Yesterday Tattered Flag Brewing and Distillery announced that they are the latest craft brewery in Pennsylvania to jump into the shipping game. Following breweries like Levante Brewing, Tired Hands Brewing, The Larimeer, and many others, Tattered Flag will also now be shipping to all of Pennsylvania.

While some breweries have been able to ship out of Pennsylvania, currently Tattered Flag is limited to Pennsylvania only, this is still a huge step for both the brewery and fans of great craft beer the whole state over. For people as far as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, it can be hard to get your hands on Tattered Flag, so this is a great way for them to be able to try their amazing beers and spirits.

This is not just limited to their award winning craft beers, but also their award winning spirits like their Tequila and Vodkas and their other great liquors.

They dropped this bombshell at roughly 3PM yesterday, and this was their press release on their official Facebook page:

“Introducing Tattered Flag Supply Drop – your online source for DIRECT SHIPPING of Tattered Flag’s award-winning Beer, Spirits, and Ready To Drink Canned Cocktails! Head to www.tatteredflagsupplydrop.com to create your account and place your first order! FREE SHIPPING on orders of $75 or more! We are now accepting PRE-ORDERS for shipping on Wednesday, September 9th! To celebrate, we are releasing a limited supply of our Reposado Agave (barrel aged tequila) for purchase on the website only!#tatteredflagsupplydrop#directshipping#beer#spirits#toyourfrontdoor” (with the above image)

So if you are in the state of Pennsylvania and haven’t been able to try their fantastic beers yet, be sure to jump on this fantastic new way of getting to try them, and make sure to take advantage of the free shipping (on orders over 75$).

Its great seeing some of the success stories coming out of COVID for some of these local great breweries, like Tattered Flag, and some others that are expanding or opening soon (like Rubber Soul in Hummelstown soon due to open) and The Englewood.

Be sure to check out the many beer reviews of Tattered Flag’s beers we’ve done here on the blog to get an idea of what you can order from them.

Lots of big news coming soon here to the blog, so please stay tuned, especially if you live locally in the 717 area!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Tickle Parts might be one of the best known beers for Levante Brewing Company; and for good reason. It is a wonderfully well done IPA that is extremely tasty. And usually when a brewery has a super strong, very good beer that gets lots of and lots of positive feedback; they release several variants throughout the years on it. And this just so happens to be one of those variants. This being Passionfruit. Same Tickle Part goodness plus added passionfruit. Does it hold up? Does the addition of passionfruit make it better …. or worse?

Lets find out!

Beer: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Tickle Parts is an exceptionally dry-hopped New England IPA, with low bitterness, rising hop aroma and a feathery-soft mouthfeel. Anticipate chunks of pineapple and tender clementine juices from the base beer before extracurricular waves of tangy passionfruit burst into existence, ensuring Tickle Parts Passion’s place in the sate-lunar-landscape.

Appearance is a cloudy hazy orange. Exactly like the original tickle parts this looks just as hazy, just as cloudy, just as unfiltered, just as orange, just as delicious.

Aroma is a combination of fruits and hops. You got a lot of citrusy hop notes bouncing around your nostrils, and you get a lot of fruity notes as well, mostly orange, pineapple, and softer clementine. You also get a big burst of passionfruit as soon as you crack the tab on this bad boy, it just explodes out.

This is a soft, pillowy, sweet, fruity, delicious NEIPA. You get all kinds of strong notes and soft notes that work to create a complex soft, juicy drink. You get strong bursting flavor notes of citrus, passionfruit, pineapple, and hop. You get soft notes of clementine, tangerine, orange, and a slight hop. This is smooth, this is not boozy and at 7% its an easy drink and won’t really get you hammered either. The mouthfeel is nice, its soft, its pillowy, its not heavy, its just playful and nice.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 11.19.19)

Chugging away here in November. 19 days down, and 19 blogs done. That makes only 11 more. This month is certainly going fast! Enjoy it all! And Happy International Men’s Day. If your struggling with mental illness, issues, or anything, talk to someone. You don’t need to “man up”.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

Another style underrepresented here on the blog and in beer reviews in general is the pilsner. I’ve done a few reviews of them, but they’ve been exclusively in multiple beer review posts where I’m doing a flight or reviewing two or more beers at once. But I was gifted a can of this by J. Hoak after his Halloween party from when he and Tattered Flag did their collaboration with Levante Brewing Company. So thats’ gonna change now… its time to do a review of a pilsner!

Beer: Birra Di Levante
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: Pilsner – Other
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 32
Untappd Write-Up: A fine Pils is crafted from water with terroir. West Chester provides our brewery with such a pure water source that we hardly manipulate our water profile to achieve the characteristics of a true Bohemian-style Pilsner, lagered and further clarified through filtration. True to classic style, Tettnang hops brighten this crisp golden-straw hue Pils with earthy aromatics of noble spice.

Levante Brewing Company is probably best known for Tickle Parts (IPA); which as I write this blog, I’m currently drinking a variant of it (Tickle Parts Passionfruit IPA). But this pilsner certainly deserves recognition and should be mentioned when discussing some great beers that Levante has made. Pilsners for a long time are one of my ‘weird’ categories of beers or styles of beers; where it can go either way with little wiggle room. Either pilsners have a weird taste to me and its just off putting and I can’t drink it, or their extremely good and I could down a six pack in no time flat.

Luckily, this one falls more on the “how many cans do I have in the fridge? …thats not enough!” side of things.

Appearance for this is crystal clear light straw. Similar to the Newfangled Brew Works Lager I reviewed yesterday; this is clear, crisp looking, with nice bubbles, and good lacing on the glass afterwards. Great carbonation coming out of the can.

Aroma is light beer fare, but with some earthy undertones to it. Once again, similar to the Lager and similar to lagers and pilsners in general, this just has that ‘beer’ smell to it. The stereotypical, prototypical, nondescript ‘beer’ smell one associates with beer, when ‘cracking open a cold one’ after a long day’s work. There is some spices that you can get a faint hint of, earthy herbal spices, but they are pretty faint and more of an undertone than something to stand out.

Taste is clean, crisp, clear, straight forward pilsner. Not too many frills or sillyness with this beer. Light and low in ABV at only 4.9%, this is what a simple clear crisp refreshing beer should taste like. This is easily crushable and would make for a wonderful fantastic six-pack beer for a game or mowing the yard. There is a nice hoppy taste to this that kicks this up a bit of a notch from your generic or average pilsner, or lager, or lite beer. Certainly over the corporate swill of Coors, Bud, Miller.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.64 (as of 11.18.19)

This passionfruit Tickle Parts is super good too, you can probably look for this to be the review tomorrow, so keep your antennas ready to check out the site for when it drops! Hopefully before work (makes it easier), so check around 10AM.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

I got to pick up this book by Dr. Alison E. Feeney last Thursday at the Mid-Town Scholar ahead of her panel discussion (alongside Hannah Ison, Jeffrey Musselman, and Sara Bozich). You can read about that here: “For The Love of Beer – Panel Discussion“. It was a fun and entertaining (and informative) night at the Mid-Town Scholar getting to listen to the three of them discuss breweries, beer, brewing, and community.

And that is the heart of this book. Communities. Even moreso than the breweries this is ‘about’, the heart of the book though is communities. And at the heart of a lot of communities, and growing, is craft breweries. Breweries, in particular craft breweries, are the seat of many things in communities now adays. Places like Boneshire, Moo-Duck, Troegs, and many other breweries that give back to their communities through charities and other activities. Breweries like ZeroDay and Millworks that act like centerpieces for revitalization of downtown areas.

There is so much to love about craft breweries and what all they do (and can do). And Dr. Feeney’s book covers that so well. From revitalizing downtown areas, or old historic buildings, to providing a center and a place for a community, to being an employment opportunity for the local town, to sustainability and environmental help, providing spent grain for local farmers, to helping charities, to hosting events, to having delicious food, to having local ingredients, etc, there is so much that breweries do for their local communities.

Dr. Alison Feeney has traveled all across Pennsylvania checking out various breweries, hop farms, malts, grains, communities, universities, etc, and has gotten a feel for the state, its history, its brewing industry, and the breweries and the people. She’s interviewed tons of people, she’s talked to customers, brewers, hop growers, home brew shop owners, just about everyone you can think of attached to the industry.

The book covers a lot of different breweries across the state. From big to little. From regional powerhouses like Victory and Troegs to smaller localized shops like Moo-Duck, Boneshire, Bonn Place, etc. She has traveled all across the state, all of the regions covered.

There is a wealth of information in the book detailing the history of beer, the history of brewing, the history of Pennsylvania, and brewing and beer in Pennsylvania, as well as a wealth of information and knowledge on brewing, the beer industry, and hops and other things in general. There is a ton of information on the breweries she’s visited as well, small details like the beers they have, or the information on how they restored the buildings they occupied, or little bits and info on the brewers or their styles.

The book is filled with pictures and images from all assortments of things, like hops, to the various breweries, to beer, to the workers at the breweries, to signs, to locations, etc. These pictures help fill in an overall image and idea of the breweries from across the state for those who haven’t gotten to visit them yet. Also with each brewery mentioned there is a small map of Pennsylvania showing where its located with an actual address as well. Its not a complete map of every brewery, and Dr. Feeney even states at the beginning that she isn’t providing a comprehensive listing of every brewery in PA as it’d be out of date before the book even saw print. Case in point – the book mentions Harty Brewing which has since folded up (relatively recently). But don’t let that fool you, this book is chock full of information and knowledge about PA beer and breweries.

At the beginning of the book is a note saying that a portion of the proceeds of the book are going to animal shelters and local places for animals. After this is the chapter previews which list which breweries are mentioned in which chapters and provides an outline for the book. Early chapters discuss beer and the history of it, progressing from Europe and Africa and Asia to America. Detailing the early pioneers to America and bringing beer over on the Mayflower, etc. It then discusses the history of beer and brewing in Pennsylvania.

Following this is how breweries affect communities, how they revitalize communities and buildings, and a chapter on historic buildings and how breweries are reusing old buildings. A chapter on the sustainability and environmental issues and help that breweries are doing and then a closing chapter on looking forward.

This book is a good read for anyone interested in beer, brewing, and especially for those interested in the craft breweries of Pennsylvania. She has provided lots of knowledge on the inner workings from the beginning to the present day on just about every tangential topic with the beer industry. I would certainly recommend this for anyone looking to learn about brewing and beer in Pennsylvania or just loves reading about breweries in Pennsylvania.

My GoodReads Score: ****
Global GoodReads Score: 4.00 (two ratings, three now, as of 10.9.19)

This was the first book review on the blog, hopefully you all like it, I know its a bit different then the beer and brewery reviews. But I am looking forward to doing a few more of these as I have a lot of beer books to read and go through. This is combining two of my loves – literature / books and beers, so this is definitely a double-win for me getting to review books about beer here for the blog. So if you are interested in this, let us know! Also if you have any beer book recommendations, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Thanks and cheers all!

-B. Kline
My GoodReads review link can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3007622590

Happy #NationalBeerLovers day. What are all of you celebrating with? After a long day at work where I got shuffled all over the place (three card poker, poker room, blackjack, pit 2, pit 6, pit 4) and getting my girls from my parents and home, I got to squeeze out some time to stop by Tattered Flag at the end of the day. Catch the tail end of their Levante and Tattered Flag day and their can release.

Tattered Flag recently did a big collaboration project with Levante Brewing Co. Traveling to their facility with their crew and the Levante Brewing crew traveling to their facility. They produced a beer at each one. Cans and excellent beers were the result. September 7th was the release of these cans out into the wild for consumption and they definitely didn’t disappoint. In conjunction with the brewery, Tattered Flag also hooked up with the Hershey Biergarten, The Midtown Tavern (at Midtown Cinema), and sip @ soma to release the cans.

The collaboration beer created together at Levante’s facility was the decadent blood orange chocolate stout – Five-Sided Puzzle Palace. A 12% dessert stout. Very rich, very smooth, very boozy, very chocolate and blood orange flavored.

The beer created at Tattered Flag Brewery was Wasted Away Again, a key lime pie sour. This collaboration between Tattered Flag Brewery and Levante Brewing Company tapped right into how Tattered Flag has been killing the sour game and is another fantastic sour created by them (added to some recent fantastic sours like Prepare to Be Flabbergasted, Should’ve Put Him in Custardy, Making Love at Midnight [sour version], Should’ve Got a Warrant, and many others).

Tattered Flag always has an impressive can selection to choose from for in-house and to go. Some recent releases are : the original Makin’ Love at Midnight, a sour version of Makin’ Love at Midnight, Prepare to be Flabbergasted (look for reviews of this and the sour Makin’ Love soon on here), Groundhops Day, a re-release of Because I Was Inverted (Mango), as well as still some cans available of O’Dusseldorf Rules, Tattered Abomination, and all of their staples like TMI IPA, Blue Raider Kolsch, and Teutonic Knight Hefeweizen.

Enough about their can releases and event of the day and lets tackle this flight I ordered up:

First up for me was Intergalactic Deals. Went heavy on this flight on Levante Brewing namely due to their scarcity in the area. Levante Brewing Company is a microbrewery from West Chester, PA. They have been pumping out some incredible beers, particularly NE IPAs, Milkshake IPAs, and some fantastic stouts and sours of their own. They are typically a staple at most beer fests in the area (most recently saw them at Lancaster Craft Beerfest).

Beer: Intergalactic Deals
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Milkshake
ABV: 8%
IBU: 39
Untappd Write-Up: Intergalactic Deals is a Vanilla Shake DIPA with a universal taste appeal. A fleet of hoppiness derives from El Dorado, Mosaic, Amarillo, and Centennial hops, while vanilla sweetness shines over the horizon. Local wildflower honey melds with heaps of Madagascar vanilla and lactose for a sweet steal of an Intergalactic Deal.

This definitely has a ‘universal taste appeal’. Its a sweet smooth IPA Milkshake. The aroma has a vanilla tint to it and there is a good hop aroma that lofts up into the air from it.

Appearance is your normal NEIPA/Milkshake IPA. Thick juicy IPA. Orange and opaque and a bit unfiltered. Light ring of foam at the top (just a taster glass).

Taste is fantastic. First sip to the last on this one. Smooth, and easy to drink. No hop bitterness, no hop burn, just the smoothness from the vanilla and lactose. There is a bit of a mango-fruitness to it that couples with the lactose and vanilla to give it a great taste. Most likely the mosaic hops and amarillo hops. The honey with the lactose and vanilla is what gives it that super smoothness and super smooth taste.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.13 (as of 9.7.19)

Tickle Parts has become one of Levante Brewing’s best known beers, and for good reasons, it is a fantastic brew. So lets get down to it and enjoy this tasty offering.

Beer: Tickle Parts
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Tickle Parts is an exceptionally dry-hopped New England IPA, with low bitterness, rising hop aroma and a feathery-soft mouthfeel. Anticipate chunks of pineapple and tender clementine juices on the palette, while your nostrils are gently tickled with the aroma of thawing sorbet and other fruit juices.

This is definitely an exceptional beer. Exceptionally dry hopped one might even say….. But yes, it is a great beer. It has a very hoppy fruity citrusy aroma. It looks beautiful, it smells beautiful, and it tastes… beautifully.

It has a soft orange glowing look to it. Not quite the dark unfiltered look that Intergalactic Deals had, this has a softer, almost orange juice look to it with none of the floaters dancing about. Light ring of head in the taster class.

Very soft and smooth beer. Lays on your tongue nicely and easily and is just fantastically smooth. There is more of a citrus and fruit to this, whereas Intergalactic had more of a vanilla taste with mango background, this has all of the fruity hops bouncing around right away. Tastes of all of the citrus fruits, orange, clementine, tangerine, apricot, and more fight for equal rights in your mouth (not for the right to party though sadly). This is just an easy smooth wonderful beer all around.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.11 (as of 9.7.19)

I’m not a foody, I’ve stated this several times here on the blog, and I’m not a pie person either (…jokes aside), but this is exactly as a key lime pie tastes. Well, the one slice I once had, against my will, once when I was 18 on a date. But anyway, yea, this is a liquid version of a key lime pie, and therefore it is superior to key lime pies. Plus – alcohol.

Beer: Wasted Away Again
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Hang on to summer one last time and get wasted away again with our key lime pie sour ale! A collaborative effort with Levante. A kettle sour ale with tons of key lime with a touch of coconut and graham crackers. This beer will transport you down to key west for one last gasp of summer!

Aroma is key lime pie. Pretty much every part of this review will be like a dictionary : “See Key Lime Pie.” Because it is spot on to the smells, ingredients, and taste of a key lime pie. They nailed the flavors, the aromas, and its spot on for how each of the ingredients should be tasting.

Appearance is light sour, the off-orange/off-yellow/off-“normal” beer coloring, unfiltered, with a slight tint and hue of amberish/goldenish/pinkish to it. Not quite sure how to describe the coloring, but for those who are familiar with sours you can spot it immediately and go “yep, thats a sour”. I’m sure someone far more educated can point out its exact hue on the spectrum, and perhaps some day when I’m better with the BJCP and all that, I’ll be able to provide better in-depth analysis on the color, but for right now, I’ll just say it looks like a normal kettle sour, and thats good.

Taste is great. Tart, lime, coconut, graham. Not full on sour to the point of puckering up, but the right amount of tartness that makes it refreshing, enjoyable, and tasty. This is a great end to summer beer with a nice sitting out on the beach or by the pool, relaxing, enjoying a beer while watching kids play (or scoping out ….the sand castles along the waterfront).

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: (No Global Average Rating as of 9.7.19, will update later when one becomes available.)

Moving onto the darker beers now…

I love stouts and I love dark beers, but oatmeal stouts, have always been a bit hit or miss with me. Like its teetering on an edge that can go either way. This one, kind of hangs in the middle without teetering to either side and stays poised on the tip.

Beer: Onyx
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Oatmeal
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Darkness awakens in this traditional Oatmeal Stout. The maltbase is a certain chewy type of thick, courtesy of hefty oat additions in the mash. Layers of roasty and toasty specialty malts taste like window shopping with your nose: melting dark chocolate, twice-baked biscotti, and cold brewed dark-roast. *Contains Lactose*

Appearance is a dark chocolate black, slight light brown foamy head. Dark in appearance and dark complexion.

Aroma is a whiff of oatmeal, heady, roasty, malty, going a bit towards the smoked smell in its malt, perhaps just the roasty and toasty – ness – of the malts used. There is a bready smell with the oatmeal but its hard to distinguish it from the oatmeal.

It has a nice genuine roasty and toasty taste, a bit smoked in some way. It is heavy bready. Surprised to read in the description that there is lactose in this as its not really smooth, a bit bitter due to the roasted malts, so the lactose doesn’t really dampen or smooth that out at all.

There is a slight lingering aftertaste to this that while not completely unpleasant, is a bit ‘off’. I don’t think its a huge detraction from the beer, but I’m never really a fan of an aftertaste that disagrees with me because of how it lingers and stays.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.88

Now going into the full deep dark end, we have Five-Sided Puzzle Palace, the collaboration between Levante Brewing Company and Tattered Flag Brewing.

Beer: Five-Sided Puzzle Palace
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 12%
IBU: 59
Untappd Write-Up: A chocolate-covered-orange stout brewed in collaboration with Tattered Flag. This luscious dessert stout is thicker than brownie batter, and for a truly unique spin, we squeezed bushels of oranges into the batch. For chocolate, we stayed local to Harrisburg and Tattered Flag by using Hershey’s Cocoa Powder. Dessert is served. *Contains Lactose*.

This is completely a dessert stout, double-style, rich, heavy, decadent, delicious. Reminiscent of the orange chocolate candies typically given out at Easter, this is practically a liquid version of that, but with blood oranges rather than regular oranges.

Appearance is jet fuel black. Deep dark ocean black. Light ring of foam to the head at the top that is darker hued as well.

Aroma is chocolate straight through with some of the blood orange sneaking out. But very very very chocolate heavy smell. You can smell the heavyness of the beer and it gives off just a deep dark wonderful aroma.

From first sip you get the chocolate, you get the blood orange, and you get a smacking of the boozyness of this. You feel that 12% right up front and center. The chocolate is rich, smooth, decadent, and makes this feel like a true dessert style stout. The blood orange compliments it perfectly and gives the beer some balance to it, so its not just a complete boozy chocolate bomb in your mouth. The two flavors work in great tandem.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 9.7.19)

Fantastic beers all around, from both Levante Brewing Company and Tattered Flag Brewing. Both collaborations were great, and would love to see more work from the two of them together. Make sure to pick up some cans of Five-Sided Puzzle Palace and Wasted Away Again, both are terrific, and will hold up for a while, but most likely will sell out soon and quickly.

Cheers everyone, and since its the start of football season, I’ll give a shout of ‘WHO DEY’ and say Go Bengals ….. go 0-16, and lets get that first round draft pick!

-B. Kline

(Editorial Note: This article was originally written and submitted to Breweries in PA. They will be publishing it in roughly one weeks time on their page and FaceBook page. It was written by lead writer here at The Beer Thrillers – B. Kline, and is being posted here as well. This was a guest-article written by B. Kline for Breweries in PA. Since there is some pertinent and timely information included in the article [namely Tattered Flag & Levante’s Tap Takeovers and Can Releases for 9.7.19] this article is being posted here and now. When it is posted on the Breweries in PA website and FaceBook page, links will be provided to the article’s locations there. Likewise, since this was created for their site and blog, as well as written in Microsoft Online Word DOC the formatting may be off in some places. When the mistakes are noticed, we will try and correct them. -The Beer Thrillers staff.)

Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg 
By: B. Kline 

In the area surrounding Hummelstown (17036), there is several breweries. In all directions, roughly within 5 miles, there is some fantastic breweries in Hershey, Middletown, and the outskirts of Harrisburg like Rutherford and Union Station. I’m going to take a look at a few of these and suggest a nice weekend trip to these locations that won’t take a lot of your time up, and what all events and plans they currently have going on. In this article, we will be taking a look at Troegs Brewery, Boneshire Brew Works, Newfangled Brew Works, and Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery.  

There is a lot of great choices of breweries in Pennsylvania, and even in just Harrisburg itself, there is several fantastic choices. Coming from the small town of Hummelstown itself (where I’m located – B. Kline – writer for the blog The Beer Thrillers). In Harrisburg central there is ZeroDay Brewing, The Millworks, and The Vegetable Hunter. Along the outskirts of Harrisburg in Rutherford you will find Boneshire Brew Works and in a small development off of Union Deposit in Union Station you’ll find Newfangled Brew Works. In Hershey you’ll find Troegs Independent Craft Brewing and Iron Hill Brewery. In Middletown you will find Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery. And soon, in the future in Hummelstown you’ll be able to enjoy some beverages at the old police station by Rubber Soul Brewing.  

I’ve decided to write this in the best route method for driving and convenience. I debated exactly how I wanted to write-up the breweries of Boneshire Brew Works, Newfangled Brew Works, Tattered Flag, and Troegs, and decided this might be the best and most logical way. The times I’ve done this ‘brewery trail’ this is always the way I’ve done it, and it also stops the ‘why was X first and Y last’ arguments. So lets take a look at these four breweries, what they got to offer on tap, what they got going on, and why their worth a stop in and check out. 

Newfangled Brew Works 

Located At: 8001 Union Station Blvd, Harrisburg, PA 17111 
Untappd Link: https://untappd.com/NewfangledBrewWorks 
 

Newfangled Brew Works is located inside Union Station, a recent development built off of Union Deposit Road (a long road that connects Harrisburg to several of the smaller towns in the area like South Hanover Township, Union Deposit, Hoernerstown, and even to Hershey). It is right as you enter into the development in a large building conjoined with its restaurant pairing – Koda. Koda is a high scale restaurant located to the right of the main entrance into Newfangled. Newfangled also has its own built-in Taco Truck tucked away in the back lefthand corner. 

Lets discuss the food first, the taco truck has fabulous tacos, quesadillas, and other taco and Mexican related foods. Artisanal tacos is the best way to describe these, as this is definitely no Taco Bell menu (and a whole heck of a lot better tasting too). Their food menu can be found here: Food, their hours of operation are: Sunday  11AM-9PM, Monday-Friday 4PM-9PM, and Saturday 12PM-10PM.  

Pictured here is the quesadilla taco from the taco truck, with the added beef meat it came to be 7.42$ (pre-tip). Beer picture is the Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour. The taco was extremely delicious and the kettle sour washed it down perfectly. This is the side-porch and patio area to the left of the building (when facing the entrance).  

The brewery itself currently has 16 beers on tap for consumption. Some of their own, and a few others. Of their own currently on tap they have: 

• Passionfruit Blonde Ale – Blonde Ale – 5% 

• Ariana Flockhart – Blonde Ale – 4.9% 
• Blood Orange Blonde Ale – Blonde Ale – 5% 
• Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour – Sour – 5.6% 
• Kettle Sour – Sour – 5.6% 
• Brut IPA – IPA – Brut – 7.7% 

• Double IPA – IPA – Imperial – 8.2% 
• Irish Red Ale – Red Ale – Irish – 6% 
• Saison – Farmhouse Ale – Saison – 6.8% 
• Newfangled American Wheat – Wheat Beer – 5.2% 
• Lager – Lager – 5.2% 

• IPA – IPA – American – 5.8% 
• Stout – Stout – American – 6.5% 

The non-Newfangled Beers on tap are: 

• Yuengling Lager – Lager – 4.5% (Yuengling Brewery) 
• Standard – Cider – 5.5% (Big Hill Ciderworks) 

I have currently had all but their lager, double IPA, Brut IPA, and the blood orange blonde ale. I have enjoyed everything I’ve had so far. Found nothing to be horrible or terrible and no off flavors or infected beers.  

They offer their beers right now in pints or traditional pours, dependent on the style, as well as half pours and flights. Pricing is your normal fair for a craft brewery (5$-7/8$ depending on style and costs to make the beer).  

Currently, Newfangled Brew Works has produced 22 unique beers, and has a global average rating of 3.73. 

Upcoming events for Newfangled are:  

• Live Music – Fridays and Saturdays 7PM – 10PM 
• Trivia – Wednesdays 630PM – 830PM   

Boneshire Brew Works 
Located At: 7462 Derry St, Harrisburg, PA 17111 
Untappd Link: https://untappd.com/BoneshireBrewWorks 

Coming down the road from Newfangled and getting onto Nyes Road it will lead you to Derry Street. From there you take a right hand turn and find yourself after a few blocks at Boneshire Brew Works. Boneshire was started by Alan Miller, Carson Brooks, and Alex Govelovich.  

Boneshire’s brewery is a small little ‘pub’ style brewery. As soon as you enter you feel already a member of a club where everybody knows your name. If you’ve been there once, your second time there, you are a ‘regular’ and quickly become on a first name basis with all of the staff.  

Currently food is limited to a few behind the bar items like pickle flights and bologna, but it is a BYOB environment with a pizzeria just two doors down (to the left of the building is a Crossfit and after that is the pizza shop, how lucky are those crossfit hard-workers being “stuck” between a pizza shop and a brewery?).  

Boneshire currently offers a taplist of their own, as well as a taplist of several breweries from Pennsylvania. Their current taplist is: 

Their own: 

• Dillston – Red Ale – Irish – 5.5% (made with Greystone Public House) 
• Caucus-Race (6.0 Zappa Hops) – IPA – American – 7.5% 

• Harrishire – Smoked – 7.3% (made in collaboration with Harris Family Brewery) 
• AuZealand 2.0 – IPA – American – 6.3% 
• Dark of the Forest (barrel aged) – Stout – Coffee – 10% 
• Derry St. Wheat – Hefeweizen – 5% 
• Good Walk Spoiled – Sour – 4.5%       

Guest tap lists: 

• Jelsa – Mead – Melomel – 12% (Larsen Meadworks) 
• Magic… Under Where? – Pale Ale – 5.5% (Pizza Boy Brewing) 
• Kriek Nouveau – Sour – 6.9% (Free Will Brewing Co.) 
• Brawler – English Mild – 4.2% (Yards Brewing Co.) 

• Pils – Pilsner – German – 4.7% (Stoudts Brewing) 
• Summer Scrumpy – Cider – 5.5% (Big Hill Ciderworks) 
• Fruit Wagon – Sour – 6.3% (Saucony Brewing Company) 
• Java Cask – Stout – Imperial Double – 14.3% (Victory Brewing) 
• Pikeland Pils – Pilsner – German – 4.9% (Slyfox Brewing) 

Boneshire Brewery has a steady string of events going on.  Mondays are D&D nights, Tuesdays alternate between Open Mic Nights and Bar Bingo nights, Wednesdays are trivia nights, Thursdays are live music nights. Their Facebook page has a full list of events with the band names already signed on for each Thursday through October. They also occasionally have live music on Saturday nights. 

Boneshire also does cans to go, in 4-packs of most of their in-house made beers. A few exceptions based on styles and things, but nearly all of their brewery beers are set to go. And typically at much better prices than a pint at the bar. They also do growler fills. 

They currently have 126 uniquely produced beers with a global average rating of 3.82 on Untappd. 

Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery 

Located At: 1 S Union St Middletown, PA 
Untappd Link: https://untappd.com/TatteredFlagBrewery 

Leaving Boneshire we can get right up onto 322 from Derry Street. There we can then turn right and get off at the Hummelstown / Middletown exit and go along Middletown Road (which becomes Vine Street), not much further we’ll turn right onto Main Street and then turn left to get onto Union and we are at our next destination. Middletown’s first (and so far only) brewery and distillery – Tattered Flag. 

Veteran owned and having just hit their third anniversary they have really been pumping out some outstanding beers in recent history. With new brewing crew of Dave Marrow, Justin Hoak, and Cliff Plank, they have been putting out exceptional IPAs (NE IPAS specifically) and sours. They were just voted Harrisburg best Brewery and Distillery.  

They have been doing some excellent collaborations with numerous breweries in the last few months as well. Beers with Wolf Brewing Co. , Levante Brewing, Abomination Brewing, and up and comer Pilger Ruh Brewing.  

They have a downstairs bar that is also their coffee shop as well as the distillery area. It was called the Nuclear Bean but on Untappd they refer to the bar as the Distillery Bar now. They also have their main restaurant and bar upstairs, though you can order food at either location.  

At the downstairs Nuclear Bean / coffee shop / distillery bar, you can order drinks. Their taplist there currently is:  

• NP Project – Kombucha (Renewal Kombucha) 
• Nuclear Bean Nitro Cold Brew – Coffee 

• Blue Raider Kolsch – Kolsch – 5.2% 
• Teutonic Knight Hefeweizen – Hefeweizen – 5.4% 
• Fatum Series Ale – Strawberry – Sour – 6% 
• Because I Was Inverted (Mango) – IPA – Milkshake – 6.6% 
• Makin’ Love at Midnight (2019) – IPA – Milkshake – 7.8%  

• Silent Professional Foxtrot – Farmhouse Ale – Saison – 7.8% 
• New Zealand Hop Test – IPA – Imperial Double – 8% 
• Don’t Cryo’ver Spilled Milk – IPA – Milkshake – 8% 
• TMI IPA – IPA – American – 6.5% 

They also have cans to go, which you can pick up upstairs or downstairs, there list of cans to go currently are: 

• Tattered Abomination – IPA – New England – 7.8% (made with Abomination Brewing) 
• Prepare to be Flabbergasted – Sour – 7% 
• Teutonic Knight Hefeweizen 
• Blue Raider Kolsch 
• O’Dusseldorf Rules – Altbier – 5% 

• Honey I Added More Hops – IPA – New England – 7% 
• Double Knife Fight in Space – IPA – New England – 8% 
• Makin’ Love at Midnight 2.0 – IPA – American – 7.5% 
• Step 1 Brew Beer Step 2 ? Step 3 Profit – IPA – New England – 8% 
• Makin’ Love at Midnight (Sour) – Sour – 7.8% 

• TMI IPA 

Their taplist upstairs currently is: 

• Silent Professional Foxtrot 
• Blue Raider Kolsch 

• Teutonic Knight Hefeweizen 
• DDH Double IPA – IPA – Imperial / Double – New England – 8.4% 
• Swattier Divide (2018) – IPA – New England – 8.2% 
• Step 1 Brew Beer Step 2 ? Step 3 Profit 
• TMI IPA 

• Don’t Cryo’ver Spilled Milk 
• Should’ve Got a Warrant – Sour – 7.6% 
• Stars and Stripes 20.19 – IPA – New England – 7.8% 
• Sparklerz (Meyer Lemon) – Hard Seltzer – 5% 
• Five Sided Puzzle Palace – Stout – Imperial / Double – 12% (Levante Brewing colab) 

• Because I Was Inverted (Mango) 
• Double Knife Fight in Space 
• Groundhops Day – IPA – New England – 6% 
• Honey I Added More Hops 
• Makin’ Love at Midnight (sour) 

• Prepare to be Flabbergasted 
• Tattered Abomination 

Make sure to check out my blog (The Beer Thrillers) for reviews on Prepare to be Flabbergasted, Tattered Abomination, and Makin’ Love at Midnight (Sour) all due to being posted within the next several days.  

I’m not much of a foody, but I do love going to Tattered Flag or helping with their canning run, just to get to eat there. It is top notch gourmet style food. All bases covered, from hot dogs and hamburgers, to salads, to tacos and quesadillas, to steaks, and seafood. Everything is covered and everything is absolutely phenomenal.  

This weekend, Tattered Flag and Levante Brewing are doing their big release. Saturday, September 7^th, starting at 11AM, they will be selling cans of their collaboration with Levante Brewing – Wasted Away Again, a key-lime pie sour. They will also be selling cans of their collaboration with Levante Brewing – Five Sided Puzzle Palace. As well as having several of Levante’s beers on tap in the brewery. Ontop of this, from 1PM to 4PM the Hershey Biergarten in downtown Hershey will be selling their cans and having the beers on tap as well. Tattered Flag and Levante will also be featured at sip of Soma.

Of course I have to mention that you should check out the distillery if you have any inclination in liquors. Dan, the distiller for Tattered Flag is amazing and provides exceptional spirits. (He also does ghost tours in Gettysburg.) 

Tattered Flag Brewery has 351 uniquely produced beers with a global average rating on Untappd of 3.77. 

Troegs Independent Craft Brewing 
Located At: 200 Hersheypark Dr, Hershey, PA 17033 
Untappd Link: https://untappd.com/troegsbrewingcompany 

And last but not least of our little tour is Troegs Brewery. Which at this point, really needs no introduction. They are always some of the top rated beers in the state, and is generally considered “the top” of the craft industry in the state (behind Yuengling). The brewery itself is always jam packed, weekday, weeknight, afternoon, or evening. Some of which is due to its fantastic location next door to HersheyPark, and some of that due to the excellent beers in production, as well as a top of the line brewery tour.  

 They have certainly been expanding too. Adding the foeders and making a larger cellar room. They’ve added a beer garden outfront. And lots and lots more parking. Which somehow still doesn’t feel like its enough! 

They have also branched out and done a lot more of their Splinter Series beers, done more and more regular scratches, and even begun to can some of the scratch beers, and upped the number of rotational/seasonal beers. Releasing some big hits like Lollihop, Golden Thing, and various Scratches in beer can that have all gotten great reviews. 

They have also added an upstairs loft with its own food menu and its own bar (though the taplist is the same as it is in the side-room by the foeders and at the main bar, just slightly more limited). The pizza upstairs is the best new feature total though, hop on that immediately! 

Their current taplist at the main bar is: 

• Perpetual IPA – IPA – American – 7.5% 
• Troegennator Double Bock – Bock – Imperial – 8.2% 
• Sunshine Pils – Pilsner – 4.5% 
• HopBack Amber Ale – Red Ale – Amber Ale – 6% 

• DreamWeaver – Wheat Beer – 4.8% 
• JavaHead – Stout – Coffee – 7.5% 
• Hop Knife – IPA – American – 6.2% 
• Nimble Giant – IPA – Imperial / Double – 9% 
• Naked Elf – English Ale – 6.9% 

• Golden Thing – DDH – IPA – Double – 8.2% 
• Boysenberry Tart Ale – Sour – 4.5% 
• Raspberry Tart Ale – Sour – 4.5% 
• Fest Lager – Lager – Marzen – 6.1% 
• Dear Peter – Farmhouse Saison – 7.6% 

• Hazy IPA (Scratch 387) – IPA – New England – 5.2%  (same as Trail Day Pale Ale)
• Tangerine Passionfruit Guava Tart (Scratch 386) – Sour – 4.6% 
• Krausened Dunkel Lager (Scratch 385) – Dunkel – 5.4% 
• Tangerine Blackberry Guava Tart Ale (Scratch 384) – Sour – 5% 

In Bottles Only: 

• LaGrave Triple Golden Ale – Belgian – 8% 
• Jovial Dubbel Ale – Belgian – 7% 
• Mad Elf Grand Cru (2018) – Belgian Strong Dark – 11% 
• Wild Elf – Farmhouse Wild Ale – 11% 
• Bourbon Barrel-Aged Impending Descent – Russian Stout – 12% 

• Bourbon Barrel-Aged Troegenator – Double Bock – 9.8% 
• Bourbon Barrel-Aged Flying Mouflan – Belgian – 11.5% 
• Dear Peter  
• Farmette – Farmhouse Saison – 6.5% 
• Blackberry Tizzy – Sour – 7.8% 

• Mortal Cherry – Farmhouse Wild Ale – 6.6% 
• Apricot Farmette – Farmhouse Saison – 7.4% 

Troeg also has cider from Big Hill Ciderworks as well as numerous non-alcoholic sodas in bottle (for children and non-drinking drivers).  

Troegs currently has no events listed for this weekend in their brewery. It has seemed they do less and less events in house at the brewery, and more and more out at various places. Most likely due to how full the brewery already is getting plus it expands the brand more to do these events at a wider range of places. 

They do however have a big event coming up on October 4^th weekend – their annual Hop Harvest Fest. Which since putting in the beer garden they’ve been putting to good use with this. Look for more information to come out soon on bands performing and beers they will be releasing. 

If you’ve never been to Troegs Brewery before, make sure you take the walking tour. It’s a quick 5-10 minute self guided tour but you get to see some neat things along the way (like the krausen for DreamWeaver as well as their bottling and canning lines). 

Troegs currently has 385 uniquely produced beers (according to Untappd, which is a bit dated on this, since a lot of their scratches were released before Untappd was created, and they are currently up to Scratch 387) with a global average rating on Untappd of 3.79. 

Thank you for checking out this brief brewery hopping tour around the outskirts of Harrisburg and centralized around Hummelstown. I hope you all found it informative and helpful and will give these four great breweries a look over. They all definitely deserve your time and attention as they are all pumping out some wonderful beers and have great stuff going on at their breweries all the time.  

And lastly, make sure you hop on over to my beer blog – The Beer Thrillers, where me and beer buddy J. Doncevic have been writing some wonderful beer reviews, brewery reviews, trip recaps, beer event reviews, and all kinds of other beer related things in the Central PA area since May. Make sure to stop and check us out and let us know in the comments that you came from here, we’d greatly appreciate seeing you there!  

• B. Kline
• The Beer Thrillers
• https://thebeerthrillers.com/
• http://twitter.com/thebeerthriller/