? Maybe I can right this review and get it going correctly so my family doesn’t turn against me…

Well…. I’m done. Thats it. I give up. I just can’t do this review. I… just… this just keeps going on… and on… and on…. and on…

Ah hah! Gotcha. You thought I was going to keep the gag going didn’t you? That I would just keep continuing doing .gif /memes of The Godfather indefinitely didn’t you?

Alright, alright, alright. I’m done. Lets get to reviewing this beer shall we?

Beer: The Growfather
Brewery: Stickman Brews
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 8%
IBU: None
Untappd Description:

Just what you would expect from George Martorano, The GrowFather. This Double IPA is crazy dank, full of orange, citrus, and peach notes from all Pacific Northwest hops. Full bodied and smooth, with a silky mouthfeel from oats.
* Contains lactose

Stickman Brews is a micro brewery from Royersford Pennsylvania. They make some tremendous beers and their beer can art is usually stick figure drawings, typically done by Bartley Kaminiski. He does work for Pizza Boy, Hemauer, etc, and does a wonderful job. He also runs Hop Hedz Gear and does a lot of promotions and events for breweries and places. Great and funny dude too. Not sure if he did the work on this logo, but if he did, kudos and job well done.

As you can see from my picture (which I took in front of my hops even though they are done for the year, I didn’t take them down… until after I poured this glass, and then got to work on taking them down and chopping up the vines and composting them), this is a beautifully golden hued Double IPA in the hazy New England vein. Its opaque and hazy, its bright orange and golden, and it had a wonderful smallish head that poured out nicely and gave it a gorgeous froth top. Carbonation was on point for the can.

This has a wonderful hop aroma right out the gate, as soon as you crack it open and pour it. Pacific Northwest has some of the best hop smell and is a favorite hop for me. You get citrus, orange, and peach. Sometimes with the right conjunction with other hops you can really use Pacific Northwest to bring mango out too (from the other hop variety) and give it a wonderful peach / mango aroma and flavor. For this – (The Growfather) you get a lot of orange and peach with some citrus. There is no earthy, grassy, or piney hop notes, and its very heavy orange, peach, citrus. Gives it a very dank and powerful and hop dense aroma.

Oh this tastes just like a good New England double IPA should right out the gate. So bright and flavorful and tasty immediately. Hop explosion full of orange, peach, and citrus immediately hitting your tastbuds as soon as you take the first sip. This is smooth and easy to drink too. I crushed it while working on the hops, cutting down the vines and my hemp string, and cutting and chopping them up for mulching and composting. (I had already picked the hops, had just left the vines up a bit longer for nourishment.) This wasn’t overly strong, but it wasn’t light easy. But it was certainly smooth. You felt the 8% at the end, but not while drinking. The peach and orange and citrus really go well with the silky smoothness and it has no true hop bite, just a lot of hop flavor. It is dank and the aroma on this is just wonderful too. You get more peach and orange I feel than citrus, but that’s not a bad thing in my perspective for the beer. It is just a really well crafted double imperial IPA – New England style – beer, and it is really tasty, really smooth, really enjoyable. Summer time, winter time, fall time, spring time, this is a great beer year round.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.03 (as of 11.17.20)

Alright, the review is over, its time to stop, and smell the roses now…

Ok…. and on that note, thank you everyone, you’ve been great, this has been a wonderful evening, make sure to tip your waiter or bartender and drive home safely now!

Edit note: I started this review before leaving for the trip, and finished it now, so I updated the Untappd (global) rating to today’s date. I also want to let everyone know I am working on the full Indy trip articles and they will be coming out slowly. It is also still November, so I am still doing an article a day. Hopefully you enjoy. You can find the Indy articles below, as well as some recent beer reviews, and all of our social media pages. Thank you and cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Indianapolis:

• The Trip to Indy
• The Trip to Indy – Day One Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Two Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Three Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Four Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Five Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Six Recap
• The Trip to Indy – Day Seven Recap
• Recap and Stats

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

• Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
• Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
• Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)
• Beer Review: Pigtoberfest (Boneshire Brew Works)
• Beer Review: I Voted Today (Tired Hands)
• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)

You can check out the tabs at the top of each page to visit our BEER REVIEWS, BEER EDUCATION, TRAVELOGUES, etc. Be sure to check out all the latest beer reviews, as we’re pumping a lot out in recent time.

Also, tonight I will be on Knights of Nostalgia with Drew playing Konami games, so be sure to follow, watch, like, and check us out. We will be drinking, playing games, and talking it up, so make sure to watch!

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!

Saturday night after work got over (7PM) I got the pleasure to get to Highway Manor Brewing in Camp Hill. I left work at 7 and got there at about 7:25-7:30. There was still a decent crowd at the time when I got there (inside tables were full and the tables with the swing seats were full). I ordered the Mr. Blackberry and a Turkey Sandwich to start.

Beer: Mr. Blackberry
Brewery: Highway Manor Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Other
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: None

First time having this, I’ve had several other Highway Manor beers at various brewfests (Lititz Brewfest, Lancaster Brewfest, possibly Little Big Beer Fest or the Mount Hope RenFaire Brewfest), and this was just as good as all of those. This was super tart, delicious, fruity, with a great berry flavor.

On Untappd I gave it a ****.25
The global Untappd rating (as of 9.27.20) is: 3.73

Soon my food was arriving, and I had already drained my Blackberry sour, so I needed a new beer to help eat the food. (By the way, the entire food menu looked amazing, the turkey sandwich was phenomenal. Top of the line, high quality food, and very cheap, and with huge portions.)

Once my sandwich arrived I needed another beer, and decided to try some of their guest taps that they had running (they had five drafts; all guest taps). I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about Human Robot but haven’t had a chance yet to try anything from them, so I decided to try out their IPA – Dreams of Orgonon.

Beer: Dreams of Orgonon
Brewery: Human Robot
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Deliciously dreamy juice bomb brewed with sweet golden promise malt and hopped intensely with Citra, Mosaic, and Idaho 7. Its like the sun coming out…

My Untappd Rating: ****.5
Global Untappd Rating: 4.15 (as of 9.28.20)

This was extremely tasty, juicy, dank, and delicious. Everything you want from a New England IPA, this had in spades, plus some. All around amazing beer and went fantastically with my sandwich. By this point I had moved to the center table and sat across from the one swing. I was informed by Johnny (Johnny Compton III – owner/brewer at Highway Manor Brewing) that a friend of his bought everyone a round. I was then joined by a couple – Lucas and Kaitlin who sat next to me.

They were both wearing ‘cat’ pants (pants with dozens of cat faces all over them), and quickly from talking to them I realized Lucas was Johnny’s friend. I thanked him for the beer, and for the rest of the night there, talked with them while we all drank, as well as talked with a few others who were there and one or two that came and went.

Beer: Compton Pilsner
Brewery: Raney Cellars Brewing Company
Collaboration with: Highway Manor Brewing Co.
Style: Pilsner – Czech
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: A traditional Pilsner with Mr Johnny Compton from Highway Manor Brewing. Saaz Hops from start to finish on this Pils.

As I’ve said in the blog here before when doing reviews, pilsners are a style that can be very hit or miss for me. This was a complete hit for me. Blew me away how wonderful the flavor was, how crisp it was, no lingering aftertastes (which I sometimes get from pilsners and why they are often a miss for me). This is just a fantastically brewed beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.88 (as of 9.28.20)

Throughout the night I had been texting with the group text of guys from my work, a group of us that regularly meet to play the Game of Thrones board game (and other games) and just group text each other about all kinds of things, from beer to philosophy, to politics, to work, to movies, shows, nerd culture, etc. My one friend and co-worker in the group text decided he would spend the night throwing out some new “blog names” for me instead of using The Beer Thrillers. At this point, I’d like to take a divergence from the brewery review and highlight the best that D. Pezzuti had to offer:

• Benjamin Buzzin
• Get Ben’t
• Bend Over Bens Benders
• The Curious Cases of Benjamin Buzzin

We then discussed doing a segment of beer reviews of Nitro stouts and rate them in the style of WCW Nitro Years. With five star Nitro stouts being WCW Nitro ’97 and one star Nitro stouts being WCW Nitro ’01. We also discussed calling the faithful to the blog “Hopamaniacs”.

Anyway…. back to the program…

Time for another beer, this time I went for another guest draft – this time from Naked Brewing; Thank Frank.

Beer: Thank Frank
Brewery: Naked Brewing Company
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: West Coast IPA hopped with Citra & Amarillo.
Refreshing and perfect for those warm September days. Notes of dank citrus & delicious sticky resin.

A traditional hoppy IPA, this was a change of pace from the crisp pilsner, the juicy New England IPA, and the super tart and delicious sour Mr. Blackberry. This was a good, hoppy, bitter, earthy IPA, old west coast style old-school vibe to it.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.75 (as of 9.28.20)

It was starting to get late, I had thought about meeting two friends (D. Arndt and Youngblood) at Ever Grain before Ever Grain closed (at 11 – just like Highway Manor) since they were doing their Anniversary weekend, but Youngblood’s comedy (stand up comedy) bit went on longer and they wouldn’t be leaving their show til just before 11 anyway. So I stayed til closing getting to talk to Lucas and Kaitlin and others.

At this point, we also got introduced to Johnnie’s dog – a great dane and black lab mix – named Luna. Absolutely beautiful and wonderful dog. Fun and playful and nice drinking companion (no, I didn’t give the dog any beer).

So for my final beer of the night, I tried another brewery I never had before but have heard nothing but great things about – Brewery ARS.

Unfortunately for this, I do not have a pic, as just as I was ordering, my phone died and I did not have a charger on me. (9 hour day at work, plus driving using my GPS, plus texting, plus Untappd, and other apps, for notes, etc., really drained the battery).

Beer: Embrace the Day
Brewery: Brewery ARS
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 8.7%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Hazy Double IPA :: mosaic, simcoe, falconer’s flight, el dorado

Another juicy, bright, delicious New England style IPA; this time a DIPA. A great beer to end the night on. This was super easy to drink, juicy, and went down fast (also perhaps because it was the end of the night and my fifth drink, but who knows).

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.09 (as of 9.28.20)

Before leaving, I said my goodbyes to everyone, and got to talk to Johnnie Compton a bit more. He is a great dude, knows his saisons, knows his yeast, knows his beer, and very down to Earth. Thanked me for coming out, and sent me on my way with a few (free) bottles of Mr. Peach and Mr. Plum. Which I will be diving into on the next stream with D. Scott for The Knights of Nostalgia.

I will discuss the aesthetics of the brewery now. The building is small, but well laid out (even with the current COVID restrictions), it has two rooms for dining tables, and then an open patio like area. Kind of reminds you of a house in the suburbs with the patio garage area.

The swings are really neat. I am wondering if they may become a problem with an ‘intoxicated’ person, but at a brewery, I highly doubt this will come up, but you never know. The tables and seating area though is gorgeous, both indoor and outdoor. Indoors, it has a rave like vibe with the glowing lights and the glow in the dark paint. (Make sure to check out the bathroom to really see what I mean.)

Lucas summed it up when we were discussing the brewery and the area, that its a “Philly bar in Camp Hill, turned saison bottle brewery.” And thats probably the most apt way to describe it. Johnnie and I were discussing how it was like opening during COVID and everything, and he was saying how nuts he was for opening a brewery primarily based on bottles rather than draft, and to do it during a global pandemic on top of everything.

The food menu on Saturday night looked fantastic. Lamb, turkey, vegetarian or vegan sandwich, and many other options, all for 8$ or less. Not sure if that menu is permanent or if it will be changed or updated or switched, but Johnnie did say he’s hoping to have food trucks in their parking lot area and grass field area across from the brewery on weekends.

The following pictures I took Saturday night while I was there:

The following pictures are courtesy of Highway Manor’s Facebook page:

This will certainly be a stop I will make regularly when on the West Shore, and will be perfect when hitting the area to do a brewery lap. Other great local breweries include Ever Grain, Mellow Mink, Hemaur Brewing, and Pizza Boy (as well as Liquid Noise which is a bit further, but still in the general area). So lots of great options all in the area.

I personally highly recommend checking the brewery out, and trying their wonderful tremendous beers. Especially if you like farmhouse ales, saisons, tart beers, sours, lambics, or all things similar. They also will have a rotating guest draft list that looks great for the area (Johnnie said he would like to keep it relatively full of Philly area beers), so that looks great – getting to try Philly beers and Philly breweries without the 2 hour drive to Philly. The brewery has a super cool vibe. There was a food menu for kids though it might not be 100% the most kid friendly; its certainly not anti-kid, but the venue vibe seems to be aimed away from parents. It is also dog friendly.

Be sure to check out some of our other brewery opening articles:

• 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)
• Pilger Ruh Brewing Needs Your Help (Pottsville)

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!

Thanks for reading everyone and hopefully someday I’ll see you at Highway Manor and have a beer together. Until then, virtually, cheers!

-B. Kline

(Post Script: This was meant to go up Sunday night, but everything kinda got pushed back and thus why its gone up this morning, Monday, September 28th. My parents celebrated their 40th Anniversary on Sunday the 27th, and originally – pre-COVID – we were all going to go to the Bengals vs. Eagles game at the Lincoln Center in Philly; since they are big Eagles fans and I’m a Bengals fan, but unfortunately that didn’t get to work out. Instead, we got to watch the overtime – because the game in regulation time was not aired locally – and we got to see possibly the most apathetic overtime ever played. Six punts by the two teams combined in the 10 minute overtime. Neither team trying on their last plays to score. And on top of all this, the Phillies still had a chance to make the playoffs, and all they had to do was win, against a team that was locked in at their seed, and that they had just lost to twice, ….and of course they couldn’t do it. So despite it being an 8-team playoff for each conference, the Phillies *STILL* couldn’t manage to get in. So disappointing. But needless to say despite all this, the article is now up, just a bit later. Enjoy!)

This is part two of our Tattered Flag and Hop Hedz Gear collaboration releases beer reviews. The release was three beers – Going Rogue, Flavor Guided Juice Missile, and Flavor Guided Juice Missile DDH with Guava. This is the second of the three beer reviews, the first we tackled was Going Rogue, a raspberry sour. This – (the regular version) Flavor Guided Juice Missile is a DIPA (Double / Imperial IPA). We will cover the DDH (Double Dry Hopped) with Guava version next time.

If interested in more information on Tattered Flag and Hop Hedz Gear’s can release, check out my review of the Going Rogue.

To watch the awesome video Bart did as part of Hop Hedz Gear and his work with the Tattered Flag guys, check that out here:

I also want to say thank you to Justin for dropping the 4-pack of beers off to me while we were chilling at Boneshire Brew Works the other day. Nothing beats fresh off the canning line; day of canning beers. One of my favorite aspects of helping the canning line is standing there tilting a few back while getting some work done.

Now that we got all the official and important information out of the way, lets get to the beer review.

Beer: Flavor Guided Juice Missile
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double – New England
ABV: 8.1%
IBU: (None Listed)
Untappd Description: Double NEIPA brewed with a monster amount of wheat and oats hopped and Double dry hopped with Amarillo, Denali, and Cashmere Cryo hops for big notes of earthy berries up front complimented with a crisp melon and citrus finish.

Like a typical IPA from Tattered Flag, this is a bright, juicy, NE-IPA that is delicious and tasty.

Appearance is a good hazy, normal looking New England IPA (or IIPA / DIPA). Orange – yellow with a golden hue, hazy, thin white foamy head. Good carbonation, good texture, and good appearance.

Nose is nice and hoppy as well, just like a good IPA should always be. This has got a very powerful citrus punch to it, you get a bit of a cantaloupe and melon rind. A good New England IPA / DIPA always has that juicy, tasty, silky like smell to it, where you can taste the haze and the juice and the hops before you even sip it. Just making you want to take that first sip. Always love taking a good strong sniff of a NE-IPA before even sipping. Just like a roasty stout, you just know exactly what you’re in for as soon as you take a sniff of a NE-IPA.

And exactly how it smells, is exactly how it tastes. Juicy, hoppy, citrusy, notes of the cantaloupe, melon, and melon rind really light this up. Its strong too, tasting more like a 9.5%+ beer than an 8.1% ABV, but even still, 8.1% is good enough for most folks to get them in trouble after a few. The mouthfeel is spot on with this, slick, and easy sipping, light, but you get the weight of the ABV, a full bodied beer that feels right as you drink. This is a great example of the NE-IPA style, its a strong drink but good for the summer heat all at the same time, juicy and tasty and not holding anything back.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: (none yet, first to drink it, as of 7.10.20) EDIT: 4.11 (as of 7.13.20)

Cheers everyone, make sure to check out the other parts of this review series. Hope you enjoy! And make sure to go and grab the beers at Tattered Flag. They won’t last long I’m sure!

-B. Kline

Tattered Flag and Hop Hedz Gear Beer Release:

• Going Rogue
• Flavor Guided Juice Missile
• Flavor Guided Juice Missile DDH with Guava

Friday, as you guys have read, I was lucky enough to help out at Tattered Flag’s canning run for their collaboration effort with Abomination Brewing and Pilger Ruh Brewing for their version of Social Distancing. Abomination Brewing has set this collaboration up, and they have done it with a few varied other breweries (notable ones include Ever Grain Brewing and Breaker Brewing).

Abomination Brewing’s press release on the beer:

“The Beer industry has always relied on community, now more than ever. And since we can’t drink a beer together, we’ll BREW a beer together, but responsibly apart, to get us through these hard times. Social Distancing is a massive collaboration with some of our favorite folks in the industry! Each collaborating brewery will be brewing up their own unique version of this DDH DIPA, so trust us, you’re going to want to try them all! We will be updating the list below as we announce collaborating breweries!” (Abomination Brewing – Social Distancing)

A full list of participating breweries include:

• Saints Row Brewing
• Kinsmen Brewing
• Hoof Hearted Brewing
• The North Brewery
• Breaker Brewing
• Ever Grain Brewing Co.
• Pilger Ruh Brewing
• Ten7 Brewing Company
• Rotunda Brewing Company
• Tattered Flag
• Front Porch Brewing
• Icarus Brewing
• Bolero Snort
• Lost Tavern Brewing

Its quite a hefty list. Each beer brewed is a collaboration, all with Abomination Brewing as the genesis. For example; Rotunda Brewing is a collaboration with them and Abomination Brewing. Ever Grain Brewing is them and Abomination Brewing; Breaker is them and Abomination Brewing, and the one I will be reviewing here today – Tattered Flag’s – is a collaboration with Tattered Flag, Abomination Brewing, and the guys at Pilger Ruh Brewing.

So grab a chair, sit six feet away, grab a glass and a Social Distancing, and lets check this bad boy out!

Firstly, lets look at the breweries involved – Tattered Flag, Abomination Brewing, and Pilger Ruh Brewing. For many readers, Tattered Flag will be very recognizable, especially on this blog as I’ve reviewed several beers from them (Tattered Soul, You Hoppin On Me?, Tattered Dreamz, Member Berry, Wasted Away Again, Inexplicably Juicy, Should Have Put Him in Custardy, Pink Guava, Boulangerie Stout, and lastly another collaboration involving Pilger Ruh Brewing and Abomination Brewing [as well as three other breweries – Wolf Brewing, Rotunda Brewing Company, and Snitz Creek Brewing] – Abbra Collabra Six-Way Banana Milkshake IPA).

So, astute readers of the blog should recognize Pilger Ruh and Abomination Brewing as well. From the various reviews as well as event coverage I’ve done (like Ffej of July, and different brewfests). Tattered Flag and Pilger Ruh have ‘hooked up’ several times over the recent years, and each time has resulted in a homerun, and this certainly is no different.

For some background information all the same:

Pilger Ruh Brewing – Nano Brewery, 63 unique beers, a global average rating of 4.03 (as of 5.25.20). Untappd Description: Future nano brewery coming to Schuylkill County PA!
Abomination Brewing – Contract Brewery, 133 unique beers, a global average rating of 3.94 (as of 5.25.20). Untappd Description: Nomadic brewers specializing in out of this world experimental ales. #beermonster.
Tattered Flag – Micro Brewery, 416 unique beers, a global average rating of 3.79 (as of 5.25.20). Untappd Description: (blank).

So we canned this just Friday; 5.22.20 at the Tattered Flag brewery. Have no fear, we all maintained social distancing and practiced safety and precautions given everything going on. Justin as head brewer for Tattered Flag supervised the canning and the guys from Pilger Ruh Brewing (Tyler and Conlan Budwash, and Anthony Deppen) were on hand as well. As well as myself and two other volunteers. The canning run went smoothly, very few low-fills and no disasters (like a few times in the past). Starting at 10AM and ending around 1:30PM, not a bad, quick, easy, smooth canning day. I got to hang out with the guys, drink a few (…ok three) of the Social Distancing beers, as well as sample the Pineapple Upside Down Cake (Custardy series), and try out the Breaker Brewing and Ever Grain Brewing Co’s variants of the Social Distancing beer.

I figured for the review though, getting to have this beer with family on Memorial Day (again, social distancing was performed, and all people mostly quarantined together, and all in good health, as well as only an attendance of 7 people counting little ones), this would be the perfect, appropriate time to review the beer. So without further adieu, lets review!

Beer: Social Distancing
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Collaborators: Pilger Ruh Brewing and Abomination Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 8%
IBU: (none listed)
Untappd Description: Social distancing is our newest collab hosted by Abomination Brewing co and brewed in our facility with Pilger Ruh Brewing Co. With a base of 2-row, wheat, and oats each brewery put a spin on this collab by selecting different hop varieties. Our version was whirlpooled with Motueka, fermented with Kviek Voss, then slammed with a Citra and Strata dry hop for notes of mango, fresh berry, bright citrus, and gooseberry. Please enjoy no less than 6′ from your drinking buddy!

Canning day the whole brewery smelled delicious, like walking into a hop filled bakery. And cracking this beer just three days later retained that same smell. Strong juicy New England style hoppy deliciousness as soon as the tab cracked and the can opened. Very strong, citrus, floral and fruity notes, hint of peach and mango especially out of the fruit.

Appearance is very pretty, as my dad even noted “looks like you have lemonade and mixed a little bit of orange juice in it… boy” (…….thats a direct quote to. Also after he admonished me for using Petunia Pig instead of the Sylvester Cat pint glass too. He stands by his statement that Petunia wouldn’t drink but that Sylvester was a lush.) He is pretty right about the appearance; it is a lighter orange juice coloring. Typical for a New England IPA, its unfiltered, its juicy, its dank, its hazy (or as the cool kids would say “hazy AF”…. no clue what the A and the F stand for…). There is floaters but nothing crazy snow-globe like. It did manage to turn Petunia’s eyes an evil Sith Lord like yellow / orange.

Taste is genuinely juicy delicious. No hop bite, even the day of canning there was no ‘green-ness’ to it and hop bitterness. This is just a juicy, fluid, smooth beer. Immediate notes of peach, mango, floral, juicy, citrus hops; smaller notes of berry flavors like fresh picked mixture of blackberry, raspberry, and gooseberries. There is a floral note to the hops as well, and just a bit of an underlying wheat and oat tasting to it. The dry-hopping really brings out the bright and juicy hop notes, and keeps the bitterness down especially. No strong hop bite makes this extraordinarily smooth and juice like drink. It also masks the 8% making this feel a lot lighter and airy. With the small foamy pillowy head, you definitely get a vibe of lightness and airyness from this, just a gentle nice summer drink. Perfect for parties, or by the pool, or hanging out…. while being six feet (minimum) apart from friends. Made for a wonderful Memorial Day weekend beer (had a few the night before and then one at the party), also made for a fantastic post-7 mile hike at Gifford Pinchot beer as well Saturday night. This is definitely a fantastic and easy juicy beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.16 (as of 5.25.20)

Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll wrap up Module Ten in our beer education series (which is the last module), and we’ll have that all finished. Also, make sure to check out the canning article from my day volunteering and helping the canning run for this wonderful beer. Thank you everyone for checking us out, make sure to like, subscribe, follow, share, etc, etc, etc, etc. We here at The Beer Thrillers greatly appreciate it!

Also, make sure your staying healthy out there, make sure to drink plenty of juice (wink wink nudge nudge) and stay six feet apart (…social distancing one might say…). Enjoy your Memorial Weekend, and remember why we celebrate it. Why you would have the day off (even if you weren’t furloughed like I am), and respect and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Cheers everyone! Happy Memorial Day, happy beer, and see you guys once this is all behind us! We’re getting there, almost out of the woods!

-B. Kline