Viva Las Vegas

Welcome to the Fabulous Las Vegas

In just moments Esteban and Laura’s son – Marcos – will be picking me up, and taking myself, Esteban, and Laura to Harrisburg International Airport (HIA), where we will meet up with Josh (MasterMind X Studios) and Drew (Knights of Nostalgia), to fly to Las Vegas and spend the next few days there. (We will be flying back on January 3rd.)

Drew is turning 40 today, and this trip will be to celebrate his birthday, celebrate New Years Eve / New Years Day, to visit his father (who will be driving up from Texas), and to most importantly – have some fun. I’ve known Drew since 5th grade (his 6th grade). The above link is his Facebook page, and this is his YouTube page where he streams video games (typically older games). (See: YouTube – Knights of Nostalgia. And also see: Facebook – Knights of Nostalgia.)

Drew and Esteban used to run a podcast together called “So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar…” I appeared on several podcast episodes – including ones about The Irishman, Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul and El Camino, as well as Star Wars, The Umbrella Academy, and LOST themed ones. Josh (MasterMind X Studios) has also appeared on a few as well. (See: Moon of Vega Beer Review – where I discuss the podcasts a bit more.)

Josh will be joining us on the trip, he runs the MasterMind X Studios Facebook page as well as his own YouTube channel – MasterMind X Studios.

Itinerary

We don’t have a strict itinerary for the trip, but there is certainly things we all want to do while we’re in Vegas.

Some definite things we want to check out are all the various casinos, the fountain show at the Billagio, the old strip on Fremont Street, the Mob Museum, numerous breweries, and much more sight seeing.

Our flight path looks like this:

• Monday: Harrisburg (HIA) to Charlotte. Charlotte to Las Vegas.
• Friday: Las Vegas to Philadelphia. Philly to Harrisburg (via puddle jumper).

Breweries

In a perfect world, I’ll get to visit all these breweries, but we will see. Time will be both loose and tight while in Vegas (isn’t it always on vacations?), and the ones at the airport are very time restrictive, and are all determinate on terminals, landing times, boarding and off boarding times, etc.

But these are the possible, and hopeful breweries I could get to visit:

Charlotte Airport

• Sycamore Brewing
• NoDa Brewing Company
• Wicked Weed Brewery

Las Vegas

• BrewDog Las Vegas
• Beer Zombies
• Able Baker Brewing Company
• Nevada Brew Works
• CraftHaus Brewing
• HUDL Brewing
• Hop Nuts Brewing
• Voodoo Brewing Vegas
• Chicago Brewing Company
• Ellis Island Hotel and Brewery
• Tenaya Creek Brewing
• Beer District Brewing

Some of these are very doubtful, but some are quite possible. BrewDog is located near the New York Casino, so walkable from where we’ll be staying (Harrah’s Casino). Beer Zombies isn’t too far of an Uber ride from Fremont Street, and speaking of Fremont Street and the Old Strip, there is a few breweries inside of casinos there (Chicago Brewing and Ellis Island). In the Arts District (an Uber drive from the Harrah’s) there are several breweries all in a row – Able Baker, Nevada Brew Works, HUDL Brewing, CraftHaus Brewing, and Hop Nuts Brewing. On a side street somewhere in this area is also Voodoo Brewing Vegas, so that’s also a possible stop.

We’ll see what all we get to, fingers crossed, but would be great to knock off quite a few new breweries from the list.

Time to Go

Okay, Marcos is just about to pull up. I’ve walked Leela, I’ve drank a Fiddlehead Imperial IPA while writing this, and it’s not even 4:30 AM yet. Here’s the kick off to what should be a great vacation! Cheers everyone! Chat with you soon, and I’ll try to keep the social media accounts busy while I’m there. I will do a full recap post once I get back, and might even do some day recaps while I’m there (I am taking my laptop), or I might write each day up individually when I get back and slice them in. We’ll see.

Alright, cheers, and see ya Pennsylvania!

Thank You For Reading

If you like this article, please check out our other many articles, including news, beer reviews, travelogues, maps, and much much more. We greatly appreciate everyone visiting the site!

Cheers.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

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

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

• MAPS OF BREWERIES

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

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

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We are also now on BlueSky as well, so make sure to check us out there also. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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

The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of August 2024.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

Nimble Giant Returns Monday June 10th (photo courtesy of Troegs Brewing)

Nimble Giant Returns Monday June 10th, 2024

As you might have seen from our Instagram account Nimble Giant will be making its awaited return on Monday, June 10th, 2024. This yearly beer by Troegs Independent Brewing is one of their most sought after and beloved beers of the year (alongside Nugget Nectar and Mad Elf). This is a bold, beautiful, strong, delicious DIPA (Double IPA), clocking in at 9.0% and knocking your socks off with how smooth, easy drinking, and wonderful it is. You can easily plow through an entire case without noticing (as Drew of Knights of Nostalgia and I can attest from Wednesday night). (You can see us drinking our Nimble Giant case during our Acolyte episode reviews – found here: Consuming Brews and Media – The Acolyte Episode 1 Review).  (And definitely check out this YouTube short and reel of YORD nonsense.)

Nimble Giant

The Nimble Giant by Troegs Independent Brewing (photo courtesy of Troegs Brewing Social Media)

Tröegs Independent Brewing is set to release its fan-favorite double IPA, Nimble Giant on Monday (June 10th, 2024). One of the independent brewery’s most beloved beers, Nimble Giant is a limited annual release that rivals the excitement generated by its iconic holiday ale, Mad Elf.

Nimble Giant began as part of Tröegs’ small-batch Scratch Series, originally experimenting with Mosaic hops. After half a dozen test batches, the Tröegs brewing team discovered a perfect hop combination: Mosaic, Simcoe, and Azacca.

“We loved our earliest trials with Mosaic,” says John Trogner, Tröegs co-founder and brewmaster. “When we started dry-hopping with Mosaic and Simcoe together, we knew we had something special. Fans would stop me on the street and rave about the Scratch batches.”

With an ABV of 9%, Nimble Giant features notes of tropical fruit, pine sap, and honeysuckle. Backed by pilsner and Vienna malts, this deep orange-hued double IPA achieves a perfect balance between malt and hops.

Nimble Giant scores an ‘Outstanding’ on BeerAdvocate and consistently ranks in the top ten trending beers on Untappd upon its release.

Nimble Giant is available on draft and in 16-oz. cans across the brewery’s entire distribution footprint. Also look for it on draft at the Troegs Brewery, as well as in select restaurants, pubs, and other locations. You can also order sixtels from the General Store at Troegs Brewery.

Beer drinkers can find Nimble Giant and other Tröegs beers near them using the Tröegs Brew Finder.

Nimble Giant cracked open and ready to be enjoyed while we record our Acolyte Episode reviews.

For More Information on Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

According to Untappd, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing is a regional brewery with 162 unique beers listed (despite their being over 500 Scratches). (A lot of vintage and variants get consolidated into single unique listings as well.) They have 2.3 Million ratings and as of 6.7.24 have a global average rating of 3.79. Their Untappd bio reads:

“Founded in Pennsylvania in 1997 by brothers John and Chris Trogner, Tröegs Independent Brewing is driven by a sense of adventure and curiosity. Our brewery has been built by family, friends and kindred spirits who share a love of great beer. Together, we all make Tröegs. You might know our Perpetual IPA, the best-selling IPA in Pennsylvania. Or the dark, malty and crisp Troegenator. You may have come across such iconic beers as Nugget Nectar or Mad Elf in your beer travels. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to try one or two of the hundreds of experimental Scratch Series beers we’ve brewed over the years. Whether you’re already a member of our extended family or you’re just getting to know our brewery, there’s always something new to discover with Tröegs.“

You can find them at the following social media pages:

• Troegs.com (Official Website)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Facebook)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Instagram)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing @ Twitter
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Untappd)

More Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Related Articles

Looking for more Troegs in your diet? Here’s some other Troegs Independent Craft Brewing related articles we’ve written:

• Troegs Brewing and Wigle Whiskey Team Up to Bring Peach Whiskey Back
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Adds 1,628 Solar Panels To Their Brewery
• Beer Review: Double Blizzard (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• The Mad Elf Gets a Face Lift – Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Changes The Mad Elf’s Look
• Troegs Brewing Releasing Cordial Elf
• Beer Review: Double Nugget Nectar (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Grand Cacao (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch 417 (Orange Lemon Peel) (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Haze Charmer (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch 400 (Pre – Prohibition Lager) (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Two Beer Review: Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Reviews: Fest Lager, Scratch 385 – Krausened Dunkel Lager, and Scratch 386 – Tangerine Passionfruit Guava Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Craft Brewery)
• Beer Review: Fuzzy Nudge (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Reviews: Scratch 382 – Blackberry Lime Tart Ale, Scratch 383 – Hazy IPA (Citra, Galaxy & Simcoe), Dear Peter, and Naked Elf (Troegs Brewing Company)
• Multiple Beer Review – Brewery Flight (Troegs) – Beers – Scratch #379 – Krausened Keller Pilsner, Scratch #378 – DIPA, Scratch #377 – Oat IPA, and Scratch #376 – Passionfruit & Guava Tart Ale
• Beer Review: Scratch 375: Coco-Nator (Troegs Independent Brewing Company)
• From Philly to Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania’s Top Craft Breweries You Must Visit
• Hershey Bears Celebrate Calder Cup Championship at Troegs Brewery
• Troegs Brewing Company Adds Hopora IPA to Their Seasonal Hop Cycle Series
• Beer Review: Tropical Stout (Troegs Independent Brewing and Windy Bridges Brewing LLC)
• Oktoberfest Lager Returns to Troegs Independent Brewing (Troegs Independent Brewing’s Oktoberfest Lager Has Returned)
• Tröegs Hop Cyclone Releases Today
• Master of Pumpkins Returns for 2023 with Over 3,000 Pounds of Fresh Local Pumpkins
• The Naked Elf Returns for 2023
• Troegs Announces Gingerbread Cookie Stout
• Troegs Brewing Adding Graffiti Highway IPA and DIPA
• Bourbon Barrel Aged Triple Nator Releasing at Troegs Brewery
• Enchilada Stuffed Peppers and Sunshine Pilsner
• Troegs Brewing to Release Second Cut in Spring 2024
• Troegs Brewing Releasing Cyclops Teardrops This Thursday
• Hops and Vines for Hunger Kick-Off Event at Troegs Brewery
• Mad Elf Set to Release on October 9th
• Troegs Independent Brewing is Releasing Scratch 500 and Scratch 501 – Double Perpetual IPA and Triple Perpetual IPA
• Tröegs Independent Brewing Mad Elf Grand Cru Returns In Limited Cork and Cage Bottles
• Tröegs Brewing Releasing the Most Wonderful Beer of the Year Sampler on Monday
• Recipe: Crispy Beer Roast Turkey (using Troegenator)
• Troegs Brewing Releasing Night Gazer Stout
• Nugget Nectar Is Being Released the Day After Christmas
• Troegs Brewing to Release Sunshine Salt and Lime Lager in 2024
• Troegs and Patagonia Collaborate for Kernza Lager Release
• Troegs Brewing and Dewey Beer Releasing a Collaboration – Adventure Was Promised
• Troegs Brewing Releases Field Study Summer IPA
• First Cut – Mango IPA – Is Coming Out on Thursday February 22nd
• Troegs Brewing Releasing Leisure Cruise
• Troegs Brewing Teaming Up with Warwick Farm and Free Will For Releases
• Troegs Brewing, AntiFragile Brewing, Sworn Brewing, and Warwick Brewing Team Up for Storm the Field IPA
• Troegs Brewing and Tonewood Brewing Collaborate for Brothers Gotta Hug
• Troegs Brewing Creating Super Duper Juicer
• Troegs Brewing Releasing Second Cut Mango Double IPA
• Bikes and Brews Returns April 27th
• Troegs Brewing Releases 15 – Can Summer Variety Pack
• Brothers Gotta Hug Releases Tomorrow (Troegs Brewing and Tonewood Brewing Collab)
• Nimble Giant Returns Monday – June 10th

Thank You For Reading

If you like this article, please check out our other many articles, including news, beer reviews, travelogues, maps, and much much more. We greatly appreciate everyone visiting the site!

Cheers.

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

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

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

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

• MAPS OF BREWERIES

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

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

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

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

The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

Majora’s Mask

A legend held dearly by the Royal Family tells of a boy… A boy who, after battling evil and saving Hyrule, crept away from the land that made him a legend… Done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey.

Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64)

And so begins Link’s tale in Majora’s Mask for the N64, (released April 27th, 2000). I remember getting the game that Halloween, I was 14, and black Mountain Dew just came out. I “manned the door” on Halloween night, handing out candy, while I played Majora’s Mask and drank probably an entire case of Black Mountain Dew.

Oh… what a glorious time.

Ocarina of Time for the N64 is still considered one of the best games ever, but Majora’s Mask was such an amazing follow up sequel to it. It was dark, it was gloomy, it was brooding, it felt new, unique, and it felt awesome.

Its a Top 5 game for me of all time, right up there with Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy 3 / 6, GoldenEye 007, etc. (I dunno if I could honestly pinpoint a Top 5 list of video games, with all the different genres, and different eras of games, etc, but I would think rotatingly Majora’s Mask, Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007, and Final Fantasy 3 / 6; would all be in that list at different points of you asking me.)

And here, on the release of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Black Flag Brewing Company asks:

You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?

Beer Review: Motueka’s Mask

Beer: Motueka’s Mask
Brewery: Black Flag Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England / Hazy
ABV: 7%
IBU: 35
Untappd Description: An ode to Zelda, the otherworldly hop profile of Motueka, Mosaic, and El Dorado will transport you to Termina as the subtly dank hop characteristics blended with mellow flaked oats and tropical haze will have even the staunchest anti-hoppers doing a double take.

Just like the game this beer is based on – Majora’s Mask – this beer (Motueka’s Mask) is a beautiful looking beer. This is about as hazy as hazy can get, but not with a ton of floating sediment, or chunks, or looking ugly. This is on the lighter scale of coloring, but it is definitely a hazy IPA, just more of a lighter straw yellow color rather than a darker yellow to orange coloring.

First whiff…. woo thats some hops you got there Link! You can smell the dankness, the hops, the floral notes, the sticky hops, and the wee bits of candy stonefruit popping your nostrils between all the other strong aromas. This smells just as a wonderful as it is beautiful. Certainly doesn’t smell like the Deku Deku bogs!

Now lets take a deep Zora dive into the beer. Light, almost pillowy body. It takes a few moments after a sip, then a blast of stonefruit candy flavor. Very sticky and drying. Floral flavors upon warming. Overall, a soft, lightly hazy beer with a pleasant bouquet of flavors all artfully arranged like a Hyrulian map for you to explore. The flavors of this is as deep as a Goron forge but as vibrant as a map drawn by Tingle. There is a slight greenness to it yet; a little grass taste, a bitter citrus, and a little light. It is soft and the mouthfeel is a little bit light, would have kinda liked a bit more body from this, but there is certainly no off flavors, nothing detracting from the beer. The 7% ABV isn’t on the high end of beers (for example – Troegs Brewing Perpetual IPA is a 7.5%) but its not exactly a crushable beer as well, a four pack of this will carry you through a good solid session of Tears of the Kingdom or through a play through of Majora’s Mask; but you’ll certainly be feeling it at the end. Its a nice hazy, juicy IPA that will serve you well while hunting shrines and koroks in the vast Hyrule world of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. So grab a pint, get your Ultrahand ready, and tackle the game and this delicious beer!

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Average Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 5.12.23)

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – the long awaited sequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild comes out today.

And with that, we’re taking a deep dive of looking at Zelda and Craft Beer. You can find that article here:

• Zelda and Craft Beer

Also, Drew (Knights of Nostalgia), Josh (Mastermind X Studios), and myself will be on Drew’s Knights of Nostalgia streaming page tonight playing the game. You can find his page here:

• Knights of Nostalgia | Facebook

Discord

You can now find us on Discord. Its a fun server for us all to hang out on and discuss craft beer, books, video games, movies, and much more. Check it out here:

• The Beer Thrillers – Discord Server

All of Our Nerd Content

Here’s all of our nerd content, served up best in one single place. Enjoy!

I know ya’ll here for the nerd reviews. So check out our other nerd reviews below:

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing) (Batch 1)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Tatooine Tart (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: RAWRGWAWGGR (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Droid Juice (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Wookies and Cream (Tall Tales 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)
• Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
• Beer Review: BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Mead Review: The Meadalorian (Space Time Mead and Cider Works)
• Beer Review: Let the Haze Flow Through You (Black Flag Brewing Co)
• Book Review: The Jedi Path and The Book of the Sith (Daniel Wallace)
• Book Review: Guardians of the Whills (Greg Rucka)
• May the Fourth Be With You (2022)
• RAR Out of Order Star Wars Drop!
• Beer Review: Vader (Mispillion River Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Green Milk (RAR Brewing Company) (Batch 1)
• Beer Review: The Phantasm Menace (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• RAR Brewing – Out of Order – Star Wars Can Drop (2023)
• May the Fourth Be With You (2023)

Lord of the Rings:

• Book Review: An Atlas of Tolkien (David Day)
• Book Review: The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Zelda:

• Zelda and Craft Beer
• Beer Review: Motueka’s Mask (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Rick and Morty:

• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Space Balls:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Game of Thrones:

• Beer Review: Game of Thrones: My Watch Has Ended (Omnegang Brewery)
• Book Review: The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister (George R.R. Martin)

The Simpsons:

• Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Ned Flanders Red (AleCraft Brewery)

Back to the Future:

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

Scrooged:

• Beer Review: Scrooge IPA (Iron Hill Brewing)

Groundhog Day:

• Beer Review: Prognosticator Pils (Logyard Brewing Company)
• Logyard Brewing’s Prognosticator Pils is the Official Beer of Groundhog Day (2022)

A Christmas Story:

• Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)

The Peanuts:

• Book Review: The Philosophy of Snoopy (Charles M. Schulz)
• Book Review: You Don’t Look 35, Charlie Brown! (Charles M. Schulz)

Pro Wrestling:

• Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)
• Beer Review: Royal Rumble (Funk Brewing)
• Stone Cold Steve Austin and the WWE Are Celebrating 3:16 Day

Soccer:

• Beer Review: Pulisic Pilsner (Jackass Brewing Company)
• Book Review: Pulisic – My Journey So Far (Christian Pulisic)

World Cup:

• Qatar Bans Alcohol Sales at World Cup in Last Second Decision
• Breweries Opening Early For the USA vs Netherlands World Cup Ga

Phillies:

• Drunk Phils Fans and Rotunda Brewing Company Collaborate Together on Jam the Batter sWheat Tart

Matrix:

• Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

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

HP Lovecraft / Cthulhu:

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

Seinfeld:

• Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Other:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
• Beer Review: Intergalactic Deals (Levante Brewing)
• Beer Review: Galactic Space Circus (Creature Comforts Brewing Co)
• Beer Review: The Death of Civilization in Slow Motion I (Ghost 907) (Adroit Theory)

Thank You For Reading

Thank you all very much for reading. Been a busy week! We always appreciate having you here at the blog, make sure to check out our other articles!

Have you gotten to play Majora’s Mask? Or Tears of the Kingdom? Let us know what you thought about either game!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Like I always say at the end of these articles — thanks for reading. We appreciate all the views and visitors! Let us know what you think of the site and the blog, and how we could improve it!

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

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

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The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

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Mead

Hang in there with me on this one, for this is my first mead review here on the blog. I was originally just gonna keep it the same “Beer Review: The Meadalorian” but thought about it some, and decided with it being mead, that it needed its own category and section, so thus – Mead Review rather than Beer Review for the title of the article. So this is my first mead review here on the blog (as a direct full review).

I picked up the mead when we visited Scranton and stopped at the meadery completely by happenstance. You can read about our trip to Scranton. “Travelogue: Scrambling around Scranton.” The Space Time meadery was a cool little hang out, we tasted and sampled several of the meads, and the store inside was decked out very cool (especially if your a space nerd). Fully recommend stopping in if you are in the Scranton area.

As I’ve said, this is my first time reviewing mead fully on here, I will do it similar to that of beer reviews, but just let it be forewarned that while I enjoy mead, I am not nearly as much of a connoisseur of mead or as knowledgeable about mead as I am about beer. (If I can really be said to be knowledgeable about beer either.) So just take this for what it is then.

Star Wars

This is week three of my doing Star Wars themed beer reviews (every Wednesday until the completion of ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ I will be doing a Star Wars themed beer – or in this case mead – review). Previously I’ve covered:

• Beer Review: BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Tatooine Tart (RAR Brewing)

I have done plenty of other Star Wars themed beers as well, and they’ll be linked at the end of this article.

Just like last week, you can join in on the discussion forums about The Book of Boba Fett, by going to these forums:

• The Book of Boba Fett (Official Discussion) (Star Wars CCG Forums)
• The Book of Boba Fett (Discussion) – Game FAQS (Star Wars)
• The Book of Boba Fett (Official Discussion) – Game FAQs (TV Forums)
• The Book of Boba Fett – Episode 3 Discussion – The Jedi Council Forums (The Force . Net)

Despite what the timer says on my stove in the beer picture (…yes…. I haven’t set the timer on it yet…. my microwave hasn’t been set either, that just blinks 00:00 at me; the stove is just completely way off), I uncorked this mead at 9PM and started drinking it then. I had gotten off work at 6PM, had dinner with my parents, and came home to have this so I could write up the review and be all ready to go with it before having to go to work on Wednesday – the next day.

Firstly, let me say I don’t have a wine pen or wine opener, or de-corker, or whatever fancy term they use. I am about as far from a wine enthusiast or expert as they come. So I used a screwdriver, and in the process, ended up making a mess of wood, and dropping the cork down in. ….as Vonnegut would say – So It Goes.

While enjoying my adult beverage, my friend over at The Knights of Nostalgia – Drew – streamed the second part of his Majora’s Mask randomizer, and I watched / listened as I played a game of SW:CCG on GEMP.

I’ve recently gotten back into SW:CCG and started looking up the cards on GEMP and playing games on there (three games so far, 1-2 so far). GEMP is an online format to play the old SW:CCG game (Star Wars Customizable Card Game). You can find the site and program here: GEMP-SWCCG. The PC (Players Committee) oversees it, and runs the program and website, and also offers several tournaments through it (especially now with COVID-19 and the pandemic, which has caused a lot less gaming in person, and has driven many more players to the online tournaments). I built an AOBS deck for DS (Agents of the Black Sun) and a Communing deck based around Qui-Gon for LS.

So I got a game in last night while sipping this delicious mead (I lost, by 15 Force Differential. I played against a Shadow Collective deck, which was based primarily on the Crimson Dawn from the Solo movie). I haven’t played the game in roughly 7 – to – 8 years, so there was a lot of reading cards in this game, and despite not knowing what 98% of them did, I think I somewhat held my own.

But enough about my blabbering about nerd crap, let’s get to the review.

Mead Review

Mead: The Meadalorian
Brewery: Space Time Mead and Cider Works
Style: Mead – Traditional
ABV: 12.1%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This is the way! A medium dry/semi sweet traditional mead using Locust blossom honey. A nice replacement for a semi dry white grape wine!

Space Time Mead and Cider Works is located in Dunmore; basically the suburbs of Scranton. They have 62 unique beers (or meads) and have a total of 707 ratings. They are considered a Meadery. They have a global average rating of 3.93 as of 1.11.22. Their Untappd description reads: “Space Time Mead & Cider Works’ mission is to produce the highest quality and innovative craft mead (honey wine), cider, and wine in a manner that respects the past and works for a better future, while living in the present.”

Aroma for this is a wonderful grape like, dry wine smell. Its got a dry wine smell that really hits, but at closer whiff, it gives off a lovely sweet smelling of honey. I picture it like a good Thanksgiving wine, one that is dueling with its dryness and sweetness at the same time.

Appearance is crystal clear with a light off clear / yellow hue to it. Like a dry grape wine coloring. Or similar to champagne. Which it also has some of the sparkling and bubbles of champagne, especially after pouring or moving the glass around. It looks honeyed. Its clear and translucent (with the hue that it has), a slight haze cloudiness to it (almost oil like way of looking through it like clear dry wine has when looking through glasses of white wine). It swishes around in the glass nicely.

Oooooh boy, for someone who isn’t a traditional mead drinker, or wine drinker, this has got some kick to it. I mean, I enjoy a high ABV beer (in fact, I actually LOVE the higher ABV beers, particularly stouts), but this kicks and hits in a different way. Not bad! Just not the way this ol’ country bumpkin beer drinker is used to (thats all)! I am totally digging it though (like a Tusken Raider prisoner digging for some black fruits for their milk in a hot Tatooine desert). This is dry…. dry like…. Tatooine? (Oh… what a theme I’m building here! I’m a regular Billy Shakespeare.) It has a white grape, dry, wine line taste, but mixed with a honeyed sweetness. Like the two are married together… stuck in a perpetual orbit…. like two Twin Suns over a hot planet….. BOOOM! NAILED IT AGAIN! (Am I killing it with these analogies or what?!). This is certainly refreshing to my palate of beers, and I am really enjoying it. It does certainly taste boozy (and it should at 12.1%) but I also feel like most / if not all meads typically taste boozy (even the lower ABV ones). This is a warming drink, as in it just makes you warm up drinking it, and flushes them cheeks right up. And as the mead itself warms up and settles in the glass, I think it tastes even better. There is a slight crispness to it, but the sweetness really overrides the dryness and crispness and finishes it out. There’s no bad aftertaste, and no cotton mouth like I’ve had with some dry wines in the past. The mouth feel felt just right, nothing cloying, nothing too heavy or watery. Everything about this was just good, from the first sip to the last and just felt good. Was a wonderful drink from the top of the glass to the bottom and I certainly enjoyed every single second of it (even while losing my game, and listening to Drew getting stuck and frustrated on his Majora’s Mask randomizer). This was great. If you have the chance are in the Scranton / Dunmore area, make sure you stop in at Space Time Mead and Cider works. The owner is a wonderful dude and knows his stuff, and is a huge space nerd (so right there is a win in my books). I have a Futurama mead from them yet to review as well, which I will probably be doing in the days to come.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Average Untappd Rating: 4.23 (as of 1.12.22)

Some YouTube Videos

Looking for some background info on The Book of Boba Fett, or just more fun YouTube videos? Check these out:

Star Wars and Legos

As you may have noticed, I am getting more and more into Star Wars Legos and using them more and more in the pictures for these Star Wars beers. Legos are the newer, more hipster, more fun version of the old school models our dads built and made. Or their better puzzles. Or… their just plain freaking cool and fun. Take your pick. But needless to say, I am addicted to buying more and more Lego sets and building more and more of them. To see some of the sets, and to see some of my Star Wars pics, and just our travels and beer pics in general, make sure to follow us on Instagram:

• The Beer Thrillers on Instagram

The Book of Boba Fett

I am going to refrain from discussing this week’s episode too much here. But I will say, there is a few interesting things, and I won’t really spoil them. Overall, I wasn’t a huge fan of this week’s episode. But I do like that they progressed the present timeline storyline much more than they have in the past. Some interesting cameos and surprise actors, some homages, and the typical Star Wars cliches abound. Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. Will be interested in what you all think of this week’s episode.

Wanna check out more nerdy beers we’ve reviewed?

If you are interested in our other nerdy, pop culture, and branded beer reviews, you can check out the following:

Star Wars:

• Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
• Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Out of Order: Tatooine Tart (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)
• Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
• Beer Review: BoBull Fett (Bolero Snort Brewery)
• Mead Review: The Meadalorian (Space Time Mead and Cider Works)
• Book Review: The Jedi Path and The Book of the Sith (Daniel Wallace)

Rick and Morty:

• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

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)
• Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)

Pro Wrestling:

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

Matrix:

• Matrix Monday

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

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

Seinfeld:

• Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
• Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)

Other:

• Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
• Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
• Beer Review: Intergalactic Deals (Levante Brewing)
• Beer Review: Galactic Space Circus (Creature Comforts Brewing Co)

Thanks for Reading

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you!

If you like Star Wars and like our Star Wars themed beers, be sure to check out every Wednesday while The Book of Boba Fett is airing, as I will do a new Star Wars themed beer each week!

Thanks for reading, and cheers everyone!

-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, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Got word from Drew this morning, as well as some updates from him while at the brewfest for day two (Session 2 of 3). Everything went smoothly he said Friday night. Him, David, and A. Parys (thesugarfoot) got to AC Friday, and enjoyed Ocean’s Casino and Resort before going to the brewfest itself at the Bader Field Ballpark.

He sent me some messages last night around 8 – 9PM (Session 1 of the brewfest was 8PM – 12 Midnight – Friday, June 4th). He said they made a beeline for Kelsey Grammer’s tent and brewery (Faith American Brewing Company). He said he was nice and talked a little and then they moved on.

By 10:30 PM or so, when messaging him, I asked him if there were any good beers or brews at the event and he said there was but he was “too drunk to remember which ones or where”. I expected nothing less from my faithful and diligent correspondent, doing his research thoroughly.

I asked Drew how the layout was with the event moving to the outdoors – at the Bader Field Ballpark – rather than the inside at the Atlantic City Convention Center; and he said it feels much more spaced out, he’s not sure if there’s less breweries this year, but that it almost feels that way. He said the area looks like an old airport runway and is nice for the event. The stage area was nice and everything looked good and spaced out.

Drew, Dave, and Andrew all had a blast from day one. They are doing the “HopTrot 5K” tomorrow before Session 2 of the brewfest (12 Noon – 4PM). I’ll have an update, with pictures from the event for tomorrow’s post.

You can see the first article of the series here: “The Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival 2021“.

Cheers!

-B. Kline
Correspondent: D. Scott

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!

It has been a long crazy road to get back to this point – brewfests again! Live, interaction, with other human beings, in public, in person. ……and I wish so badly I could go. But sadly, this year has been a giant monkeywrench unforeseen, just like last year, and I will be sadly missing out on the AC Brewfest this year.

Last year’s event was cancelled due to COVID-19 / coronavirus, as was most of everything else last year. Typically the AC Brewfest is in April (usually the first weekend), and so it was hit right at the time COVID-19 really hit America, and was postponed to August of 2020, but as the summer came and we all realized that in – person events were not a good idea, it was cancelled / postponed until now.

Last year, the event was cancelled, the year before that, Drew and I went, and the year before that, Drew, Rory, and I went. Both of those times, we did two sessions – the Friday night 8PM – 12 Midnight session, and then the Saturday session, which both times was also the earlier session. So its certainly a ‘hard on the liver weekend’. Unfortunately, this year, I am unable to go, due to events from earlier in the year, but Drew as a correspondent here of The Beer Thrillers will be going.

In the past, we stayed at Baily’s and went to the Convention Center (by walking) to go to the brewfest. This year, however, the event has been moved to an outdoor venue – the Bader Field Ballpark. Would have been interesting to see it in it’s new venue. Hopefully this will keep some social distancing and help alleviate some of the issues with COVID-19 and everything.

This was also going to be the first year that we were going to do the 5K on Saturday. They host an annual 5K as part of the brewfest, where doing the 5K gets you a little bit of extra time inside the brewfest to start your drinking early….. assuming 1) you survive the 5K, and 2) you get done in a timely manner. Let’s see how Drew does this year.

This is a two day event, with live music, events, games, podcasts, a beard and hair barber; and much more. In the past there were Wipeout like obstacle courses, mazes, hatchet throwing, food trucks, silent raves / discos, and much more.

Of course, live music is a big feature of the event. In past years they’ve had some big band names; one of which was the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones that we got to see in 2018. Last year’s event was supposed to have New Found Glory, but they did not return for this year’s event after last year’s was cancelled.

For more information, you can check out the Facebook Events page here: Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival Events Page. Jon Henderson does an amazing job running this event and puts so much effort and time into it, so its so great to see it up and running again, as this year’s events start to come back to life and breweries can get back out to doing brewfests, beer events, and tap takeovers again.

The information listed on the events page reads:

“Here are the dates for 15th Atlantic City Beer & Music Festival. Session 1 Friday, June 4th – The Early November / Knuckle Puck
Session 2 Saturday, June 5th 12pm – 4pm – Less Than Jake
Session 3 Saturday, June 5th 6pm – 10p – Face To FaceWow, what a crazy year it’s been full of unwanted postponements and cancelations. Good Time Tricycle Productions is excited to announce a fun and necessary changes to the 2021 festival initially slated for April 9th and 10th at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
The Festival team has been working closely with Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, the City of Atlantic City, Meet AC, Spectra, and the CRDA to bring you the first outdoor Atlantic City Beer & Music Festival to be held on Bader Field June 4th and 5th 2021. We are excited about the opportunity to host our festival on the 142-acre piece of property, allowing for producers to create a fun interactive celebration while also enabling the festivities to be spread out for an open-air experience. As a productions company, we are confident that we can maintain attendee safety while delivering the experience that some have come to expect from The Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival. Here are a few things you need to know (or answers to questions you may have)
• All tickets purchased for the 2020 festival will be honored for the June 2021 dates.
• Tickets on sale January 15th
• Refunds are available until March 9th. Head to your Ticketmaster account and request your refund.
• New Musical acts will be announced on March 22nd. (all headliners for 2020 are unavailable for the 2021 date)
• HOPS Trot 5k June 5th
• Ticket prices will increase to $65 plus fees on May 1st.This, like all things related to Covid is a fluid situation. We are optimistically moving forward with all the fun and shenanigans the festival holds. To be candid we are #hellbentonbeerfest! We will keep you updated as we progress. For more information on the festival, including Covid processes and procedure, please visit www.acbeerfest.com Stay awesome and be excellent to each other. 100 brewers and thousands of friends stay tuned for updates.
Tix: linktr.ee/acbeerfest or at JOE CANAL’S DISCOUNT LIQUOR – EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP locations on Fire Rd or Black Horse Pike.”

Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival Facebook

According to the events page, 4K are listed as ‘going’ and 13.2K are listed as ‘interested’ in the event. (In the twenty minutes of writing this article, its actually gone up to 4.1K listed as ‘going’ now.)

Drew is leaving today at noon-ish with Rome, possibly A. Parys and maybe a few others. Hopefully, next year I’ll be able to rejoin the fun and festivities. Drew will be sending pictures and comments and videos back, both for here on the blog, and his video game streaming page – Knights of Nostalgia – so be on the lookout for those updates. Next Saturday (June 12th) is the Renaissance Faire brewfest, which I will also be missing, but Drew will be attending, and will give us updates on as well. So be on the lookout for these articles.

So be sure to check tomorrow morning for Day 1 comments / correspondence / clips / pics of the AC Brewfest, and then Sunday for Day 2 of the event.

As always, make sure to check out our social media pages to stay up to date on everything going on with The Beer Thrillers.

Summer is here and events are starting to happen, what are some cool events you all know of? What all events are everyone going to? Let us know in the comments!

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!

Thanks for reading!

-B. Kline

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)

I had originally ran out to Harrisburg because I had to go to the DMV to renew my license, only to find out that I now have to go to Enola to renew my license and they are open Tuesday through Saturday (which… of course… today is a Monday). So I walked my dog along the Green Belt and the Riverfront, taking her over to City Island and back, and then decided I’d hit up ZeroDay Brewing. Well… I forgot they are doing the renovations and reconstruction on the old ZeroDay Brewery on Reily Street, and that their new current location doesn’t open til 4PM; so that was obviously a no – go. So I drove home, dropped off Leela, and met Drew and Andy at Troegs.

Sadly, they did not have a cranberry beer, so I only have a cranberry / lemon or lime or something gose I picked up from Urban Artifact for this year’s Thanksgiving. Typically, Troegs does a cranberry every year for Thanksgiving, usually a porter, sometimes something different, and I try to pick up a 4 pack or 6 pack or a crowler of it for the meal. Also, in recent months, it seems Troegs has also really slowed up on their scratch series. Pre-COVID they were doing a new scratch release every Thursday (or nearly every Thursday; and even sometimes doubling up and releasing two on a Thursday), but it seems now they have really slowed up their scratch series, and are releasing them intermittently.

So there was a bit of a dearth in ‘new’ beers for me to try at Troegs today. I was afraid I’d have to drink more when I got home just to hit my requirement of a new beer today, but, I am being a bit cheeky and calling my Mad Elf and Mad Elf Grand Cru picks as ‘new’ since they are technically the Mad Elf (2020) and Mad Elf Grand Cru (2020) vintages. Bit of a loophole… but I’m taking it.

Troegs has slacked a bit on their uptight mandates as well. No longer needing to check into the host and waiting for a text to be seated, and no longer having to “all be together” before seating, I was able to meet up with Drew and Andy who were already seated. Drew ordered a pork waffle thing (no clue), and Andy got fries, I just drank. I had a draft of the Grand Cacao, followed by the Coco-Nator, then the Mad Elf Grand Cru (2020) and the Mad Elf (2020). Funny thing – the very first beer review on the blog here was the scratch Coco-Nator released a year and a half ago – Scratch #375 – Coco-Nator. They then released it later last year as a new seasonal – Coco-Nator, and now its been re-released for the first time this year. And now, here I am, also enjoying a Grand Cacao that I will be doing as another review for Troegs on the blog. (And here I was just thinking to myself how it’s been a ‘hot minute’ since I’ve done a Troegs beer review.) Its almost like coming full circle….

The nice thing about doing the thirty blogs in thirty days thing, is that it gives me a chance to do a lot of reviews I might have skipped, and to really hit a lot of local breweries for the reviews. Getting to do a Tattered Flag one (The Pandalorian) as a recent local brewery beer review. You can see all of my November 2020 posts here: November 2020. Its fun to do a mix-up of local brewery reviews to get the name out and to help promote and because its obviously what I’m drinking, as well as doing some bigger name ones that are maybe from further away breweries or just bigger known beers or breweries, like the Yuengling Hershey Porter or Aslin’s Isolation Anniversary, or Elder Pine Brewing and Blending’s Villeinage.

Troegs Independent Brewing has always put out very strong beers, solid, hard to ignore, hard to hate beers. They are also the biggest local craft brewery in the Central PA area. One of the biggest producers in Pennsylvania, and the East Coast alone. They are often talked about, and one of the more well known breweries. So its great having them theoretically “right in our backyard”. When I was coming of age (of drinking…. legally) (at 21), they were the first real craft brewery that I got into (not counting Sam Adams) and was really the first brewery I visited and went to often. I don’t get to them as much as I used to, and there’s a ton more options now in the area, but they are still a solid brewery.

So let’s break down this latest seasonal beer from Troegs Brewing:

Beer: Grand Cacao
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Stout – Milk / Sweet
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description:

Welcome to Grand Cacao. This deliciously decadent stout is built on a foundation of rich chocolate malt, caramel malt and roasted barley. Cold-steeping on Peruvian cacao nibs and natural vanilla doubles down on the smooth symphony of chocolate, and a splash of milk sugar delivers a velvety sweet and creamy finish.
We taste: milk chocolate, roasty grain, hints of sweet cream

As per usual with a stout, this is dark black, jet fuel black, Razor Ramon hair black. Stephen Hawking black hole black. Black as my….. (oh…. thats too easy….) ….anyway… moving on from the apt description of somebody’s heart and soul that I know….. This is a dark black beer. It had a nice creamy foam head to it, not big, but not small, nice carbonation, and nice lacing on the glass. Good bubbles that were diverse and varied in size.

The aroma is very chocolaty, very cacao, very baker’s chocolate. As me and Drew and Andy were discussing, like with the Yuengling Hershey’s Porter, which is a super sweet chocolate, we kind of (the three of us in consensus) agreed, that we prefer a more bitter baker’s chocolate to a chocolate stout. This smells just like that. This has more of the bitter, earthy, nib, roasted malt, chocolate smell to it.

Taste is surprisingly smooth, but its not the overly sweet Hershey’s syrupy / syrup taste that the above porter has. Despite this being smooth, silky, and creamy, its more of the bitter chocolate notes. The roasted malt and caramel also gives it a very deeper, darker tone and flavor, and brings out more of the bitter and earthy notes, rather than the sweet chocolate. That not to say that this isn’t sweet or creamy or smooth or silky, it is all of those things and more. I think there’s just more complexity to the flavor in that it provides a bitter chocolate taste, while being creamy and smooth and silk and sweet. A nice complexion and degree of difference between the vanilla and the bitter, between the sweet and the bitter, between the cacao nibs and the vanilla and milk sugar. This tastes more like the hot cocoa you get at a football game once the negative 10 degrees sets in fully and turns your hot cocoa into ….well… regular cocoa. Or the milk after a very chocolaty cereal and you ate all the cereal and are now draining the bowl of its chocolatey milk. This is also a pretty crushable drink too. I could easily down a six pack of the 12oz cans of these (thanks Deuane for the can by the way), or if they ever re-release it in four pack at 16oz cans, I could drink a few of them in that size as well. The 6.5% is pretty low (lower than Troegs own Perpetual IPA – their flagship and staple beer and IPA), so its enough to give you a good surprising buzz after a can or two, but not enough to send you hurting for a hangover the next day. (Jokes on my buddies too, telling me I’ll end up with a headache and hangover from the Mad Elf Grand Cru and Mad Elf I had after the Coco-Nator and Grand Cacao…. I don’t get hangovers anymore……..) A low ABV but high flavor stout is always perfect for the fall months and fall weather leading into the more wintry weather and months. This will go great for Thanksgiving and Christmas parties… I mean…. your own personal home get together’s of Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Not sure if this will become a seasonal regular for Troegs or if this was a one-shot done deal, but if it does become a seasonal regular each year, I will certainly be looking forward to it. Make sure you stop out at the brewery for some of this, not sure if the cans are hitting the distributors or stores, but its at the brewery, and its also on draft at the brewery, so make sure you at least get a try of it before it disappears.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.87 (as of 11.23.20)

This turned into a rather longer winded beer review than I intended, but hopefully you stuck around for it, as its now dragged me from 11PM when I started this til just a wee bit after midnight – 12 – so I’m still counting this as upholding my ‘post’ for the day of the 23rd. (Especially since the time stamp and posting of this is based on when the article was started, so I fly by on a technicality there.)

Be sure to check out some of my other Troegs beer reviews:

• Beer Review: Haze Charmer (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch #417 – Orange – Lemon Peel IPA (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch #400 – Pre – Prohibition Lager (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch #394, Scratch #395, Scratch #396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Two Beer Review: Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Fest Lager, Scratch #385 Krausened Dunkel Lager, and Scratch #386 Tangerine – Passionfruit – Guava Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Fuzzy Nudge (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch #382 Blackberry Lime Tart Ale, Scratch #383 Hazy IPA (Citra, Galaxy, and Simcoe), Dear Peter, and Naked Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch #379 Krausened Keller Pilsner, Scratch #378 DIPA, Scratch #377 Oat IPA, and Scratch #376 Passionfruit and Guava Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch #375 Coco-Nator (Troegs Independent Brewing)

For those interested in the Trip to Indianapolis, you can read more through the following articles (some full length articles, some recap articles):

The Trip to Indianapolis – Full Articles:

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

The Trip to Indianapolis – Recap Articles:

• 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

As always everyone, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the beer review and your time here at The Beer Thrillers. Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, and if you want, comment or ask any questions please feel free to do so. Love hearing from you all.

Also be sure to stay safe this Thanksgiving week, with COVID-19 and everything going on, this is going to be a tough week, and one where everyone needs to do their best to stay safe and healthy.

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!

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!

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