Isle of Que Brewing - The Beer Thrillers

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) Winner Is….

BKline — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 12:47:54 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

It is finally time to announce the winner of the Battle of the Breweries (2021), and what a tournament it was! Obviously, like everything else we do here on The Beer Thrillers, it couldn’t be a normal tournament. Instead of doing regular March Madness style brackets of 32 or 64 (or even smaller ones of 16 or 8), we did 48. So right off the bat, things are going to get odd – ball crazy. With the finals being a Triple Threat that saw Isle of Que Brewing vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company vs. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company, in one epic showdown final!

So without further adieu…..

Your 2021 Battle of the Breweries Champion is….

Isle of Que Brewing

The Que Brew Crew themselves, the new, and possibly undisputed (we haven’t had any disputes yet) champion of The Beer Thriller’s arbitrary Battle of the Breweries (2021), and your people’s champion – The Isle of Que Brewing, straight out of Selinsgrove Pennsylvania.

A huge and massive shout out to them, as they racked up 3,744 votes in the final round to defeat Rubber Soul Brewing Company and Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company. What an impressive final battle this was too!

The Triple Threat Cage Match

For anyone following along, voting, and checking the results, this was an extremely heated battle. Depending on what time you looked at the results on Saturday and Sunday you could have seen Rubber Soul up by two hundred, or you might have see the Que Brew up by fifty, or as they pulled ahead at the very end on Sunday, the Que Brew jumped to a nearly four hundred vote difference. The battle was extremely heated and intense between Que Brewing and Rubber Soul. Somewhere in this scuffle, Troegs Brewing was left far far and far behind, not sure how that happened, as they consistently got the most votes each round, but sadly, for the finals they only got a total of 90 votes; which in and of itself is a giant shocker.

This was a very fun finals match-up with lots of interesting Facebook and Instagram posts from both Que Brewing and Rubber Soul. Que Brew had a unique and interesting Facebook post each day hyping up the tournament and getting their votes, make sure you head over to their Facebook page to see some of their fun and interesting posts.

The final results and tallies for the Triple Threat Championship is as follows:

The Isle of Que Brewing (third seed) won with 3,744 votes.
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (second seed) came in second place with 3,353 votes.
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (one seed) came in third place with 90 votes.

For a combined total of 7,187 votes.

This was the most votes of any round, and this time with only one question, versus the other rounds which all had more than one question to vote on.

Despite Troegs Brewing poor finals vote count, they were the big dogs going into the match-up against relatively unknown underdog Isle of Que Brewing and the new (opened during the pandemic, version 2.0, rebranding, and moved from Salisbury Maryland to Hummelstown Pennsylvania) Rubber Soul Brewing Company. All three breweries (competitors) did extremely well and deserve their place here in the finals.

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) Results

This was an extremely fun tournament to run and I hope all the breweries, fans of the page, fans of the breweries, and anyone reading the articles had just as much fun with it as we did here at The Beer Thrillers. Yesterday (Sunday, April 4th, 2021, Easter) broke our single day page view on the blog with a whopping 12K+ views. And for that alone, we can’t say thank you enough to everyone who took the time out of their busy lives to visit the blog and vote. Hopefully you all got to look at some of the other articles and liked what you saw here on the blog.

But let’s get to the results, how did we get here?

I already covered the full tournament (minus the finals of course) results in the previous article, where you got to vote, so you can check the results of the tournaments here: “The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – The Triple Threat Finals Match“.

But, let’s look at the road each of our finals competitors took to get to the finals match, and then lets also look at statistics of the tournament as a total.

Isle of Que Brewing Company is The Champion

The Isle of Que Brewing Company (or Que Brew Crew) was the definition of a Cinderella and was akin to a 16 seed in the NCAA March Madness tournament winning. What an incredible road they had to get to their finals victory!

In the first round they defeated Jackie O’s Brewery – as the 11th seed defeating the 2nd seed – 146 votes to 31 votes.

(After each round of voting, the tournament was reseeded, so it wasn’t a strict bracket like March Madness or others.)

In the second round they defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company – as the 11th seed defeating the 2nd seed – 193 votes to 141 votes.

In the third round they defeated Fourscore Beer Company – as the 12th seed defeating the 1st seed – 149 votes to 115 votes.

In the fourth round they defeated Rotunda Brewing Company – as the 6th seed defeating the 1st seed – 212 votes to 79 votes.

In the finals, they were the 3rd seed vs. Rubber Soul (2nd seed) and Troegs Brewing (1st) seed, and won with 3,744 votes.

Total votes for the tournament for Isle of Que Brewing was: 4,444. Quite the impressive number!

Rubber Soul Brewing Company – Second Place

Rubber Soul Brewing Company had a fantastic run and came in second place in the tournament. They had some stiff competition along the way to their second place finals finish as well.

In the first round they defeated Breaker Brewing – as the 10th seed defeating the 3rd seed – 65 votes to 57 votes.

In the second round they defeated Moo-Duck Brewing – as the 9th seed defeating the 4th seed – 168 votes to 116 votes.

In the third round they defeated Dewey Beer Company – as the 11th seed defeating the 2nd seed – 182 votes to 65 votes.

In the fourth round they defeated Ever Grain Brewing – as the 5th seed defeating the 2nd seed – 154 votes to 106 votes.

And in the finals (as the 2nd seed) they lost to Isle of Que Brewing. They had 3,353 votes in the final.

Rubber Soul Brewing Company’s total vote count was: 4,102.

Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company grabs the bronze

Troegs Brewing is definitely one of the juggernauts of Pennsylvania Brewing, and were a very heavy favorite for this tournament as well (which also saw breweries from New York, Ohio, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Indiana). Despite their poor showing in the finals, they still had a very impressive tournament run.

In the first round they defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company – as the 4th seed defeating the 9th seed – 48 votes to 9 votes.

In the second round they defeated Swiftwater Brewing Company – as the 5th seed defeating the 8th seed – 126 votes to 32 votes.

In the third round they defeated Urban Artifact – as the 8th seed defeating the 5th seed – 145 votes to 96 votes.

In the fourth round they defeated Boneshire Brew Works – as the 4th seed defeating the 3rd seed – 143 votes to 117 votes.

In the finals they came up short with third place and only 90 votes.

Troegs Craft Independent Brewing’s total vote count was: 552 votes.

Tournament Statistics

The total vote count for our three finalists were 9,098 votes. The total vote count for the entire tournament was 16,640 votes. (Out of 46 questions, which means the average vote to question was 361.7391304).

(Copy and pasted results from the previous article: The Triple Threat Match).

Now let’s take a look at the round per round results…

Round One Results

Voting statistics:

Total votes for round one: 3422
Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

For more information about the Round One Results you can read the article for Round Two and the Round One results here. The Battle of the Breweries (2021) moves on to the conference round.

Round Two Statistics

Statistics:

Total Votes: 2659
Total votes in the HEELs Conference: 872
Total Votes in the FACEs Conference: 1787
There was no upsets in the HEELs conference.
There was three upsets in the FACEs conference.

Upsets:

The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) by 52 votes.
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4) by 52 votes.
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6) by 46 votes.

Round Two Results

HEELs Conference:

Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (71 votes) defeated GearHouse Brewing Company (12 seed) (61 votes).
Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (70 votes) defeated Desperate Times Brewing Company (11 seed) (67 votes).
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (96 votes) defeated Chatty Monks Brewing (10 seed) (51 votes).
Urban Artifact (4 seed) (79 votes) defeated Sun King Brewery (9 seed) (48 votes).
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (5 seed) (126 votes) defeated Swiftwater Brewing Company (8 seed) (32 votes).
Mad Chef Brewing Company (6 seed) (117 votes) defeated Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7 seed) (54 votes).

FACEs Conference:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (170 votes) defeated The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (119 votes).
The Isle of Que Brewing (11 seed) (193 votes) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2 seed) (141 votes).
Funk Brewing Company (3 seed) (178 votes) defeated Three Heads Brewing (10 seed) (103 votes).
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9 seed) (168 votes) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4 seed) (116 votes).
Boneshire Brew Works (5 seed) (155 votes) defeated Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (134 votes).
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7 seed) (178 votes) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6 seed) (132 votes).

Round Three Statistics

Statistics:

Total Votes: 1,447 (six questions)
There was four upsets (out of six match-ups)

Upsets:

Isle of Que Brewing (12) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1) – 149 to 115
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2) – 182 to 65
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (8) defeated Urban Artifact (5) – 145 to 96
Boneshire Brew Works (7) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6) – 118 to 115

Results of Round Three

Isle of Que Brewing (12 seed) (149 votes) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (115 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) (182 votes) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (65 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (127 votes) defeated Mad Chef Brewing Company (10 seed) (101 votes)
Ever Grain Brewing Company (4 seed) (129 votes) defeated Tattered Flag Brewery (9 seed) (108 votes)
Troegs Brewing Company (8 seed) (145 votes) defeated Urban Artifact (5 seed) (96 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (7 seed) (118 votes) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6 seed) (115 votes)

Round Four Statistics and Results

In a shocking twist, all three match-ups from Round Three were won by the underdogs. (I re-ranked the seeds after each round.) The number six seed Isle of Que Brewing has kept their Cinderella tournament streak alive and pulled a major upset over Rotunda Brewing Company. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (fifth seed) posted a big upset over Ever Grain Brewing Company, and despite being the big dog in Pennsylvania, but ranked lower (due to ranking being based on Untappd average score) Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (fourth seed) pulled up an upset over Boneshire Brew Works.

Results:

Isle of Que Brewing (sixth seed) (212 votes) defeated Rotunda Brewing Company (one seed) (79 votes).
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (fifth seed) (154 votes) defeated Ever Grain Brewing Company (second seed) (106 votes).
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (fourth seed) (143 votes) defeated Boneshire Brew Works (third seed) (117 votes).

There was a total of 811 votes for round four.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

I cannot underestimate how awesome this was, and how appreciative I am of everyone who came to the site and blog and voted. Who visited our social media pages (our Facebook, our Twitter, and our Instagram). This was such a tremendous and huge turnout, I am already thinking of March Madness 2022! Which will definitely be an even bigger Battle of the Breweries! I’m thinking of keeping it the same theme – only breweries I’ve visited, and maybe including ones that Josh has also visited, and ones that some of our writers have as well. And putting no limits on it. So by March 2022, this could be a list of two hundred or more breweries competing! Could do it state by state leading to when the states are down to their final one or two and then moving on into a bigger tournament. Not sure yet, if you have any ideas or suggestions, be sure to leave them in the comments or leave us some feedback through our contact page.

If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, or anything you’d like to say about how the tournament was ran, made, or done, or anything at all really, you can always leave a comment here on each blog post, or you can contact us specifically using the CONTACT US page. This directly e-mails your comment to use (as well as leaving one in a specific folder only viewable to us, on the site).

I want to give a huge shout out to Isle of Que Brewing and Michael Salter who was promoting the tournament nearly daily on their media pages. Big kudos for them for winning the tournament. Hopefully we can do something with them in the future to celebrate!

Also a big shout out to Rubber Soul Brewing Company for such an impressive run in the tournament. Coming so close to winning it, with the tremendous year they had in opening, and the pandemic, and everything going on.

And of course a shout out to Troegs Brewing as well for reaching the finals. This was definitely a very interesting tournament, and was great to see one of the “OGs” – original pioneers – of Pennsylvania’s brewing scene make it to the finals.

Thank you everyone who visited, voted, and shared. We appreciate it so much. And again, big time congratulations to our champions of the inaugural Battle of the Breweries (2021) – The Isle of Que Brewing Company. We can’t wait for March 2022 and see if they are able to repeat as champions!

Cheers everyone, please stay safe, and make sure to use Uber when driving, now that bars and everyone is open more fully, and don’t have to sell food, make sure you are taking care of your liver, and more importantly, taking care of yourself and others on the road.

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.

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – The Finals – Triple Threat Match

BKline — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:45:00 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Its Time to Find Out The Winner

This is it everyone, this is the finals, the championship, the triple threat main event of The Battle of the Breweries (2021). The culmination of a month’s ‘hard work’ of voting by you and everyone you’ve shared these posts with.

Who will take home the crown, the championship, the title bout (not a physical one mind you), of the most arbitrary beer blog Battle of the Breweries in possibly writing history?

Will it be The Isle of Que Brewing Company?

Or will it be Rubber Soul Brewing Company?

Or Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company?

This is certainly an interesting and diverse match-up for the finals. But how did we get here?

The Results, Working Our Way Back Through the Tournament

Let’s take a look back over the tournament and see how we got here to the finals. Firstly, we started with an odd choice of breweries – 48 breweries to be exact. How did we select these 48 breweries? They had to be a brewery that I physically had been to their location. The selection of breweries comes from the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. I used a random dice generator (a D4 for the fellow nerds out there) to put them into brackets, and once in the brackets they were seeded based on Untappd global average ratings.

Since March – April is WrestleMania season, I decided to give the tournament a bit of a “Wrestling” bent to it. With the two conferences being called FACEs and HEELs. With the divisions (two per conference) being named after Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, and Ric Flair.

Now let’s take a look at the round per round results…

Round One Results

Voting statistics:

Total votes for round one: 3422
Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

For more information about the Round One Results you can read the article for Round Two and the Round One results here. The Battle of the Breweries (2021) moves on to the conference round.

Round Two Statistics

Statistics:

Total Votes: 2659
Total votes in the HEELs Conference: 872
Total Votes in the FACEs Conference: 1787
There was no upsets in the HEELs conference.
There was three upsets in the FACEs conference.

Upsets:

The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) by 52 votes.
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4) by 52 votes.
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6) by 46 votes.

Round Two Results

HEELs Conference:

Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (71 votes) defeated GearHouse Brewing Company (12 seed) (61 votes).
Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (70 votes) defeated Desperate Times Brewing Company (11 seed) (67 votes).
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (96 votes) defeated Chatty Monks Brewing (10 seed) (51 votes).
Urban Artifact (4 seed) (79 votes) defeated Sun King Brewery (9 seed) (48 votes).
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (5 seed) (126 votes) defeated Swiftwater Brewing Company (8 seed) (32 votes).
Mad Chef Brewing Company (6 seed) (117 votes) defeated Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7 seed) (54 votes).

FACEs Conference:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (170 votes) defeated The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (119 votes).
The Isle of Que Brewing (11 seed) (193 votes) defeated Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2 seed) (141 votes).
Funk Brewing Company (3 seed) (178 votes) defeated Three Heads Brewing (10 seed) (103 votes).
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9 seed) (168 votes) defeated Moo-Duck Brewing (4 seed) (116 votes).
Boneshire Brew Works (5 seed) (155 votes) defeated Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (134 votes).
Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (7 seed) (178 votes) defeated Rough Edges Brewing (6 seed) (132 votes).

Round Three Statistics

Statistics:

Total Votes: 1,447 (six questions)
There was four upsets (out of six match-ups)

Upsets:

Isle of Que Brewing (12) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1) – 149 to 115
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2) – 182 to 65
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (8) defeated Urban Artifact (5) – 145 to 96
Boneshire Brew Works (7) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6) – 118 to 115

Results of Round Three

Isle of Que Brewing (12 seed) (149 votes) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (115 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) (182 votes) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (65 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (127 votes) defeated Mad Chef Brewing Company (10 seed) (101 votes)
Ever Grain Brewing Company (4 seed) (129 votes) defeated Tattered Flag Brewery (9 seed) (108 votes)
Troegs Brewing Company (8 seed) (145 votes) defeated Urban Artifact (5 seed) (96 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (7 seed) (118 votes) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6 seed) (115 votes)

Round Four Statistics and Results

Results:

Isle of Que Brewing (sixth seed) (212 votes) defeated Rotunda Brewing Company (one seed) (79 votes).
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (fifth seed) (154 votes) defeated Ever Grain Brewing Company (second seed) (106 votes).
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Company (fourth seed) (143 votes) defeated Boneshire Brew Works (third seed) (117 votes).

There was a total of 811 votes for round four.

So this now brings us…. to the final… to the main event…. to the triple threat match, for all the marbles, for the championship, for the fake title belt that doesn’t really exist (except inside our heads and hearts), the whole shebang, the whole enchelada…. the Triple Threat to Determine the Winner of The Battle of the Breweries (2021)……. (insert dramatic drum-roll).

The Triple Threat Main Event

The Triple Threat Main Event, is pitting the Cinderella Isle of Que Brewing, vs. newly opened – rebranded Rubber Soul Brewing Company vs. The Big Dog of Pennsylvania Craft Beer – Troegs Independent Craft Brewing. This should be a very interesting match-up. Three interesting contenders. One hailing from Selinsgrove Pennsylvania, one from Hummelstown Pennsylvania, and then a hop skip and a throw over the third hailing from Hershey Pennsylvania. In the coming days I will be posting an article detailing each brewery, and giving readers some kind of information on how main event participants.

Let the battle commence!

Triple Threat Main Event Voting

[perfect_survey id=”7464″]

Just as a reminder, voting will end on Sunday April 4th at 11:59PM – Midnight (EST). So make sure you get your votes in before then!

Sharing is Caring

To help your favorite breweries win, be sure to share this page as much as you would like. Using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Myspace, your own sites, your local newspaper…. whatever you like. Also, be sure to follow us on our social media accounts to stay up to date on the tournament and our other articles, which include brewery reviews, beer reviews, travelogues, hiking trips, brewery news, events, and much much more!

Thank you everyone for making this tournament such a rousing success. It has been a blast running it. Can’t wait to see who the winner will be and who will walk away as the Most Arbitrary Battle of the Brewery Champion in the History of Beer Blogging!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – Round Four – The Sweet Six

BKline — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 00:30:00 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round Three is done and over with, and now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. We’re down to the final six breweries / competitors in the most arbitrary March Madness tournament possibly in beer (and maybe even writing) history. Like the previous Round (Round Three) the first segment will be going over the results of the previous round, and then we’ll be getting into the actual voting. Make sure to like, share, and pass this page around so everyone can vote for your favorite brewery!

Round Three Statistics

The amount of votes and enthusiasm for this March Madness breweries bracket has been incredible, so let me once again say thank you to all the voters, fans, readers, and breweries posting and sharing.

Statistics:

Total Votes: 1,447 (six questions)
There was four upsets (out of six match-ups)

Upsets:

Isle of Que Brewing (12) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1) – 149 to 115
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2) – 182 to 65
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (8) defeated Urban Artifact (5) – 145 to 96
Boneshire Brew Works (7) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6) – 118 to 115

Results of Round Three:

Isle of Que Brewing (12 seed) (149 votes) defeated Fourscore Beer Company (1 seed) (115 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (11) (182 votes) defeated Dewey Beer Company (2 seed) (65 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3 seed) (127 votes) defeated Mad Chef Brewing Company (10 seed) (101 votes)
Ever Grain Brewing Company (4 seed) (129 votes) defeated Tattered Flag Brewery (9 seed) (108 votes)
Troegs Brewing Company (8 seed) (145 votes) defeated Urban Artifact (5 seed) (96 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (7 seed) (118 votes) defeated Funk Brewing Company (6 seed) (115 votes)

Round Four Now Begins

And unleash the competitors into the final round of one on one competition! There is six breweries / competitors left, and they are facing off to see who goes on to the final match – a triple threat to decide who is the best brewery in this arbitrary and random tournament! So lets go! Its time to vote everyone! Voting will last until Sunday, March 28th, ending at 11:59 PM / Midnight.

Round Four Match-Ups

Round four sees some interesting match-ups. Will Isle of Que Brewing continue is Cinderella run? Which of the Harrisburg – Hershey – Hummelstown breweries will move on?

Rotunda Brewing Company (1) vs. Isle of Que Brewing (6)
Ever Grain Brewing Company (2) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (5)
Boneshire Brew Works (3) vs. Troegs Brewing Company (4)

Who will advance on to the triple threat match?

Round Four Voting

[perfect_survey id=”7445″]

Past Articles and Results

For more information on The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – The Beer Thrillers version of March Madness; you can scroll through the previous articles and voting results.

Information Articles:

Voting Pages:

Share, Share, Share, Share

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – Round Two – FACEs Conference

BKline — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:55:44 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

To view the results of Round One, and for background information on the tournament – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (March Madness) click here: Round One Results and Round Two and Moving Forward – The Battle of the Breweries (2021) (The Beer Thriller’s March Madness).

This is the poll for the HEELs Conference – Round Two. You can vote once per day, and you can vote once per poll (there is a poll for each division in round one). Be sure to share and send to your friends and breweries to let everyone vote!

Voting runs until March 14th, 11:59PM (EST).

For past links, go here:

March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

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

Vote

[perfect_survey id=”7374″]

Any questions, concerns, or comments about the brackets, or tournament, or breweries in question, you can leave in the comment section or message us directly through our Contact Page.

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!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – March Madness Continues – The Conference Round

BKline — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:15:02 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Voting Polls for Round Two

(Edited: March 8th, 9:02AM). Since this is the landing page when exiting the polls, I am posting the links here for both poll locations, so you can easily jump to the next poll to vote.

Round One Has Finished

Thank you everyone who has voted in round one. We got 3422 votes in one week and thus has ended round one of the tournament! We have gone from 48 breweries and competitors down to 24 breweries left.

First a word on going forward: due to how I have set-up the brackets and how its not a typical “32” or “64” or “128” tournament, that means we will now go from divisions to two conferences. (We’ll keep the wrestling theme going and still call them the HEELs and FACEs conferences.) At this point we will also re-seed the conferences. Just like before, total global average rating on Untappd will be used to seed the breweries.

But first up, some statistics from the first round:

Round One Statistics

Voting statistics:

Total votes for round one: 3422
Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

Round Two

Round two now begins and will run until next Sunday night at Midnight – eastern time. (March 14th – March 15th Midnight). We now do away with the divisions and just go into conferences. So there is now two conferences of 12 breweries / competitors each. The conferences are reseeded (again using Untappd rankings) to create the new brackets for each conference.

Round Two Match-Ups

The new brackets for the conferences, and The Battle of the Breweries (2021) March Madness going forward now looks like this:

HEELs Conference:

Fourscore Beer Company (1) (4.09) vs. GearHouse Brewing Company (12) (3.68)
Dewey Beer Company (2) (4.08) vs. Desperate Times Brewing (11) (3.69)
Rotunda Brewing Company (3) (3.96) vs. Chatty Monks Brewing (10) (3.71)
Urban Artifact (4) (3.90) vs. Sun King Brewery (9) (3.71)
Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (5) (3.79) vs. Swiftwater Brewing Company (8) (3.77)
Mad Chef Brewing Company (6) (3.79) vs. Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7) (3.79)

FACEs Conference:

Ever Grain Brewing Company (1) (3.93) vs. The Church Brew Works (12) (3.56)
Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) (3.88) vs. The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11) (3.69)
Funk Brewing Company (3) (3.86) vs. Three Heads Brewing Company (10) (3.71)
Moo-Duck Brewing Company (4) (3.83) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) (3.74)
Boneshire Brew Works (5) (3.83) vs. Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) (3.75)
Rough Edges Brewing (6) (3.82) vs. Tattered Flag (7) (3.79)

Voting Begins Now

The polls will be going up shortly after this post goes live (about 8:30AM EST). Make sure to share the polls to help your favorite breweries in! And hopefully we can beat round one’s total of votes! (We need 3423 votes to break the first week’s numbers.)

Thank you all for participating in the polls!

For past results and information on the brackets, you can check out the following links:

March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

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

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – FACEs Conference – The Rock Division – Round One

BKline — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:57:17 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

This is the poll for the FACEs Conference – The Rock Division – Round One. You can vote once per day, and you can vote once per poll (there is a poll for each division in round one). Be sure to share and send to your friends and breweries to let everyone vote!

Voting runs until March 7th, 11:59PM (EST).

To read more about The Battle of the Breweries (2021) you can read the initial post here: The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – March Madness – The Beer Thrillers way.

[perfect_survey id=”7330″]

Any questions, concerns, or comments about the brackets, or tournament, or breweries in question, you can leave in the comment section or message us directly through our Contact Page.

March Madness (2021) – The Beer Thrillers Way

BKline — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 04:30:00 +0000

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

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.)

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

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!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

The Trip to Rickett’s Glen

BKline — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 20:38:39 +0000

Rickett’s Glen in Benton, Pennsylvania

Sunday me and my friend Ming traveled to Rickett’s Glen to hike the waterfall trails there. Planned, as I mentioned in the previous article here on the blog – A Road Trip to Ricketts Glen. We had planned this out a few weeks before, but left things kind of open ended. It was basically just a simple plan: Sunday – drive to Rickett’s Glen, walk waterfalls, drive home. With of course, a brewery on the way up, and one on the way home, possibly more if time allowed.

So, as I’ve done in the past with road trips and brewery visits, I’ll give a recap of our day here. This post was meant to go up Monday, but didn’t quite work out that way. Though, Monday did see the beer review of Boneshire Brew Works‘ Pandemic Pils go live on LetUsDrinkBeer’s blog (a site I contribute and write for occasionally) as well as on our blog here. (To see the review on their blog – click here: LetUsDrinkBeer Pandemic Pils, and to see it here on my blog – Beer Review: Pandemic Pils by Boneshire Brew Works.) I definitely knew it wasn’t going up Sunday night when we got home, just no chance of that happening.

Thus this was started on Tuesday, but unfortunately I had to pause and finish today (Wednesday) due to chores around the house, mowing, walking the dog, (yadda yadda yadda, boring crap, boring crap, boring crap), but mostly because I had to head over to D. Scott’s to do a podcast (as well as our first YouTube video) with D. Scott, Esty, and Skott. This was our time travel podcast where we discussed time travel in movies, books, and TV shows. Namely Back to the Future, Terminator, Looper, and a host of others (shout outs to Rick and Morty, Futurama, Austin Powers, and Avengers: End Game). That will be going up soon – both for the podcast and the YouTube video. I will make sure to edit this and include the links to those when they are uploaded. You can check out the Podcast channel itself here: So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar…. (Be forewarned – language is a bit in the R category, and most of the episodes are titled “WTF Did I Just Watch”, so you can figure out and parse out what the W… T… F… stand for.) This was our first podcast / YouTube video and our first podcast with Skott on as well, so we’ll see how it goes. I enjoyed Abomz World (Ever Grain and Abomination Brewing collaboration), Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co), and Buddy Shots (Cycle Brewing) while on the video. Finishing up the night with County Line IPA by Neshaminy Brewing. (But enough about that and those beers, lets get to the road trip.)

So, like I said before I interrupted myself, me and Ming planned to take this road trip from Hummelstown (he picked me up) to Rickett’s Glen which is in Benton, Pennsylvania. (See map below). It’s a roughly 2 hour and some minutes drive (depending on speed, traffic, etc.). According to Google Maps its a 2HR-8Min drive.

The Google Maps travel route from Hummelstown Pennsylvania to Ricketts Glen Pennsylvania.

As I noted in my previous article here – A Road Trip to Ricketts Glen – we planned on hitting a brewery on the way up, and then one (or more) for dinner on the way home. Some of the breweries I had google mapped and looked up (in the vicinity of Ricketts Glen or at least along RT15 and RT11 – which are the main roads we would be on) were:

Selinsgrove Brewing
Isle of Que Brewing Co.
Jackass Brewery
Eclipse Craft Brewing
Turkey Hill Brewing
Old Forge Brewing Co.

Ming gets to my house around 11AM. We load up the backpacks, I add a four-pack in for the actual hike (New Trail’s Hammock, Troegs’ Scratch 415 and 417, Pizza Boy’s The Pen is Mightier). We head out. Stopping at the Sheetz by those strip clubs once you get near Little Buffalo and then we are fully out on the road.

Looking at the breweries on my phone, we decide to stop at Isle of Que Brewing Co. first.

Isle of Que Brewing

Its just a little over noon when we get there. We are the first to enter for the day, and as soon as walk in, the bartender / owner / brewer Mike immediately recognizes me from the blog here. Which was a bit surreal as it was definitely a first to be recognized for the blog, and especially remotely (not a local [to my area of living] bar or brewery). Was definitely a very cool moment. Ordered a flight, while Ming had a water (since he was driver and basic DD for the day).

Mike was a super cool and chill dude. We talked about podcasts, YouTube, breweries, the COVID-19, quarantine and lockdown, how its affected his business, how the local area of Selinsgrove is / was during the pandemic, etc.

My flight consisted of: Peanut Butter Ale, Coal Wrecker Region Raspberry Ale, Black IPA, and Sexual Chocolate Stout. Mike gave Ming a sample of the Queban Joe (a coffee porter) which I stole a sip of.

Black IPA
Coal Wrecker Region Raspberry Ale
Peanut Butter Ale
Sexual Chocolate Stout

My ratings for the beers on Untappd (and their global average ratings):

Peanut Butter Pale Ale – ****.25 / 3.91 (as of 6.16.20)
Coal Region Wrecker Raspberry Ale – **** / 3.93 (as of 6.16.20)
Black IPA – ***.75 / 3.58 (as of 6.16.20)
Sexual Chocolate Stout – **** / 3.47 (as of 6.16.20)

I would have ordered another flight or perhaps a pint, but Ming wanted to get to the trail, so I paid and we headed out. Selinsgrove Brewing was closed, so we were on the road to Ricketts Glen. Which we arrived at around 2-2:15PM.

For those who’ve never been to Ricketts Glen, it is absolutely gorgeous. We had a beautiful day, sunny, bright skied, no clouds, gorgeous day. Not too hot, just a beautiful early June day (June 14th, 2020). Just an absolutely beautiful gorgeous day. We had a fantastic hike with no problems. It was possibly the most ‘populous’ hike I’ve ever been on (most of the places I’ve hiked, I don’t see anyone on the trails, or if I do its a one time passing), here, its like caravans, and occasional slow-downs at different waterfalls. This is a map of our hike:

Our hike of Ricketts Glen recorded using MapMyRun (a walking / running / hiking / biking GPS recording app)

I will say there is parts of the hike that are ‘difficult’ for those who might have walking issues or leg problems. Overall, most of the hike is easy to moderate, but there is a few places at some of the various waterfall areas where the steps are tough and can also be a bit slick. Plus, if you actually get close to some waterfalls, its also tough and hard, and I wouldn’t fully recommend doing that.

Here is a gallery (of a LOT of pictures) of our hike:

My hike with Ming at Ricketts Glen, Benton Pennsylvania

The hike lasted about four hours roughly, and was a good, fun, nice, beautiful hike and trip. As you can see from the pictures, I did enjoy the four pack I brought with me; which consisted of:

Troegs Independent Craft Brewing: Scratch 415 – Witbier
* My Rating: ***.75 / Global Rating: 3.77 (as of 6.16.20)
Troegs Independent Craft Brewing: Scratch 417 – Orange-Lemon Peel IPA
* My Rating: **** / Global Rating: 3.89 (as of 6.16.20)
New Trail Brewing: Hammock
* My Rating: ****.25 / Global Rating: 4.37 (as of 6.16.20)
Pizza Boy Brewing: The Pen is Mightier
* My Rating: ***.75 / Global Rating: 3.89 (as of 6.16.20)

After our hike, we hit the bathroom one final time, loaded back up, and checked out the breweries map to see what is available and where we would have dinner.

There were several that we looked up – Eclipse Craft Brewing, Pine Knotter Brewing, Old Forge Brewing, and Turkey Hill Brewing. According to the Google Maps and their Facebook (I made sure to check both), Turkey Hill was going to be open til 7PM, and Old Forge was to be open until 9PM. Turkey Hill was closer to Ricketts Glen / Benton than Old Forge, so we decided we’d go to Turkey Hill Brewing, and then from there go to Old Forge Brewing since they were opened later.

Turkey Hill Brewing Co.

We arrived at Turkey Hill Brewing Co. at roughly 6:20-6:30PM, and find out their actually open until 9PM. As we got back there, our reception returned to our phone, and we started getting inundated with texts. Our co-workers were getting called back into work (with Friday, June 19th, Dauphin County Pennsylvania goes green, our work was reopening). So everyone was seeing who got called, how they got called, what information they had, etc. Everyone had different ideas, theories, and stories of their call-backs.

While Ming went and talked to Don about his department that got called back, and their evening plans, I ordered a flight. We sat outside under a beautiful tree, and had a small little table in front of us, it all felt like sitting and eating at a family picnic at someone’s house for say Memorial Day or Fourth of July or Labor Day. Very informal, very interesting, and there were couples all around on various other benches eating in a similar fashion. Due to the current circumstances they do a generic flight of six, so that’s what I got. Once Ming came back from his call, we ordered small things of food (Don was making him dinner, so we weren’t going to get a big meal – just appetizers). I got fries and Ming got Asian Tuna.

Blond Ale
Red Ale
Belgian Triple
Stout
IPA

The fries were very good, and Ming said he loved the tuna (no way was I having any as I’m allergic to seafood). The beers were also very good.

The beers (not in the particular order I had them in above):

Donny’s Irish Dry Stout
* My rating: ***.75 / Global Rating: 3.73 (as of 6.16.20)
Inflategate NE IPA
* My Rating: **** / Global Rating: 3.74 (as of 6.16.20)
St. Abban’s Irish Red Ale
* My Rating: ***.75 / Global Rating: 3.56 (as of 6.16.20)
Oliver’s Twisted Belgian Pale Ale
* My Rating: ***.50 / Global Rating: 3.3 (as of 6.16.20)
Urban Abbey Apricot Pale Ale
* My Rating: ***.50 / Global Rating: 3.69 (as of 6.16.20)
Barn Dance Blonde Ale
* My Rating: ***.50 / Global Rating: 3.44 (as of 6.16.20)

The atmosphere there was very beautiful, laid back, and wonderful. The staff was also really nice, wore their masks, handled the food and drinks and everything very nice. Wonderful all around. The beers were good as well. Overall the venue was beautiful, and I’d love to come visit it – outside of a pandemic – and get to really experience the place, as it looked wonderful.

Turkey Hill Brewing

After the dinner and flight, we looked up Old Forge Brewing, checked to make sure it was due to close at 9PM and headed off. We arrived there at a roughly 7:30-7:45PM, possibly going on 8PM. And it was closed up and locked. So either they closed early or their Facebook (as well as Google Maps) was using old – pre-COVID-19 – hours of operation. So sadly, we missed out on that. We climbed back into the car and headed for home with Ming dropping me off around 9:45PM or so; maybe 10PM. (I was probably not the best judge of time by this point.)

All in all, it was an absolute blast, and a wonderful road trip. I highly recommend both breweries – Isle of Que Brewing Co and Turkey Hill Brewing. Going to have to try this trip again on a weekday where we can hit a few more of the breweries, and do the hike, with hopefully less people, and later hours of operation for the breweries, so we can do more of them.

The venue for Turkey Hill was beautiful. The building for Isle of Que was nice and small and quaint, reminded me of the Warwick Hotel in Hummelstown. I enjoyed both places, both staffs, and both drinks. (Probably give the nod to Isle of Que’s beers over Turkey Hill; but there was nothing wrong with Turkey Hill’s beers, they were average / adequate and were very good. I’ve heard from several people online since that they have phenomenal full food, so maybe next time I’ll stop there and have a full meal.)

Of the beers I brought with, I enjoyed all four as well, though I had three of the four before (the Witbier was the only one I hadn’t had before). I did a review for Troeg’s Scratch 417 before. The Hammock is a great NE-IPA; the Scratch 417 was a delicious IPA, the scratch 415 was a very tasty Witbier, and The Pen is Mightier is an interesting and tasty Sour IPA.

I also highly recommend Ricketts Glen. If you love hiking, love the outdoors, love beautiful scenery, love waterfalls, it was all amazing, and just gorgeous. You definitely won’t be disappointed by the beauty of it all, it does get crowded on weekends, but I don’t think once you get out on the actual trail it is that bad. Right now it was a bit awkward with some close proximity to people given the nature of the pandemic and concerns over it, but overall, I don’t think it was too busy, and never felt threatened by their closeness, nor worried. Doing the full hike path that we took though (as shown above) will take you roughly three to four hours, especially if you stop and take in each waterfall, viewing them, and taking pictures. (Also, of course, depending on your speed, gait, etc.). Ming and I are in our thirties, so use that as a barometer I suppose.

I know this wasn’t a typical road trip, and we really only hit two breweries, but felt like making it into a fun little write-up and blog post. Perhaps next time I take the trip I’ll be able to hit more breweries and make it into a bigger brewery related blog post. Also apologize for the massive photo dump in the middle of this post, at least you could skip them (and the horrible pictures of myself, I apologize for anyone who I scared with my appearance).

But, as always, thank you very much for reading. I appreciate any comments, questions, feedback, etc. If you have any recommendations for trails, hike paths, or breweries, I’d love to hear them! Let me know in the comments! Also, be sure to hit the follow, subscribe, and like buttons. Share with friends, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and thank you all so very much for reading! I love writing for you guys, so its always great to hear from you!

Cheers and happy trails!

-B. Kline

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

My Article for Breweries in PA:

Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

A waterfall at Ricketts Glen, Benton Pennsylvania

A Road Trip To Rickett’s Glen

BKline — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 14:32:27 +0000

A waterfall at Rickett’s Glen State Park.

As I did last summer when I took my daughter’s on a road trip across Pennsylvania (from Hummelstown up to Elk Country, to Kinzua Bridge, down to Pittsburgh, to Bushy Run, and then back home), which I covered (slightly) here on the blog, I will be doing the same tomorrow – when I take a road trip with my friend Ming up to Rickett’s Glen State Park to hike and check out the waterfalls.

We will be making a few stops along the way, and seeing a few different breweries, but not a whole lot, and due to the coronavirus / COVID-19, practices and things will be a lot different. There won’t be any brewery tours, and there won’t be as much to do, just outdoor seating. So it will certainly be interesting.

We’re also not sure yet what all breweries we are going to be visiting. (So if you have any suggestions, be sure to list them here in the comments section).

Some breweries we are looking to stop at are:

Selinsgrove Brewing (if open)
Jackass Brewery
Isle of Que Brewing
Eclipse Craft Brewing
Old Forge Brewing
Turkey Hill Brewing

And if we stray the area a bit, and go into Williamsport area we might check out New Trail Brewing. But we’ll see; the main reason for the trip is the park and the hike, so the breweries are secondary, and with it being a Sunday (and due to the current ongoing crisis) most places will have limited hours (many closing by 6PM), so we’ll see.

Fingers crossed for beautiful weather and a lovely day, and to check out some nice places and drink some good cold beer. Today, I am meeting my sister and her son at Colonel Denning (taking my daughters with). Not a whole lot brewery wise in the area, but maybe we’ll stop somewhere on the way home, who knows. Trying to get some things in, as it looks like June 19th I might be going back to work (Dauphin county goes ‘green’ on June 19th). So looks like my furlough will soon be up; meaning its time to get everything done quickly!

Cheers everyone, and stay tuned after tomorrow to see what’s up and what we got done! Make sure to check in and see!

-B. Kline

(Brewery travels):

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series: