Mellow Mink - The Beer Thrillers

Mellow Mink Brewing is Closing

B. Kline — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 22:45:11 +0000

Mellow Mink Brewing’s Closing Announcement

Mellow Mink

This. One. Hurts. Some places, some breweries, just become a part of you and part of your craft beer experience, and world, and enjoyment. As we see more and more breweries closing this year, and the upcoming years, some are going to hurt more than others. Each person is different, and each brewery’s closing will affect people differently; but this one really just hurts. Matt and Cole are such wonderful people, who have done a lot for the beer community, have made a tremendous brewery and bar experience, and have been such wonderful people to talk beer with, this absolutely hurts. Like The Alementary and their closing, Mellow Mink Brewery held a very special place in our hearts here at The Beer Thrillers. We just want to go above and beyond to say thank you to all Matt and Cole and have done for the community.

Mellow Mink Brewing is located at 4830 Carlisle Pike in Hampden Township (4830 Carlisle Pike, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050).

Mellow Mink Brewing is a craft brewery located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, known for its unique and innovative approach to brewing. Founded by Matt Miller and Cole Taylor, Mellow Mink specializes in producing a wide range of craft beers, with a particular focus on sours and barrel-aged brews. The brewery has gained a reputation for its meticulous brewing process and the use of high-quality ingredients, ensuring each beer offers a distinct and memorable flavor profile.

The brewery’s taproom provides a welcoming and stylish environment for patrons to enjoy their beverages. With a sleek and modern design, the taproom offers a comfortable space for beer enthusiasts to gather and savor Mellow Mink’s diverse selection. In addition to its regular lineup, the brewery frequently releases limited-edition and seasonal beers, keeping the menu fresh and exciting for visitors. The taproom also hosts various events, including beer tastings, food pairings, and community gatherings, enhancing the overall experience.

Josh and Ben hanging out with Matt and Cole at Mellow Mink Brewery (January 2020)

When our blog was still new and baby fresh, Matt invited Josh and I out to their brewery to have a behind the scenes tour and get an intimate look at their operation, their beers and their sours, and we had such a wonderful time hanging out with Matt and Cole and spending hour and hour after hour talking about beer to no end. (See: Brewery Visit – Mellow Mink Brewery) I can’t thank Matt and Cole enough for that experience, as we learned so much from it all, and more importantly – just had a wonderful night.

Mellow Mink Brewing is Closing

As more and more breweries are closing, theres a lot of dynamics at play, and a lot of reasons for why they are closing. There is certainly a ‘bubble bursting’ in the craft beer industry, no matter how much some will tell you otherwise. And there is so many reasons and things that go into what makes a brewery great, or what will keep it standing out, and will keep people going back. The loss of Mellow Mink will be a big blow to the Central PA and the Harrisburg area and Harrisburg adjacent beer area.

Here is their announcement posted to social media:

Mellow Mink Brewing’s Closing Announcement

Today, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the upcoming closure of Mellow Mink Brewing. We have cherished the opportunity to serve our fans and community for the past six years. We are deeply proud of the beers and cocktails that we crafted, and the all-inclusive environment that we fostered. We now plan to wind-down brewing and taproom operations and close permanently by the end of August 2024. We hope you will visit us again before we are gone – we will be releasing several small batch and full-scale blends that are currently in the tanks. Thank you all for your love and support over the years!

Mellow Mink Brewing – Facebook Post

The out pouring of support started immediately right after they made their announcement and posts. The love the community has for them clearly shown, sadly, not enough support was given while they were fully in operation.

But, please everyone, lets go and visit them throughout July, and August, until their last day. Lets show Matt and Cole all the support we can while the doors are open — and afterwards. Let them know how much they are loved by the community. How great their sours are, and how much their stouts, and IPAs, kicked butt as well.

I just want to reiterate how much love we have for Matt and Cole and all the staff at Mellow Mink Brewery, and wish the absolute best for all involved in the future and everything they do. Lets all raise a pint to Matt, Cole, the staff of Mellow Mink, and the brewery itself!

(Join us, Josh, Ben, and Amy, as we will be visiting Mellow Mink, Friday – July 5th, after 6PM.)

For More Information on Mellow Mink Brewery

The following comes via Untappd.

Mellow Mink Brewing is a microbrewery from Mechanicsburg, PA. They have 478 unique beers and over 34,000 ratings, with a global average rating of 3.88 (as of 7.2.24). Their Untappd description reads: “Mellow Mink Brewing is an all inclusive craft brewery and taproom in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. It is our goal to bring the traditions of both old and new world brewing excellence to our home on the west shore of the Susquehanna River. We strive to brew creative and delicious craft beers of the highest quality.”

You can find them at these social media platforms:

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

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

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

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

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

[perfect_survey id=”7330″]

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

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March Madness (2021) – The Beer Thrillers Way

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – VOTING LINKS

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

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

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

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

BUT….

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

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

Ok…. enough with the questions!

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s Meet Our Competitors

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

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

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

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

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

The Heels Conference

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

Division One: Triple H

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

Division Two: Ric Flair

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

The Faces Conference

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

Division Three: Stone Cold Steve Austin

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

Division Four: The Rock

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

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

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

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

*Smacks head* D’oh!

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

Voting

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Brewery Event: Bottle Share (Tattered Flag)

BKline — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 15:31:53 +0000

Tattered Flag and Breweries in PA’s Bottle Share (February 8th, 2020).62+ Tickets were ‘sold’. Packed house down in the brewhouse of Tattered Flag. (Thats me in the red Pizza Boy shirt, and my friend D. Scott to my left.) (Photo Courtesy of Chad Balbi – Breweries in PA).

On February 8th, 2020, Tattered Flag and Breweries in PA co-hosted an event at the Tattered Flag Brewery in Middletown PA. It was a ticketed event and promoted across Tattered Flag’s social media and Breweries in PA’s social media (their Facebook page and their Facebook group). Tickets were free. Welcome to all that were to come out. According to Justin (brewer for Tattered Flag) 62 tickets were given out. Myself and my friend were two of those tickets, and so let me take you through the event.

Let’s back this up a bit from the time of the event. Starting with the event itself. It was first announced near the beginning of the year. Luckily it was a Saturday I was able to get off from work (a rarity in my case). And my friend D. Scott was also off and along for the idea. So, the premise of the event is simple – bring 2-3 (or more) beers. Everyone who comes to the event, does so, and once the event is underway you place your beers in the corresponding coolers (IPA, Sours, Wheats and Kolsches, Stouts), and then after everyone has grouped up, you start cracking beers and sampling and moving on.

The premise is simple and neat. Anyone whose ever done a beer / bottle / can share or swap at home with friends, its the same premise just on a much larger scale. (A 62+ person scale that is.)

Leading up to the event my friend stopped at Breski’s Beverage and picked up a four-pack of larger beers to bring with. He grabbed Thief Share (2016) by Strange Roots Experimental Ales, Blue Farm (2017) by Free Will Brewing Co, a German Chocolate Cake Stout from a brewery I’m drawing a blank on, and New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk (2019).

I had set up to do a beer trade with a guy from Eureka California. We were both set to send our packages on either January 31st, or February 1st. (I sent on 31st and showed proof.) He unfortunately, kept saying he would get to it… and get to it….. and he kept NOT getting to it…. and NOT getting to it. Finally, he promised he would expedite it next day to make up for its tardiness…. and I get a message from him “Sorry, it’d be 200$+ to expedite, so I sent it regular. Sorry it won’t be there in time.” …..Massive annoyance and disappointment on those fronts. So at last second, I had to figure out what I was bringing.

Unfortunately I had just ran through my cans from Tree House brought home by my friend D. Arndt. If I would have known…. I would have brought the Sap, Autumn, Julius, Haze, or Doppelganger I had. So I likewise stopped at Breski’s Beverage and picked up some beer for the event. I got Grimm Artisanal Ale’s I Still Love the Old World (2018), Lickinhole’s Virginia Black Bear, Clown Shoe’s Coffee Sombrero, and Trial by Wombat (mainly for the name and picture).

Saturday morning comes and I do my typical morning chores and errands and take Leela (my border collie) for a run. D. Scott is Ubering to Tattered Flag, and I’m going to meet him there. Planned to get there at 10:40, but ended up getting there closer to 10:50 with our tickets and my beer and meet him just inside the door. He shows me the beer he’s bringing and we go over our small sample size. At just a bit before 11AM, Justin comes through and tells everyone to follow him down into the brewhouse.

Since 2018 I’ve done some volunteer canning work with Tattered Flag – though recently they’ve stopped using volunteers now that their employee force is big enough to keep it all done in-house, so I’m quite familiar with their brewhouse and back of the brewery operations and location.

At the time, there’s not too many people yet. Maybe 15-20. Justin goes over the rules. (Big rule: don’t touch any valves. Little rule: throw your trash away. Big rule: DON’T TOUCH ANY VALVES. Little rule: put your beers in their appropriate tubs.) They had bussing tubs with a label for each: IPA, Sour / Saisons, Wheats / Kolsches, and Stouts. Bigger bottles were kept in the front or where room was for them.

The guys from Breweries in PA introduced themselves. And then we were off to the races (…or beers). Talked with the lady from Breweries in PA and she was saying how the Dayman can was the last “known in the wild” can to exist, due to them getting hit with a Cease and Desist from Disney. And we talked about Disney with recent news, and how past places have gotten hit with some C & D’s.

After sampling Dayman, and then Nightman, I saw a lovely looking Smoked Porter big bottle. Unfortunately I forget the name of it, and it appears I never checked it into Untappd (something I didn’t do too good of a job of). (Just like pictures, unfortunately I took no pictures of the event either, so I have no pictures of my own, and had to try and remember the beers I tried for Untappd later on.) So whoever brought the big bottle Smoked Porter, I’d love to know what it was. ….but also… oh boy that carbonation! As soon as I popped the cap on it, it just gushed. Foam everywhere, so much so that I had to set it down under the table over the grate, it just wouldn’t stop, for a good solid 2 minutes it kept going. (So yes, I apologize for being ‘that guy’, but….. it wasn’t my fault!)

A cache of the beers at the bottle / can share. Photo courtesy of Justin Hoak.

Me and D. Scott kinda hovered over the Stouts area. Talked to Justin and his girlfriend Aimee, about recent events with Tattered Flag, as well as Hibrewnation that took place, as well as the upcoming Prototype Brewery and Meadery and the Prototype Invitation Brewing Event.

The beer share at Tattered Flag. Photo courtesy of Justin Hoak.

After a few more samples, me and D. Scott headed back into the caverns a bit, where there was more space, as by now we were likely up to about 40+ people in attendance. And out by the brite tanks and fermenters it was getting pretty crowded. After a bit, the guys from Breweries in PA brought a few of the bussing trubs out into the side-room where we used to do the labeling for Tattered Flag’s canning run. They brought out a few beers of each type as well and so there was now a more mixed variety in the different areas.

While in the side-room, I branched out a bit from my stouts and sours and had a few IPAs. Bearded Iris’ Homestyle, Psycho Simcoe by Three 3’s, Ex Novo Brewing’s Spirits of the Dead, and Double Luv by East Branch Brewing. Hanging out, talking with D. Scott and some of our fellow drinkers in the area, we also cracked open the Black Tuesday (2017) by The Bruery, which was amazingly fantastic. While discussing the ridiculously high ABV on it (19.5%), one of the guys talked about the beer he brought from Nimble Hill, a Maple Stout in their Mysteria Series, that was a 25%. I’ve always been a huge fan of big ABV beers…. so my ears and eyes and nose, and mouth, all perked up. The kind gentleman went back and got it and brought it out. After a bit of a struggle getting the cork off of it, we each drew a good sample size of it (and I won’t lie and say I didn’t have two samples of it).

The description on Untappd for it reads:

MAPLE SYRUP STOUT
This super limited creation is an off shoot of Turbo Diesel.
But instead of using hops, we added a few gallons of maple syrup and a dash of molasses and fermented it to the limits.
The result is a thick dessert stout with a strong maple syrup and imperial stout finish, followed by hearty warming from the 25% abv. Served without carbonation for a smooth and velvety finish.

It was smooth, dry, but with an amazing maple syrup flavor. Tasted like drinking a maple syrup wine. It was pretty much fantastic. And the nice 25% ABV to it, certainly didn’t hurt. I would like to throw a shout out to Ryan Haraschak. Fantastic, gorgeous gem to bring to the bottle share! Kudos my man!

We also tried a gentleman’s RIS Homebrew that was wonderful as well. And somehow, quickly, we realized we were approaching the end of the time for the bottle share, so me and D. Scott went back by the fermenters to try some of the beers still over there.

While hanging out there, and chopping on some tortilla chips, the Harris Brewery guys came in. Got to talk to Harris guys for a long time about their upcoming brewery, black culture in brewing and craft beer, Allison Hill, the impact their hoping to make, the old Coke-Cola building / factory on the corner of 19th and Derry, the obstacles their having to overcome for their brewery, their GoFundMe vs. the Kickstarter, and much more. We also drank from their growler of their collaboration with The Vegetable Hunter which was fantastic. If you would like to support the Harris Family Brewery, and add to their GoFundMe you can do so here:

Harris Family Brewery Start-Up Go Fund Me

Shaun Harris posing at the end of the bottle share. Photo Courtesy of Harris Family Brewery.

As the time dwindled down, we quickly tried to sample a last few beers. There was an Intuition Ales that I tried with a large dragon on it (wax sealed originally, no idea on the name), as well as two Hegemony Anniversary Beers from St. Boniface. Also back to back Black IPAs; one from Pour Man’s Brewing – Black Market, and the other from Heavy Seas – Night Swell. Also tried the 2SP and WaWa coffee stout – Winter Reserve. As well as a last sampling of the Candy Hearts by New Trail Brewing.

As it wrapped up, they told us to take anything we wanted that was unopened. Seeing my Lickinghole Virginia Black Bear unopened I grabbed that, as well as an IPA from Mainstay Brewing and one of the bakeries from The Bruery. My buddy grabbed a couple and we put them in the six-pack holder and took them out to my car and then came back in to use our free beer and food discount.

Tattered Flag with the (free) ticket, being the gracious host was giving one free pour with the ticket as well as 10% off food. D. Scott got an order of loaded chips, and I got Because I Was Inverted (Chocolate Covered Strawberry). His free drink was either the Custardy Tropic Like Its Hot or the Custardy Black Crumble. We had also sampled these in cans during the bottle share.

My list of beers sampled (that I was able to record on Untappd) was:
* Nightman (Stable 12 Brewing Company)
* Schmoojee Strawberry Orange Banana (Imprint Beer Co)
* Bible Belt (2019) (Evil Twin Brewing)
* Frucht: Fruit Punch (The Bruery Terreux)
* Churro Sombrero (Clown Shoes)
* Autumn Friend (Forest & Main Brewing Company)
* Spirits of the Dead (Ex Novo Brewing)
* Psycho Simcoe (Three 3’s Brewing Co.)
* Black Tuesday (2017) (The Bruery)
* Maple Stout, Mysteria Series (Nimble Hill Brewing)
* Double Luv (East Branch Brewing)
* Kriek Marriage Parfait (2015) (Brouwerji Boon)
* Black Market (Pour Man’s Brewing Company
* Night Swell (Heavy Seas Beer)
* Pack & Brass Coffee IPA (Wallenpaupack Brewing Company)
* I Still Love the Old World (Grimm Artisanal Ales)
* Bourbon Barrel Aged Hegemony Anniver7ary Reserve (Blue Wax) (St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co.)
* Bourbon Barrel Aged Hegemony Anniver8ary Reserve (Blue Wax) (St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co.)
* Cold Pro (Union Craft Brewing)
* Winter Reserve Coffee Stout (2SP Brewing Company / WaWa)
* Candy Hearts (New Trail Brewing Co.)
* Homestyle (Bearded Iris)
* Custardy: Blackberry Crumble (Tattered Flag)
* Custardy: Tropic Like Its Hot (Tattered Flag)
* Thief Share (2016) (Strange Roots Experimental Ales)
* Blue Farm (2017) (Free Will Brewing Co.)
* Gingerbread Crunchee (Other Half Brewing Co.)
* Double Vice Coffee Porter (Grist House Craft Brewery)
* Chili Nelson Hazy Habenero (The Vegetable Hunter)
* Winter Wassailand (The Vegetable Hunter / Harris Family Brewing)
* Dayman (Stable 12 Brewing)

These are the ones I remembered / checked-in on Untappd anyway. There were so many more I didn’t get to try, some I definitely wanted to. I saw some Aslin cans, I believe 4th Anniversary Sours, that I missed out on, as well as a few Other Half’s and similar. In the comments – for those of you who went – I’d love to see what you brought, had, and what was your favorites.

This was a fantastic event. I’ve been to some friend / home beer bottle / can shares, and its always a blast. Passing around beers, sampling, and talking about beer and just hanging out with good people. The craft beer community is an exceptional and diverse community and its so great to talk to so many different people. Bottle shares are like mini-brewfests in a way, sampling a ton of different beers from different places / breweries that you most likely won’t get into contact with. Its not a bad way to kill a Saturday morning, thats for sure.

My favorites that I got to sample were: Black Tuesday (2017) by The Bruery and the Nimble Hill Maple Stout Mysteria (the 25%). D. Scott said his favorite was also the 25% Maple Stout as well as the Custardy: Blackberry Crumble.

It was great of Tattered Flag to put up some of their own beers in the share, a great gesture on their part. Also, humorous note, I think I did see a Blue Moon in one of the tubs, not 100% sure though, but I think I did. Kudos to whoever brought that. I did think it’d be funny to bring a single Coors Light bottle or Miller Lite High Life bottle and sneak it in, but didn’t know how it’d go over.

The Kill Shot from the Beer Share at Tattered Flag hosted by Tattered Flag and Breweries in PA. (Photo courtesy of: Chad Balbi)

As you can see from the kill shot, there was a ton of great beer brought in, and sampled and served. Breweries from all over Pennsylvania, as well as numerous other big breweries like Other Half, Bearded Iris, Aslin, Dogfish Head, Brewery of Omnegang, Grimm Artisanal Ales, as well as some homebrew, and some heavy PA hitters like Free Will, Tattered Flag, Strange Roots, Imprint Beer Co, Dancing Gnome, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing, and New Trail, and even upcoming brewery Harris Family. It was a wonderful and diverse selection, bottles, bombers, growlers, crowlers, cans, and even wine bottles.

Interested in reading some reviews of beers from some of these places, you can check out my beer blog: The Beer Thrillers. We’ve reviewed beers from Tattered Flag like: Should Have Put Him Into Custardy, Inexplicably Juicy, Pink Guava, Fatum Series: Member Berries, and more. New Trail’s Broken Heels. Broken Goblet’s This Is The Way, Burn Them All Away. Boneshire Brew Work’s The Hog, Dillston, Harrishire (with Harris Family), Sunburst, Good Walk Spoiled, Road Less Traveled, and more. Wolf Brewing collaboration with Tattered Flag – Imperial Churro and collaboration with Imprint – Wolf Prints. Rotunda Brewing’s sWheat Tarts: Mango Guyabano and Juicy Fruit. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing’s Fuzzy Nudge, Coco-Nator, and Scratch 400. You can check out our brewery visit and recap (and review) of Mellow Mink and their Scarlet Sunrise. Or our brewery reviews of Battlefield Brew Works and Cushwa Brewery. Or the recent, unfortunate news of the closings – Crystal Ball and Stoudt’s.

You can also read our other article on Breweries in PA: Touring the Breweries that Surround Harrisburg. (Also located here: Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg.)

We are currently listed on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs at #9, and have been there for a few weeks now (moved up from #11). (If you would like to write for us, you can contact us through our contact page. Or if you would like us to write for you.)

You can check us out on Facebook as well as Twitter. Or just search for us – Facebook – The Beer Thrillers – and on Twitter – @thebeerthriller.

The blog is ran by me – B. Kline, and mainly written by me, but other writers for the blog include J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (of Default Brewing). We also have Let Us Drink Beer Blog do some contributions as a guest writer.

I also do podcasts with D. Scott and Esteban – So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar… where we discuss beer, pop culture, movies, TV shows, and much more. Always hilarious and always insightful, so make sure to check that out as well.

(Ok, that concludes the article for Breweries in PA. The rest from here on out, is just for the Beer Thrillers faithful and my blog only. Its also a little more personal and detailed than the above, so keep reading if you want to hear more.)

So as per usual with me, after the beer share event, my night didn’t end. It was about 3:30-4PM by the time we finished up at the Tattered Flag bar. Way too early to call it a day. Being in the area, we decided to check out the Lancaster Brewing spot off of Eisenhower Boulevard in Harrisburg. Neither me nor D. Scott had ever been there. And this checks off a “new brewery location” that I want to do each month. (January was Liquid Noise Brewing, so February will be Lancaster Brewing, and hopefully March – before they close up – will be Stoudt’s.) Its funny that neither of us have ever been here to this location. Its so close, and we’ve jumped and hit all of the Harrisburg breweries numerous times before.

While there we met up with friends D. Arndt, Youngblood, and Youngblood’s girlfriend. I did a flight, D. Scott got a draft of their eggnog, and I have no recollection of what the others got. My flight included:
* Jam Series #22 Mexican Style Lager
* Jam Series #21 Gingerbread Spiced Brown Ale
* Lancaster Lager
* Jam Series – Track #20 Eggnog Blond
* Jam Series – Track #19 Chili Smoked Baltic Porter
* Winter Warmer

Lancaster Brewing Company’s Spiced Gingerbread

All were pretty tasty. I enjoyed the Smoked Porter the most with the Spiced Gingerbread coming in second. Wasn’t a huge fan of the eggnog blond, but I’m not a fan of eggnog so kind of knew that going into it. Drew loved his, but then again, he’s a huge eggnog fan. So mileage may vary on that type of beer.

Lancaster Brewing Company’s Mexican Lager

Finally around 730-8PM or so we left and went to D. Arndt’s house, where we hung out with him and his fiance Kat and his dogs (the one of which is a Corgi named Indiana Bones). While there he had a can of Intemperance by Tree House which was absolutely delicious.

Intemperance by Tree House Brewing

Look for me to be adding the Intemperance to my series on Tree House. Also, most likely tonight Doppelganger will be going up to finish what was originally the series. But now, with the addition of Intemperance, the series will be going from 5 to 6, making it a nice easy and sensible six-pack. Makes sense for a beer blog (a beer blog making sense?!), I like it.

So, this was supposed to be written and was supposed to go up Sunday, the 9th. But… work was crazy, as it was a ticket promotion give-away and we were swamped there, and afterwards, I was supposed to go to D. Scott to watch the Oscar’s (and drink the remaining of the beer share beers), but… Haley forgot the crowler of Rotunda Brewing Company’s ‘Beautiful Trauma’ that I got her, so I had to swing back to work and then deliver it to her at Irgo’s Tavern. Where I then proceeded to stay and play pool with several co-workers until 1AM. So obviously… no posting that night.

Then Monday I did go over to D. Scott’s and we watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (finally got around to seeing it, fantastic movie, and Tarantino is still just as good as he always was). So once again, no blog posting Monday. But, last night I did start this, and sadly, only after editing, getting to finish it this morning. Sorry for the delay in things, but I rather edit and make sure I like the way blog looks, and that there’s no misspellings or grammar problems or anything (though I’m sure one or two will still sneak through). There’s two ways to write:

“You either write sober and edit drunk, or write drunk and edit sober.”

I also finally got that California beer mail Tuesday. Looks like some delicious brews to drink down and dive into and review for you all.

California beer mail.
California beer mail

So definitely expect to see some beer reviews come out of that 10-pack. There’s a lot of tasty ones (I am super looking forward to the Chocolate Donut porter.)

Blog news – I am going to be trying to get 2 blogs up a day for the next few days to catch up some of the beer reviews I’m behind on. Fingers crossed anyway. This blog post is also going up on Breweries in PA’s website, so you’ll be able to check it out there (albeit abbreviated). Once its live, I’ll come in and edit this to include it here.

Tomorrow (Thursday, the 13th), I have yet another funeral to go to. This time my Uncle (mother’s brother in law) passed away. (Last Thursday was a funeral for my Great Uncle, my father’s Uncle.) In the evening Funck’s in Palmyra is doing a tap takeover for New Trail. I might be stopping out for that (might not, depends on time). New Trail makes some great beers, so I’d love to check it out.

Some beer reviews that are due up are Doppelganger and Intemperance, New Heights I Cannot Tell a Lie, Boneshire Brew Work’s Anagnorsis, Revision’s Pete’s Stache, Rivertown’s Triple Belgian, and much more. So be on the lookout for a lot of beer reviews coming at you in the upcoming days.

Like I said earlier in the post (mainly for the Breweries in PA page), please check out our Facebook, Twitter, and other social medias, and please click follow, like, subscribe, both on those platforms and here on the blog itself. You can enter your e-mail at the bottom to get notifications immediately whenever a new blog post hits the internet, and we’d greatly appreciate it. We also love it when you use the ‘rating’ at the bottom so we know how we are performing, and click the LIKE down below as well. Also, even more importantly, we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, feedback. So leave us a comment, or two, or three, or forty-four. I try to respond and reply as quickly as I’m able to. And if you ever want, you can contact us at our contact page and leave me a message.

Thanks everyone so much for reading, and hopefully you enjoyed it, and if you were at the event, hopefully you had as much of a blast as I did (and D. Scott). (Which speaking of, be on the lookout for some new podcasts on LOST Seasons 3 & 4, Fullmetal Alchemist, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and potentially / possibly / hopefully BoJack Horseman.)

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Tattered Fag and Breweries in PA’s February 8th, 2020, Beer Share – the final kill shot.

Beer Review: Scratch 400 Pre-Prohibition Lager (Troegs Independent Brewing)

BKline — Sun, 02 Feb 2020 14:53:43 +0000

Troegs Independent Brewing’s 400th scratch beer. Released on January 16th, Prohibition Day.

This is a monumental beer, and a monumental achievement, and it was released on a monumental day. This is Troegs Independent Brewing’s 400th scratch beer on their scratch system. Not their 400th beer released in total, just their 400th scratch. A very significant feat, and given the improvements they’ve made to their scratch system (and upgrades in general to their brewery) I don’t think it’ll take us long at all to get to Scratch 500. I know I personally can’t wait.

Just like I’m finally publishing this article on a significant date (2.2.20, palindrome day, Groundhog’s Day, Super Bowl LIV Sunday), this beer was released on a significant date – January 16th (2020). January 16th is known as “Prohibition Day”.

Let’s take a quick look at the history of it, from our favorite historical perspective news source – Wikipedia:

In the United States, after the battle against slavery was won (and even prior to it with the 1851 Maine law), social moralists turned to other issues, such as Mormon polygamy and the temperance movement.^[11][12][13]
On November 18, 1918, prior to ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the U.S. Congress passed the temporary Wartime Prohibition Act, which banned the sale of alcoholic beverages having an alcohol content of greater than 1.28%.^[14] (This act, which had been intended to save grain for the war effort, was passed after the armistice ending World War I was signed on November 11, 1918.) The Wartime Prohibition Act took effect June 30, 1919, with July 1, 1919 becoming known as the “Thirsty-First”.^[15][16]
The U.S. Senate proposed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 18, 1917. Upon being approved by a 36th state on January 16, 1919, the amendment was ratified as a part of the Constitution. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, on January 17, 1920.^[17][18]
On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilson‘s veto. The act established the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them.^[19] Although the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the federal government lacked resources to enforce it.
Prohibition was successful in reducing the amount of liquor consumed, cirrhosis death rates, admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis, arrests for public drunkenness, and rates of absenteeism.^[5][20][21] While some allege that Prohibition stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized and widespread criminal activity,^[22] two academics maintain that there was no increase in crime during the Prohibition era and that such claims are “rooted in the impressionistic rather than the factual.”^[23][24] By 1925, there were anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasy clubs in New York City alone.^[25] Wet opposition talked of personal liberty, new tax revenues from legal beer and liquor, and the scourge of organized crime.^[26]
On March 22, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Cullen–Harrison Act, legalizing beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight) and wine of a similarly low alcohol content. On December 5, 1933, ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. However, United States federal law still prohibits the manufacture of distilled spirits without meeting numerous licensing requirements that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal beverage use.^[27]
Source: Prohibition in the United States (Wikipedia)

And thank goodness that madness has ended. Not going to go into the politics of it all and not really going to discuss the politics of the time (or now) as I like to keep this blog readable for all. But I think everyone reading this blog can agree on this one thing – Prohibition was a bad idea.

So thankfully that horrific time is over, and thankfully its now 2020, and we can enjoy fantastic and wonderful beers like this Scratch 400 from Troegs. (See how I segued that? Like a champ!) And this really is a wonderful and tasty brew from Troegs, regardless of the significance behind the numeration. If this was Scratch 1, 400, 69, or 285, it wouldn’t matter, it’d still be a great drink.

I started this article up on the night of January 16th after my date night with my youngest (six at the time, just now turned seven the other day). But this was written during the blog’s getting ready for the Mellow Mink article going live, and so I pushed it back, and figured today’s important numerical (2.02.20 – palindrome day!) significance would be a more meaningful time to publish this. (I wrote the beer review then, everything else being written now.)

So, February 2nd, 2020, Groundhog’s day seems like a very appropriate time to be posting this article. And heres another segue – I wouldn’t mind if this was the beer I was drinking if I had to be stuck on a time loop on Groundhog’s Day.

So, in honor of Punxsutawney Phil lets move on and review this beer!

Scratch 400 by Troegs. Mara approved! (And no, she didn’t drink any. She does approve of the fries though, and the water.)

Beer: Scratch 400 – Pre-Prohibition Lager
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: Lager – American
ABV: 4.3%
IBU: None listed
Untappd Write-Up: For our 400th Scratch beer, we’re turning back the clock for a pre-Prohibition lager, and we pulled a few extra levers to let our house lager yeast shine. For starters, we included blue corn grown in Imler, Pa., in the malt bill. Blue corn, floury and high in protein, lowers the free amino nitrogen in the wort, which elevates the esters of the yeast. We also open fermented this beer, an old-world technique we use for every batch of DreamWeaver Wheat. This also helps to bring out the yeast flavor. A session Troegenator? We like the sound of that. We taste: notes of corn, dried stone fruit, and subtle caramel and nuttiness.

A session Troegenator might be a great way to describe this. Far lighter, thinner, definitely lower ABV (only 4.3% !) and certainly less heavy then Troegenator. But that doesn’t take away anything from this beer though either.

Appearance is a beautiful chestnut, light brown, clearish hue. This is finely filtered, there’s no particles, no sediment, no haze, no dankness, nothing opaque, just a nice fine, well crafted, well brewed lager. Its not completely see through, but it has definite clarity and is somewhat transparent. It has a fine head with diverse bubbles, and the head retention is strong, it also leaves beautiful lacing on the tall boy glass that Troegs serves this gorgeous beer in.

Aroma is wheat and corn heavy. You get almost an acorn smell, a very heavy farm field to it (in a good way, not in a knee-deep in ‘cow patties’ kind of farm field smell). A nice rainy day aroma where you can smell the wheat, barley, grass growing. Something only a ‘good ol’ local boy’ might be able to rightly describe to you, and even then it wouldn’t be precise. This is a more subtle beer smell then some of those big macro Lagers that just have that stale, old, unwanted beer smell. The smell most of us grew up on smelling off grandpa’s breath at the family reunions and parties. Whereas this smells homely, crafted, and far better.

This is what Yuengling should pretty much be. An old fashion style, old fashion created, and old fashion lager. Germanic pride in the glass right here. Its malty, its corny, it has a bit of a nutty taste, its kind of heavy on the palate but also a bit thinner then say the Troegenator, it does still have a full body to it, and despite its only 4.3% ABV its still a hearty beer. It does have an ending sweetness to it, nothing cloying, but a fine stickyness that hangs to your palate and tongue. Nothing in a bad way about that, it just provides a nice ending sweetness. The open fermentation, the house yeast strain, and the PA home grown blue corn, definitely gives this a flavor all to its own. A uniqueness to it thats not going to be reproduced outside of using these exact means. I get notes of acorn, corn, nuttyness, malt, some sweetness from caramel malts, maybe kind of a plum like note to it, wrapping up all very nicely. This is a fine tasting brew I wouldn’t mind them possibly tweaking a bit, or keeping even as is, and releasing yearly on January 16th (or approximate) as a small seasonal run. It would most likely do well, and could have a catchy name like “Prohibition Lager” or “America’s Lager” or “Before The World Went Crazy Lager”. Eh, who knows about good names, actually, you know who does? Ffej, with his Fuzzy Nudge. Now thats how you name a beer! Either way, what I *DO KNOW* is that this is a fine tasting beer, that won’t last much longer at Troegs, and was a very significant beer for them, and for all of us fans of Troegs and fans in the Central PA area. So make sure you stop by Troegs brewery, drink up, and enjoy before its gone!

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.82 (as of 1.17.20)
Updated Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 2.2.20)

To read up even more on Scratch 400, you can check out Derek Markel’s excellent article over at ItsABrewLife: Troegs Scratch #400 & Beyond. ItsABrewLife is a wonderful blog written by Derek and Chelsea Markel. They are wonderful writers and a great influence on the scene in Central PA. She’s one of the co-founders of Harrisburg Beer Week, and he is an accomplished homebrewer who makes some delicious beers. So definitely pop over there and read this excellent article.

Here at the blog, we’ve been super busy as always. I’ve been writing nonstop it seems in the last few days. Beer reviews for This Is The Way by Broken Goblet, my series of Tree House beers – Sap, Autumn, Haze, Julius, and Doppelganger. Our beer review of Scarlet Sunrise by Mellow Mink, as well as our visit to Mellow Mink. The sad news of Crystal Ball’s Closing in York PA. Beer review of Hill Farmstead’s Florence. Also been doing several podcasts, LOST Seasons 1 and 2, LOST Seasons 3 and 4, Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian, and possibly soon one on the final season of BoJack Horseman. We also have much more content coming out, more beer reviews, visits to breweries, openings, an article on Liquid Noise opening in Marysville PA, an article on the progress of Rubber Soul opening in Hummelstown PA, and much more. So please be on the lookout for all of that great content. Click the follow here. Use the RSS feed to follow us or enter your e-mail, or if you already have a WordPress account, you can sign right up with that (probably the easiest way to get our blog).

Also, please follow us on Facebook: The Beer Thrillers.
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Also, if you ever check out FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs, you’ll see we are currently sitting in the #9 position now since January 15th. (Previously we were #11). We are super proud to be in the Top 10. (Especially since #3 and #4 are the same link, so I guess that sort of, pseudo, technically, maybe, makes us really #8… I dunno.) So give that a click, and then click on us coming back, show them how much you love us!

As you can see in the pictures here, this was my daddy-daughter date night with my youngest. She absolutely loves Troegs. She loves the smell of the brewery (as does my ten year old) as soon as we get in. I picked her up from an after-school function. Took her to the Hershey Library, she picked out two books, and then we had dinner at Troegs. We read her books, she devoured her fries (which, by the way, Troegs has some of the absolute best fries ever) and I enjoyed Scratches 399 and 400. Both were fantastic beers, and Mara had a great night. The laid back atmosphere of Troegs is a nice family-friendly place, that all three of my daughters love coming to. If you are ever in the area, and never been here, I highly recommend it. Yes it gets pretty full in the summer time and with lots of kids from the park, but its still worth at least a one time visit.

Scratch 399 (left) and Scratch 400 (right) at Troegs Brewery

And as always, we greatly appreciate all of you, our fine readers. Thank you so much for stopping in, checking us out, and giving us a read. We hope you liked what you read and choose to stick around and check out our other articles. We have tons of stuff here on the blog, from beer reviews, to home brewing stuff with Default Brewing, to some guest writing from LetUsDrinkBeer’s blog and their contributions, to brewery reviews, beer events, even some book reviews, and much more.

Final note, tonight’s the Super Bowl, or technically as everyone who isn’t the NFL has to call it “The Big Game”. San Fransisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs. It should be a good game. I am going against the grain, and thinking it’ll be low scoring, and I’m predicting San Fran 21 to Kansas City’s 10.

So you heard that here folks, that as of 9:42AM, I, B. Kline, predict this as your Super Bowl LIV Final Score:

San Fransisco 49ers: 21
Kansas City Chiefs: 10

Leave your thoughts, comments, score predictions, and other esoteric antics (call back to the podcast!) in the comments section. Love to hear from you all. We greatly appreciate all the feedback we get. It means so much to us! Cheers, and thank goodness that ground hog saw no shadow! Spring is clearly on its way, rodent meteorology for the win!

-B. Kline

Scratch Number 400

Beer Review: Scarlet Sunrise – Blackberry and Blueberry (Mellow Mink Brewing)

BKline — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 15:58:54 +0000

Scarlet Sunrise Blackberry and Blueberry by Mellow Mink Brewing

If you thought The Beer Thrillers were done with the Mellow Mink content, you’re wrong. At the end of our visit on January 2nd, Matt cracked open a bottle of this for the three of us to share and devour, and savor, and savor and devour we did!

I think the picture above is pretty good, but even still it doesn’t do the beer justice for how aesthetically pleasing it looks. Let alone how tasty it is.

While getting to sit down with Matt and Josh and discussing the barrel aging and bottling that Mellow Mink Brewing does. Matt here is Dr. Lambic, Mr. Matt Miller, Doctorate, head brewer, bottler, part-owner, and genius of Mellow Mink Brewing in Mechanicsburg PA. If there is one thing this man knows (and there is plenty, don’t worry) its sour beer. He knows more about the various yeasts and strains and “lactobacilus” and “saccharomyces” then I know things in general – in total. So it was a complete treat to get to sit down with him, enjoy one of his perfected creations, and listen to him talk about how it was made, why it was made, why this or that ingredient was used, how the aging was done, why this barrel or that, etc, etc. All the while getting to sip on this exquisite drink.

So with enough of an adieu (since I wrote all that above, I can’t say with no further adieu, because I did give plenty of adieu), let’s break down this gorgeous beer:

Beer: Scarlet Sunrise – Blackberry and Blueberry
Brewery: Mellow Mink Brewing
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: 4
Untappd Write-Up: A blend of sour red ales aged for 12 months in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels refermented on Blackberries and Blueberries. Naturally carbonated and conditioned in the bottle.
Notes: Bottle Conditioned, Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Lactobacilius

So after getting to tour the facility there at Mellow Mink, Matt had us sample some untouched barrel projects, and then we went to the finished product. This made for a fantastic cap to the night.

Appearance is beautiful, rosy red, effervescent, glowing, sour fruited look alike, but richer, deeper, more full bodied look. You can tell it was aged, you can tell it has a ‘wine’ backbone to it due to the barrel aging, and you can tell it was conditioned for a while. You can see that this is not merely a regular fruited sour, but one that has been labored over and loved over. It just glows and looks beautiful straight from the pour. Great carbonation, great appearance.

Aroma from this is everything you want from reading the bottle. Your nose immediately picks up the blackberry, the blueberry, the Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrel, you get the dryness, the muskyness, the earthy undertones, you inhale and get even more dry stone fruit notes, the blackberries and blueberries jumping in again. Just a wealth of fantastic aroma notes assaulting your nostrils in one great blending.

Now, this is definitely not one to gulp, to quaff down, to chug. This is a beautiful sipping beer. Not surprisingly given how it was made and prepared, you drink this like wine. You sift it, you sniff it, you sip it, you sift it, you swirl it, you savor it, you slowly, devour it. You let it roll around on your tongue, you let it slide to the back of your throat and enjoy the taste. You don’t rush this at all. Its dry, complex, and full of wonderful tastes, textures, and its just so well made that you appreciate every last drop of it. You get deep dryness from this, you get earthy notes, musky notes, you get heavy stone fruit, you taste the wine, you get overpowering blackberry, you get slow building blueberry, you get a tartness but not a complete sourness, the tartness going hand in hand with the dryness. It all culminates in a fantastic and delicious beer that fully embodies what Matt is striving to do at Mellow Mink – make fantastic beers. And that he does, in spades twenty times over.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.26 (as of 1.25.20)

Started this article yesterday morning (Friday, 1.24.20) but had to leave for work, and immediately after work took my daughter Lily to the Hummelstown Winter Fling. Which was an absolute blast and I might do a quick write-up on that. Tattered Flag, Spring Gate, Howling Henry’s, BrewDog through the Warwick Hotel; were all there as well as the Warwick being open for sales. Ffej was playing drums for the Julia Schreiber band and it was a blast hearing them nail some Rush songs in Neil Pert’s memory.

I’m wrapping this up just in time to go to work, where immediately afterwards I’ll be rushing to Marysville for the second day of the Grand Opening at the Liquid Noise Brewery, with head brewer Brad Moyer. Can’t wait to check out what he’s got going on, his home brewing stuff has been phenomenal. So definitely be on the look out for that write-up soon after.

To read up on the Mellow Mink Visit me and Josh did, you can check that out here. We had an absolute amazing time hanging out with Matt Miller and Cole and recommend everyone check out Mellow Mink Brewing.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

End of the Year – 2019

BKline — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 14:46:39 +0000

(Just a quick note, late addition on this, this is going to be a two-part article. First part a look-back at The Beer Thrillers articles of 2019, and the second part about our top beers, top breweries, and other happenings of 2019 for myself personally and the blog, and some of our friends in general. So make sure to check out both parts.)

So its the end of the year… end of decade even…. and thus its time to reflect back on where we came from, how we got to where we are, and where we are going. Humanity, since the inception of time, and creating of calendars and years and New Years Eves and New Years Days have always taken the last few days of each year to look back on their year, their life, and reflected, and thought about how they could better themselves, come up with “resolutions” for the upcoming year, and join in with friends and families as they ring in the new year. “New Year New You.”

We here at The Beer Thrillers are going to do something …. similar. Not fully introspective though, because we don’t take ourselves that seriously. But just a fun look back at the year that was 2019. I can’t speak for my co-writers, but I can say for me, personally, 2019 had its fair share of ups, downs, in-betweens, lefts, rights, diagonals, crosses, bounces, turns, jukes, and jives. But I’m still here and better for it all. But I’m not going to go on and on too much about myself personally.

Rather, I’m going to write about how the blog has done, where we started from, where we’re headed, etc. And yea, I’ll probably get a little personal. But nothing deep or philosophical or introspective. More along the lines of what were some of the best beers, breweries, or events I’ve done of the year. So don’t worry, the blog will uphold the Seinfeld idea of “Nobody learns, nobody grows, nobody hugs”.

Scratch 375 – CocoNator by Troegs Independent Craft Brewery

I started this blog back on May 17th, 2019. (This year!) It was a Thursday, my girls (my daughters) were at school, I was bored, and trying to figure out what I’m doing / was doing. I needed something for my days off while the kids were at school, something that was fun, something I was passionate about, something that let me feel like I was being creative, using my talents, and something I knew about. I’ve been reading blogs, and news sites, and all kinds of things about beer for so long, and I have a lot of experience drinking… …and writing… that I figured why not combine the two? I was feeling like I was in a rut, my job is the same its been for the past seven years, I wasn’t doing anything outright ‘creative’ and needed an outlet for it, and we are in a review culture. I do all kinds of reviews all the time, in small nondescript and unimportant ways. Like reading books when I’m finished, I write up a review of them when I check them off on GoodReads. Same with Untappd, when I drink a beer, I write up a small (Tweet size) review of it. I also felt, I was in a unique spot to start this up. I was getting to a spot where I knew enough people “on the inside” or “in the business”, and I was also doing stuff beyond just being a consumer; like home brewing, growing hops, helping can at Tattered Flag, being engaged in conversations with home brewers and professional brewers a lot, that I felt like I could provide some interesting conversations and articles to the world.

Mainly…. I was looking to not be bored, and to do something I love doing – writing and drinking beer.

So I started the blog up on May 17th, 2019. Basically having no clue what I was doing. I started up using WordPress and here we are. Its still WordPress, albeit the ‘weaker’ version (fingers crossed come sometime the new year, I switch over to the more advanced version, where I have more control over the site and the appearance). I did a little bit of research, chose a name – which to be frankly speaking – the name “The Beer Thrillers” just popped up to me. Nothing too deep or crazy or interesting behind it. I was honestly conjuring up the idea that it would be me, and a few of my friends writing, thus the “Thrillers” and not “Thriller”. I thought me, Drew, Dan maybe, and a few others would all writing all kinds of blog posts and contributing. Maybe some of the insiders in the business I know too… …while this hasn’t happened exactly; I have enlisted friends and other writers over the year to help out. (More on that as I get to their participation.)

Outside of creating the home page and starting up the site, my very first article on the blog was a beer review of Troegs’ Scratch 375 – The CocoNator. As far as first time articles go, I have no problems with it. Counting the writing of my colleagues and fellow contributors and cowriters to the blog, we’re now up to 130 blog posts (this being #131). I definitely think I’ve come a long way from that first blog. But I also like to think I laid the foundation there. I set up a system for how the beer reviews (I do) are written, presented, and I hope they are written in a fun, interesting, educational, and most importantly entertaining way.

Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro by Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co.

When I started this in May, I had just gotten a couple of cans from my shift manager at work – Jordan and used them a the base for my first few beer reviews. The CocoNator was quickly followed by two South County beer reviews – Painting with Light (May 19th) and Sundrifter (May 30th). Also during this time, from my recent volunteer work helping can at Tattered Flag I worked with and gotten quite a few of their cans (hard work and sweat at their brewery resulted in many cans of whatever beer was being canned that day, as well as lots of other cans they still had from past canning runs). Two of these resulted in the beer reviews of Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro (May 22nd) which was a collaboration between Derek Wolf of Wolf Brewing Co. and Tattered Flag and You Hoppin’ On Me? (May 24th).

Canning Day at Tattered Flag

I was trying to write fast, furiously, and get some articles out there as a starting blog, I knew content was going to be the main driving force (and still is). Quality content even better. Hopefully I provided the quality content. I guess thats all up to you guys to decide, but I like to think I did (or at least, like I said, hope I did). As you can see from my picture of the Imperial Churro; often times in the background or foreground or beside the beers you’ll see some of the recent books I’m reading, as well as my dog Leela – especially if I’m drinking at home where she typically has to get her nose into the business of all involved. On May 27th, I conducted a bit of a science experiment when I found an old (over a year old) Black and Blue Tastee from The Veil. I had gotten a four pack from one of my favorite bartenders – Chris – who had traveled down and muled some back up. I wrapped up May, my first month of writing for the blog, with my first beer review from a bar – Warwick Hotel – on May 31st with a beer review of Cinnamon Toast Crunch by Collusion Tap Works.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch by Collusion Tap Works

May finished, and my first month done; even if I had only started late in the month on the 17th, I felt accomplished with the blog. I published 9 total blog pages; which included the home-page, the author-bio page, the contact page, and other necessary background pages. Word was slowly trickling out about the blog, I was up to 59 visitors and 121 views. Not a bad first month – especially considering it was basically just two weeks (the 17th through the 31st). Lets say I was “pleased as punch” with the start of the blog. June was looking bright!

June started with a beer review from the Bissell Brothers Brewing Company – Baby Genius on June 3rd. Followed up by a bottle of LazerSnake by Three Floyds on June 9th.

Baby Genius by Bissell Brothers

On June 13th, I did my first multiple beer review, and my first beer flight review – from Troegs Independent Craft Brewing – of course. What other place would I do my first beer flight review? Troegs was basically my initiation into the craft beer scene when I was ….cough turning 21…. and was the start of my craft beer love. Troegs is still a wonderful brewery, a fantastic venue there in Hershey, and overall holds a definite soft spot in my craft beer loving heart.

A flight of beers from Troegs Brewery

June 14th ended up being my first “double blog post” day. Earlier in the day I had stopped in at Tattered Flag to pick up a four-pack, had a beer, and when home, wrote a review, and later that night, with my daughters, I stopped in at Boneshire Brew Works, had a beer, and did a review before bed. At Tattered Flag I had the Abra Collabra beer, and at Boneshire I had the Sunburst beer. A week later I did my first brewery review, when I took my oldest daughter to Gettysburg for the day to visit the battlefields and monuments. Before visiting the sites, we stopped for lunch at the Battlefield Brew Works. A day later I was back at Warwick for another beer and review – Manayunk’s King Crunch.

An interior picture of the Battlefield Brew Works brewery.

Around this time, looking to expand, I enlisted the help of a buddy and fellow craft beer aficionado and enthusiast, and Boneshire lover – Josh Doncevic. We had a few talks at Boneshire Brew Works, and we chatted on the Central PA Whalerz group, and discussed this and that and everything beer related, and I thought he’d be a perfect fit for the blog – and he is and still has been. And on June 27th, he took his plunge into the world of blogging with his first beer review Northmont by Yellow Bridge.

Northmont by Yellow Bridge, J. Doncevic’s first beer review here on The Beer Thrillers.

A flurry of beer reviews followed – Should Have Put Him in Custardy, a beer flight from Hershey Biergarten, helped close out June and start July with Josh’s review of Ectogasm. June saw the blog grow by massive leaps and bounds, we went from 59 visitors in May to 848 visitors in June with 1100 some views. July was looking to be a great month for The Beer Thrillers, and it certainly delivered some amazing beer reviews! Pink Guava, Inexplicably Juicy, Miami Vice, Old 51, Dillston, Saison and Hurry up and Wait, a beer flight from Tony’s travels up north at the Black Gryphon, Wolf Prints, and Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart.

On July 19th we launched our Twitter page. Which just a few days ago, we hit our 100th follower! (Time for me to plug in here and suggest everyone head over there briefly to follow us, then come back here.) On July 23rd we also started our Instagram page. I will be the first to admit that we don’t do as much with Instagram, primarily because I don’t know enough about it yet. Looking to learn more about it in 2020 and get that page going a lot more.

July continued with some more beer reviews like Enigma, Green Zebra and Next Coast, Good Walk Spoiled, another beer flight from Troegs, and Road Less Traveled. I ended the month by discussing my upcoming road trip with my daughters.

July also saw some fun and interesting events I got to do for the first time. I lost my Ffej of July cherry, getting to make it out to possibly the biggest, baddest, most sickest birthday bash / lawn party ever. Me and Drew also attended the Moo-Funk Home Brew event as well. July was certainly a fun month, but August was looking to be even better.

Straub’s Brewery in St. Mary’s

August started off with a bang, I took my daughters up north PA to visit Elk Country, then we visited Straub Brewery, then we went to Kinzua Bridge and after that stopped at Logyard Brewery and next door to it was Twisted Vine Brewery. That was Day One. Day two saw us hitting the Pittsburgh area. First at dawn we hiked McConnell’s Creek, then went to ShuBrew before going into Pittsburgh proper and visit the city where we did a whole slew of things like see Fort Pitt, take the Duquesne Lift, check out medieval Catholic relics, stop by a Jewish synagogue, see the outfield wall still standing, and we also checked out a few breweries like Cinderlands Warehouse, The Church Brew Works, and we finished the day staying at a motel right next door to Yellow Bridge Brewing. Day Two was a lot busier than day one, but just a much fun.

The altar at Church Brew Works

Olde Bedford Brewing in Bedford PA

We didn’t slow down for Day Three. We had a whole host of driving to do on day three. We started at Bushy Run to watch the reenactment and check out the events, then went to the Alleghany Portage and Railroad Museum, and then went into Johnstown to see the Johnstown Flood Memorial and there we checked out the brewery Stone Bridge Brewing. From there we Staple Bend Tunnel Trail and then we stopped and paid our respects at the Flight 93 Memorial. On the way back home to the Hershey area we stopped at Olde Bedford Brewing.

Was a fun three days where we got to see lots of cool places, museums, memorials, monuments, and nine breweries to boot. Can’t beat that!

The beer reviews weren’t going to slow down in August either. Ghost in the Machine by Josh , a beer flight at Twisted Bine, Juicy Fruit sWheat Tart, and Caucus Race 6.0. Then shortly before my oldest daughter’s birthday I took her and my second oldest down to Antietam to see the battlefield there and on the way back home we stopped at Cushwa Brewing. Which I did a brewery review of.

Cushwa Brewing in Maryland

They have since moved out of that building but they are still close by to the location. August still had plenty more beer reviews for you guys starting with Harrishire, Kettle Sour Series – Raspberry, Ghost in the Machine by B. Kline, Good Vibrations, and then I did a dual beer review from two beers I had at a Harrisburg Senators game – a Pineapple Kolsch and a Dry Irish Stout, Reve Coffee Stout, Rye for an Eye (my birthday blog post and beer), and that closed out the month of August. As for events in August, me and my friend Ming went to the Lancaster Brewfest and afterwards went to Mad Chef Brewing (my first time there) which was an overall fun event.

Taco and a Beer – a fantastic birthday treat, even belatedly

Moving onto September started with my cashing in my birthday taco coupon at Newfangled Brew Works and had a really tasty Kettle Sour from them. In September I wrote a piece for Breweries in PA and also posted it on my blog – the version on the blog is found here: Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg (9.6.19). It has become one of the most popular pieces on our blog, and I believe it has done very well for the Breweries in PA crew as well. Beer reviews certainly didn’t slow down: a flight of Levante and Tattered Flag beers, a flight of Troegs beers, Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale, a flight of beers from Mount Gretna Brewery, and Spundae.

September also saw me do our first listicle articles. With two – one celebrating our oldest posts – and one celebrating our most viewed posts. Followed by, as always, more beer reviews – Key Lime Pie, They Burn Them All Away, AuZealand, a flight of Ever Grain beer, Vanilla Ice Cream Stout, and a Sour Blueberry wrapped up September.

October started off with a couple of Boneshire Brew Works beers – Tried and True (Mango) and Iscariot. I then got to attend Dr. Alison Feeney’s seminar and event at Mid-Town Scholar “For the Love of Beer“. Afterwards I went to The Millworks and had a flight. I did a book review of Dr. Alison Feeney’s book – For the Love of Beer. We finally joined Facebook on October 17th, you can find our Facebook page here. We are now up to 154 followers on Facebook, hoping to grow more! Did a beer review of Salted Caramel Moo-Hoo next.

Midwest Coast Brewing

I was contacted back in September by Midwest Coast Brewing Company to do an advertisement article and announcement article about their brewery opening. And I think it turned out very well. This was the first time a brewery reached out to us and asked us to do a piece for them and I think it turned out very well. I did a bit of an interview with the owners / brewers, and talked about their brewery’s opening. This has led to Mellow Mink reaching out to us and inviting us to their place to check them out and do an article (January 2nd we’ll be doing that).

J. Doncevic did a review of Ekaunot by Barebottle. We then covered Rotunda Brewing Company’s rebranding of Irv’s Pub into Rotunda Brew Pub. Also did a news article on Pennsylvania breweries that won at the 2019 GABF. That was my first straight up news article for the blog.

More beer reviews: Athena, Sour Me Peach, Irish Table, Envie and Envie 4X, Yuengling’s Hershey’s Chocolate Porter, and to wrap up the beer reviews of October I did Fatum Series: Member Berries. We also covered Boneshire Brew Works’ 3rd Anniversary Celebration.

November was a crazy month for me. I challenged myself to doing 30 blog posts, one per day – MINIMUM, and I am proud to say I achieved that and met my goal. It was certainly daunting a task, but I did achieve it.

Here’s the list of my articles in November: Pumpkin Stout, St. Thomas, Walker Station Stout, a flight by ZeroDay, King Sue, Intergalactic Warrior, s’Mores LazaRIS, There’s Nuttin Butter Than a Nice Pair of Camo Pants, Secret Machine, Broken Heels, Animal Adjective, 556 Stout, Boat Drinks, a flight of Tattered Flag – Newfangled Brew Works – and Cox Brewing beers, Alpha Abstraction, Double IPA, Lager, Birra Di Levante, Tickle Parts – Passionfruit, a flight of beers from Appalachian Brewing Company, Default Brewing, Darwin’s Salted Forehead, Newfangled Pils, Gotta Get up to Get Down, Paradise Lost, Moon of Vega, Citraquench’l, Azathoth, a flight of Troegs including Mad Elf, and finally a review of Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s second location. WHEW! That was a lot to get out, you can read about it in the November Recap.

November also saw Default Brewing join us here at The Beer Thrillers. Headed by AJ Brechbiel, they are a group of home brewers who will be providing home brewing articles for the blog from time to time. They gave us a welcoming post in November: Cheers from Default Brewing.

I also started up a collaboration with Let Us Drink Beer blog. Where we would be guest writing and contributing to each other’s blogs occasionally. They are down south, and with us being here in PA, it seemed like it’d be a nice fit. Provide some information and beers and breweries that readers might not normally get to see. They posted their first article “Five Must See Breweries in Atlanta” in November.

Josh also wrote two beer reviews in November: Ghost 782 and Ghost 779.

December started off a little slower here for us, probably because I was a bit tired from November, or perhaps just because its the holiday season, I don’t know. But my first beer review was Ice Dreamz. I did a few more beer reviews in December – My Watch Has Ended, The Hog, Scrooge IPA, Sap, and Autumn.

Default Brewing gave us an introduction to their crew: “Meet The Crew at Default Brewing“.

I covered the guest blogging that was going on and Let Us Drink Beer gave us a review of Koki Bunni.

Finally, the last article posted in all of 2019 (outside of this one now) was a travelogue of me and Drew brewery hopping around Harrisburg. Starting at Boneshire Brew Works, and going to The Vegetable Hunter, The Millworks, The Sturges Speakeasy, and ZeroDay Brewing. Was a fun day jumping around from place to place.

Hopefully you enjoyed this look back on 2019 with The Beer Thrillers. The second part of this article will most likely be posted January 1st, possibly before work, possibly after work. I have to leave for work now, and work until (at least) 8PM, and will most likely be going right out to enjoying New Years Eve festivities with my daughters. Tomorrow I work 10-6, and afterwards will be doing a podcast with Esteban about LOST.

The second part of this series will cover top beers, top breweries, and other things about the year for The Beer Thrillers and myself. For example – podcasting.

So make sure you check out part two then as well!

As always, I hope you have a Happy New Year, enjoyed the blog, and continue to do so! Without you, we don’t need to write, so we hope you are having as much fun and entertainment with this as we are!

-B. Kline on behalf of The Beer Thrillers staff.

My hop arbor in the rain

Brewery Hopping – 12.27.19

BKline — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 13:47:56 +0000

The 2019 Holiday Reserve by Boneshire Brew Works, our first stop on our brewery hopping journey.

Want to take a trip with us? A journey along Harrisburg? C’mon, it’ll be fun. You get to hang out with me, and my buddy, and we basically do nothing but chat about Star Wars, The Mandalorian, Coen Brothers movies, how we were so disappointed by the sequel trilogy, about the blog, about the podcasts, we run into other friends, chat with bar patrons, and generally have a good time.

So why not join us? We hit several stops in the Harrisburg area. Not as many as originally wanted, and not all of the places we wanted, but we jumped around, had some fun, and called it a day and were happy. So no complaints there! Can never be upset with a day out with friends, beer, and no stress. Plus…. we got to pet a baby corgi… so there’s that too!

I have written a bit, here on this blog, and for Breweries in PA, as well as the Let Us Drink Beer blog about the breweries around Hershey and Harrisburg and Hummelstown Pennsylvania. Mostly recap articles on the locations, taps, places, atmosphere, beers, etc. The bigger – main article can be found here: “Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg“. The blog post that is primarily a link to the Breweries in PA article with a few bits of new information can be found here: “Touring Through the Breweries that Surround Harrisburg“. The actual Breweries in PA article is here: “Breweries Around Harrisburg (BiPA)“. And of course, the last article of the series, the larger one yet – that also delves into the breweries of Hershey PA can be found here on the blog Let Us Drink Beer: “Breweries Around Hershey and Harrisburg PA.” I do guest work and contribute to the Let Us Drink Beer blog, so make sure you check them out and my other articles there, like my review of the Pretoria Fields Collective Walker Station Stout. (I also did a review of it here for my blog: Walker Station Stout. For more information on Let Us Drink Beer’s Blog and to just check them out, their blog home page can be found here: “Let Us Drink Beer“.)

Lets start off with the pre-adventure details. First off, the events of this day occurred on December 27th, 2019. A Friday – and my day off (my days off are Thursdays and Fridays for now, before they change soon after the new year). Having worked the week, including Christmas, and spending the night of Christmas with family, and then spending Thursday with more family, Friday was a day for me and friends. I still got some crucial stuff done pre-noon, I finished reading a chapter book with my youngest daughter, I got the Autumn beer review blog up, did some minor editing on the Sap Beer Review and The Hog beer review (website formatting changes) and I walked my dog. So, noontime, dog home, I shower up, and head out to Boneshire Brew Works to meet up with Drew for the first leg of our trip.

(A final in-line, late note, just before publishing this, instead of listing the beers with the brewery we had them at, I decided to put them at the end, categorized by brewery / location and gave bare-bones information from Untappd on them. I’ll leave my rating with them as well, but not go into a full break-down beer review of them. So if you wish just to see what Drew and I drank, you can jump to the end of the article.)

Boneshire Brew Works – stop number one.

As anyone who knows me and has read this blog, Boneshire Brew Works is typically home base of operations. Its about three-five minutes from my house, right by Rutter’s, right off of Nye’s Road and on Derry Street. Close enough for my friend Drew to meet us there, and its also not too far out from where Dan lives (near Breski’s Beverage). A lot of other friends are close by too, from the Hummelstown, Middletown, and Harrisburg areas. Even from Hershey – its not a stretch of a drive. So its always a great place to meet up; plus the beer is superb, the atmosphere is nice, the bartenders and beertenders all know us, and its just a great place to hang out.

I got there about five minutes before Drew, and ordered the newest beer on the menu – The 2019 Holiday Reserve. A tradition now, at Boneshire, its always a glorious beer to end the year on. One of a handful of great NE-IPA style beers in the area, its usually one of the best, and always fantastic straight from the tap. And this year’s was no exception. After Drew gets there he orders the same, and we spend a good twenty minutes nursing our first beer of the day at lunch-time while discussing the intricacies of Star Wars; including The Mandalorian’s season finale (which had just dropped that morning), as well as how bad Rise of Skywalker was and the sequel trilogy as a whole, how bad the prequel trilogy was, how there’s now more bad to good movies in the Star Wars canon, how some of the books fit into the movies, etc.

We also talked about the next jump on the tour – The Vegetable Hunter, about them teaming up with the Harris Family, and other things beer related in the area. We discussed maybe checking out the BBQ place that is home to Pizza Boy’s secondary location; but decided to skip it, and decided to skip Newfangled Brew Works since with Drew, thats basically home number two. I’ve been to The Vegetable Hunter one time, but quite a long time ago, soon after they added the mini-micro-nano-brewery part to it. So I settle up the tab with James behind the bar, talk a bit about heading on some brewery jumping, and then we’re off to the city proper.

Now, it should be noted, number one, I am horrible at getting to any place. I’ll get there. No doubt about it, but it won’t be right, will consist of wrong turns, driving on one way roads, and being a bit late…. but I’ll get us there. And case in point was getting here. Next thing we know, we’re crossing the bridge and the river and turning around on Erford Road and heading back, finally finding a parking spot in front of the restaurant turned brewery.

Brother of Thor! by The Vegetable Hunter

I don’t know much about The Vegetable Hunter unfortunately. I do know its a super tiny micro / nano – brewery, and I know that Tim Myers is the head brewer. He is also the head brewer for River Bend Hop Farm – you can check out a review of their Dry Irish Stout I did. I was there at their brewery a year ago (on the 28th, it came up in my ‘memories’). Fantastic brewery and facility and the beers were great. Tim definitely produces some great beers.

I’m not vegan or vegetarian, and neither is Drew. So we didn’t order anything to eat. (Not saying you HAVE to be vegan or vegetarian to eat there, but its more likely to appeal to those who are.) Not sure if they do flights of beer there or not, I think they might, but the two kids behind the food counter who were finishing up an order for the family that was in the place eating (six or seven people with a small child) and doing a lot of cleaning (dishes / glasses) didn’t mention it. We each ordered a pint. I ordered the Brother of Thor! and Drew ordered Today’s Tom Sawyer. Their on-screen board listed only four beers. But their Untappd app lists six. I have also heard (after the fact) that they have an upstairs. Not sure if that was open when we got there or not, but they probably have more taps up there.

Brother of Thor! was tasty and delicious. Drew also said the Today’s Tom Sawyer was also good. Both are IPAs and were neither super hoppy or super bitter, but also not NE-IPAs. We would both recommend them to anyone traveling in the area. Can’t say anything about the food (sorry), but we both enjoyed our beers, the relaxed, hipster, like atmosphere, and overall thought it was a pleasant time there. We didn’t stay long, (not long enough to use our full hour of parking meter time – 3$, right in front of the restaurant), but we enjoyed our beer, and chatting, and stayed for probably twenty – thirty minutes.

After leaving, we decided the next stop would be The Millworks, since its close by. Did a few turns here and there and parked next to the Market. And went inside to the Millworks, which even at 2:30-3PM was pretty full with the bar nearly packed (luckily found two seats together) with lots of people eating.

A beer flight from The Millworks; stop number three on our trip.

Sidled ourselves up to the bar and plopped down. Ordered myself a flight, Drew ordered a pint, and got himself the brisket pizza. Drew typically always does pints rather than flights, and I typically will do flights whenever possible – to try as much as I can. Especially if its a venue I’m not likely to get to all that often.

My flight consisted of Winter Saison, Cherrywood Rauchbier, Kiwi Berry Gose, Triple IPA. Drew ordered the Market Day Session IPA.

Once we ordered and he ordered his food, the pizza arrived pretty quickly. I enjoyed the Saison, the Rauchbier was a nice, smokey, malty tasty drink, the Gose was a little bland, and not quite as interesting as I’d hope, but the Triple IPA made up for it and was very tasty, juicy, and hoppy. Drew enjoyed his Market Day IPA (I had it once before and found it enjoyable myself).

Drew said the brisket pizza was delicious. While here, we discussed various ongoing TV shows that we are still watching and looking forward to of upcoming seasons, like Fargo, HBO’s Righteous Gems, and of course still The Mandalorian. We broke down Coen Brothers movies, like A Serious Man, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and talked about how interesting it was for that show to be made (the Fargo show). We also talked about upcoming podcasts including me and Esteban doing one about LOST, a show which Drew had never watched.

While closing out and debating how far to stray from Harrisburg and getting texts from Dan Arndt that he’s getting off work and wants to jump in on the festivities, the bartender pointed out that it was 4:15PM and that The Sturgis Speakeasy was doing their happy hour from 4-6. So since Dan usually likes to meet up at ZeroDay when in the city, we figured we’d stay local, hit up Sturgis, then meet him over there. So off we were to a “pit stop” on the brewery tour.

Goggles by New Trail Brewing Co. at The Sturgis Speakeasy, our pit stop before hitting up ZeroDay Brewing.

A hop skip away from The Millworks we found ourselves good parking beside The Sturgis Speakeasy and headed in. They had a nice tap list including several noticeably good beers, quite a few New Trail Brewing Co. beers on tap, and a pretty good bottle and can listing. Drew asked for one of the bottles on the list and was told they just sold out, and so he then settled on the New Trail Porter – Sunset. I ordered the NE IPA Goggles from New Trail which everyone has been raving about in various Facebook beer groups I’m in.

You can’t go wrong with New Trail, they seemingly haven’t made a bad or even mediocre beer yet (at least that I’ve had). I’ve had several from them before – Broken Heels, Double Broken Heels, Corvus, and I believe a sour of theirs that name eludes me at the moment. Goggles was another fantastic New England style IPA, this time a Double Imperial New England IPA. At 8.8% ABV it does give you a good punch and with the large pour at Sturgis it was really good. For my second beer I got the Porter, which was a very nice chocolate porter. Not too overpowering, not too heavy chocolate, pretty much just the right amount. A nice mixture of flavors and complexities to keep it tasty.

On the background TVs was an English Premier League soccer (or “football”) game. A roar went up at one point from the denizens of the bar as the one team scored, and me and Drew talked about my years playing and coaching soccer. Also discussed Christian Pulisic a bit and how I grew up knowing the family due to his father – Mark Pulisic – and his days playing for the Harrisburg Heat. Christian is a great kid, and Mark was a great player, coach, and all around guy. His wife (and Christian’s mom) Kelly is also a wonderful person. So its so great to see the family achieve so much success. Hopefully it also translates to the US Men’s Team finally getting better and possibly winning a World Cup some day (obviously not the next one…. ….since we didn’t even qualify….. ugh……). Side note here: if you ever want to discuss soccer – make sure you see Owen, bartender for Boneshire Brew Works, the men has forgotten more about soccer (due to concussions) than most people will ever know. Plus he’s a great dude, especially after a few.

Nearing our end at the speakeasy a nearby bar patron started chatting us up about local Harrisburg politics, and all kinds of manner of other things. Now, me and Drew will often get chatty about politics, philosophy, religion, etc – but only with ourselves, and more quiet, …and usually when we’re a lot more drunk. We tend to not jump into these kind of conversations with people we don’t know, because well… you never know how the conversations are going to go, and typically we like to follow the bar rule of “No Religion. No Politics. No Gender.” discussions. But we allowed him to talk to us about it, and we stayed neutral and listened. (Always remain neutrality when listening, always the best case scenario.)

We paid up, said goodbye to the friendly bartender lady who was very nice, and chatted to us a bit about The Mandalorian (noticing a theme with our day yet?), as well as Netflix and other TV in general, thanked her for the good beer, and we were on our way to ZeroDay.

My beer flight at ZeroDay

We park back behind Midtown Cinema and head into ZeroDay. Finding a spot at the bar we jump up, Drew orders the Financial Panther, and I get myself a flight. I also try their hard seltzer, one of the first craft brewery hard seltzers I’ve had. And I just have to say…. the style does nothing for me. No White Claws for me, no Truly Hard Seltzers, just… nope. White Claws mean no Laws is BS and I stand by it. I’ve never been a fan of carbonated water or seltzer to begin with, so making it slightly alcoholic doesn’t do enough for me. The first time I tried a hard seltzer was at Ffej of July this year from Karl Larson’s group. This was my first time trying it from a craft brewery.

My flight consisted of: Accidental Fluffer, Grievance, Smooth Metal, Mister Bubz, North St. Stout, and ZeroDay Dunkel. With an additional taster of plain Automatic Refresher (the hard seltzer).

We hung out inside for about fifteen minutes before our friend Youngblood and his girlfriend arrived. After about another five or so minutes Dan arrived, but had to stay outside because he had his corgi with him – Domino Thunderthighs. And yes, thats its actual name, and yes, the dog is totally a babe magnet and the most adorable thing since Baby Yoda – The Child. So we went outside and hung out at the picnic table, and watched the slow human avalanche of people finding out theres a nine month old corgi outside as they all came out to pet him and either go back in or head to their cars. Even the bartenders took turns coming outside to pet the dog.

Outside was a nice brisk evening, and we stayed out there til 9PM. Youngblood does stand up comedy work for various places, so we chatted some about that, his upcoming shows, some bits, we talked with Dan about his work (lung respiratory nurse), talked about our jobs (Drew as bartender, me at the casino, etc.), we talked about dogs (my border collie Leela and my new pitbull / black lab mix – Tink), Dan’s two dogs the corgi Domino Thunderthighs and his other dog Indiana Bones. Dan talked about his latest trip with his fiance Kat at Tree House Brewing Company where he brought back the beers I’ve done reviews of – Sap and Autumn. Talked about the places we stopped at today – Boneshire Brew Works, The Vegetable Hunter, and The Millworks. Talked about local breweries in general, places like Iron Hill, Troegs, Moo-Duck, Cox Brewing, The Vineyard and Brewery at Middletown, and Spring Gate.

We got into our normal shenanigans and revelry and had a good time hanging out together. Killing an afternoon / evening. At about 915 or so, we discussed evening plans, I had to take Drew back to Boneshire Brew Works for him to get his car and I was gonna head home, Dan, Youngblood, and Youngblood’s girlfriend were going back to their apartment after Dan dropped off his dog. As usual partings go, we cleaned up and took our glasses back in, gave our goodbyes to each other, walked to our cars and left. Knowing we’ll all be doing this again in a few days most likely, just chilling, relaxing, hanging out, having a good time, and drinking beers at places like ZeroDay or Boneshire or Troegs or at bars like Chick’s, Sturgis Speakeasy, The Manor, Gin Mill, The Boro, Warwick Hotel, etc. There is few things on this planet that are better than hanging out with friends, having fun, laughing, not being stressed by life or cares and just taking care of each other through communal friendship and just being with each other as we drink and bond. Its easily one of the best things about craft breweries is the communal nature of the small local craft breweries. The atmospheres and the venues and the way it brings people together to talk, hang out, have fun, and drink good delicious beers. Not even macro beers at big time bars can deliver the same kind of intimate friendship and kinship that craft breweries can give you, just based on the structure of how different the two are.

After we departed, took Drew back to Boneshire Brew Works and let him get his car. It was 9:45PM and Boneshire was soon closing for the night. Made our safe returns and trips, and had ourselves a fantastic trip basically over Harrisburg and the suburb of it a bit. We got to drink at Boneshire Brew Works, The Vegetable Hunter, The Millworks, The Sturgis Speakeasy, and ZeroDay Brewing. Had great beer, Drew had some great food, lots of great conversations, lot of fun, and much laughter. Was a fantastic day, and a nice leadup to the end of 2019 and the end of a decade and to the start of a new year, new decade, and certainly many more adventures.

As a final note before listing the beers, I started writing this up Sunday December 29th 2019 early in the morning before work, had to go to work, wanted to finish it after work, but had a retirement party for a co-worker at Thoroughbred’s, and after that it was late and I was unable to finish it. So I am now finishing this up (started at 5:30AM when I woke up, and now finishing it at 7AM). And since its December 30th now, I can safely say to Drew happy birthday, as the old man is now 35. So in his honor, make sure you listen to some of his podcasts and mentally give him a shout out and happy birthday.

And now onto the lists!

Boneshire Brew Works:

Beers:

2019 Holiday Reserve
The Hog

Beer: 2019 Holiday Reserve
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: What we have here is a small Christmas miracle! This year’s batch of Holiday Reserve is a NEIPA brewed with 12 varieties of hops and copious amounts of Flaked Oats, Wheat, and Barley and clocks in at 8.5% abv. This batch is brewed with Apollo, Cashmere, Columbus, Simcoe, Warrior, Motueka, Amarillo, Azacca, Lemondrop, Citra, El Dorado, and Mosaic. This NEIPA is sure to please everyone for the holidays.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: The Hog
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: IPA – Triple
ABV: 9.8%
IBU: 51
Untappd Write-Up: Our collaboration with Muggers of the year 2018-2019. Mike Luckovich and Dan Ploch dreamed up this big hoppy fruit forward IPA. Brewed with Simcoe, Amarillo, Zythos, and Citra hops.
My Untappd Rating: 4.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.16 (as of 12.30.19)

The Vegetable Hunter

Brother of Thor!
Today’s Tom Sawyer

Beer: Brother of Thor!
Brewery: The Vegetable Hunter
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 27
Untappd Write-Up: Hoppy IPA with the Viking/Norwegian yeast strain Loki.
My Untappd Rating: 3.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.67 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Today’s Tom Sawyer
Brewery: The Vegetable Hunter
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 70
Untappd Write-Up: West Coast IPA – Slappin’ da bass hops! Nugget, Equinox, Citra, Amarillo, and Columbus hops.
Drew’s Comments: Good, hoppy, tasty.
Global Untappd Rating: 3.45 (as of 12.30.19)

The Millworks

Market Day Session IPA
Winter Saison
Cherrywood Rauchbier
Kiwi Berry Gose
Triple IPA

Beer: Market Day Session IPA
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: IPA – Session / India Session Ale
ABV: 5%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: Light body, hop forward ale. Orange-golden in color. Floral and citrus in the aroma and flavor. Restrained bitterness that is noticeable but not overwhelming. Easy drinking, lower alcohol session ale.

Malts: Pale, Vienna, Cara Pils

Hops: Nugget, Cascade, Chinook, Crystal
Drew’s Comments: Tasty, crisp.
My Untappd Rating (from previous time): 3.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.66 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Winter Saison
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Farmhouse Ale – Saison
ABV: 7.9%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: Medium body, dark spiced farmhouse ale. Deep mahogany in color, lightly spiced with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla, and french oak chips. Fermented with spicy belgian saison yeast.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.69 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Cherrywood Rauchbier
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Rauchbier
ABV: 5%
IBU: 20
Untappd Write-Up: Classic Rauchbier brewed with local PA Cherry Wood smoked malt. Mild smokiness balanced with sweet bready malt
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.87 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Kiwi Berry Gose
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 4%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: PA Preferred beer brewed with Deer Creek Malt and 350 lbs of Kiwi Berries from Threefold Farm
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.81 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Triple IPA
Brewery: The Millworks
Style: IPA – Tripel
ABV: 11.5%
IBU: 80
Untappd Write-Up: Full bodied IPA brewed with Amarillo, El Dorado, and Idaho 7 hops
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.96 (as of 12.30.19)

The Sturges Speakeasy

Goggles
Sunset

Beer: Goggles
Brewery: New Trail Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double New England
ABV: 8.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Goggles is a Hazy Double IPA focussing on some of our favorite hops. Brewed with a mixture of wheats and oats. Heavy handedly hopped with Galaxy and Citra. Goggles is excessively fruity and dank.
My Untappd Rating: 4.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.21 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Sunset
Brewery: New Trail Brewing Co.
Style: Porter – Other
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Sunset is a Chocolate Porter brewed with layers of dark and chocolate malts, rested on Cacao Nibs from Ghana. Expect a rich porter layered with deep chocolate flavor reflecting both dark and milk chocolates. Brewed for the early winter sunsets and long dark nights.
My Untappd Rating: 4.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.67 (as of 12.30.19)

ZeroDay Brewing

Automatic Refresher
Financial Panther
Accidental Fluffer
Grievance
Smooth Metal
Mister Bubz
North St. Stout
ZeroDay Dunkel

Beer: Automatic Refresher
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Hard Seltzer
ABV: 5%
IBU: 0
Untappd Write-Up: Hard Seltzer brewed for you! We brewed a blank Hard Seltzer and provide the flavors for you to add how you please!
Global Untappd Rating: 3.87 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Financial Panther
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Inspired by the hard work it takes to not only make the beer, but the prowess required to run the business, we are excited to release Financial Panther, our newest IPA double dry hopped with copious amounts of Motueka from New Zealand. With notes of crushed lime and bright citrus, it’s sure to start your weekend right.
Drew’s Comments: Had this before, second favorite from ZeroDay behind Mango Hab
My Untappd Rating (from previous time): 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.77 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Accidental Fluffer
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Malt Liquor
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A Zeroday holiday classic, Accidental Fluffer is one of our most creative libations. Peppermint flavor and aromas shine in this malt beverage from the addition of pounds of candy canes in the fermenter. This fresh, minty characteristic is complemented by a sweetness derived from a light grain bill, milk sugar, and copious amounts of Marshmallow Fluff.
My Untappd Rating: 3.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.36 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Grievance
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Winter Warmer
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 15
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.83 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Smooth Metal
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Red Ale – Other
ABV: 7.3%
IBU: 50
Untappd Write-Up: Smooth Metal showcases a balance between a smooth caramel malt backbone and an assertive floral hop bitterness. The American grown Nugget and Cascade hops provide a classic hop character for this full-bodied ale. Smooth Metal is soft spoken at first, but definitely has a lot to say.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: Mister Bubz
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Dunkelweizen
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 16
Untappd Write-Up: Our dunkelweizen is brewed to the traditional German style. This dark wheat ale (“dunkel” means “dark” and “weizen” means “wheat” in German) is a wheat-based beer with dark malt components. While the malt supports a smooth backbone, the yeast is what shines in this beer. Banana and clove aromas and flavors really standout in this dark brown easy-drinking wheat beer.
My Untappd Rating: 3.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.46 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: North St. Stout
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Stout – Coffee
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: 5
Untappd Write-Up: A vanilla-latte inspired Stout brewed in collaboration with the Elementary Coffee Co.
My Untappd Rating: 4
Global Untappd Rating: 3.98 (as of 12.30.19)

Beer: ZeroDay Dunkel
Brewery: ZeroDay Brewing Co.
Style: Lager – Munich – Dunkel
ABV: 4.2%
IBU: 20
Untappd Write-Up: Light in body, dark in color, this Munich Dunkel brings forth notes of roasted malts and chocolate.
My Untappd Rating: 3.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.45 (as of 12.30.19)

Hopefully you enjoyed this travelogue of our jumpings and hoppins around of Harrisburg. Was a fun day for us, and we do this somewhat often (less now as we get older though). Hopefully there will be more articles like this in the future of more different / diverse places like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, etc. I’m looking forward to 2020 and hoping it has a lot more great breweries in store!

For some other articles and beer reviews and brewery reviews, you can check out these past written articles:

As always, there is tons of things to see, read, and do here on the blog. You can also head over and listen to the podcasts me and my friends – Drew, Esteban, Dan, Andrew, and Andy all have done and created. We talk about beer, movies, pop culture, TV, you name it. You can see the podcast listings here: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar…

Please help us out with word of mouth, share, like, comment, re-tweet, re-blog, whatever works for you. We love to hear from you guys, so please leave a comment. There is still time to get in what you think was the best beer or breweries of 2019, as I’m hoping to have that article fully done and up before the end of 2019. Fingers crossed!

Thank you for reading this long, rambling, blog post. I know its a bit different than some of our past articles. I’m looking to try and expand what all this blog has to offer, so there’ll be tons of different times of articles to read in the future. Not just beer reviews, but brewery reviews, beer related book reviews, home brewing articles, hop growing articles, beer event reviews, news, brewery opening news, travelogues, and so much more!

I have a packed schedule coming up. Looking like at the end of the day on New Years Day I’ll be doing a LOST podcast, Seasons 1 and 2, and then on January 2nd, me and Josh are traveling to Mellow Mink to do a write-up and have some fun with the head brewer Matt Miller. So be on the look out for that. That should be lots of fun!

I also just want to give a shout out – we just hit 100 Followers on Twitter. Thank you all so much for subscribing and following us on Twitter! If you aren’t following us already, you can click here: The Beer Thrillers on Twitter and follow us. That way you won’t miss any great announcements, pictures, and updates! You can also follow us on Facebook at: The Beer Thrillers on Facebook. Thank you everyone!

As always, thank you everyone for reading, and cheers, and Happy New Year!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Autumn (Tree House Brewing Company)

BKline — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 15:05:47 +0000

Autumn by Tree House Brewing Company

We are in that weird time of the year where… time doesn’t really exist. The between Christmas and New Years weirdness, where you want to try and get so many things done before the end of the year to claim it all in 2019, and then also want to save some things to get done starting in 2020 so you feel like your getting a jump start on the new year. A time when some people are starting to write down New Years resolutions (not this guy) and a lot of people have off the whole week (again, not this guy). Kids are out of school. Chaos reigns supreme. Nobody knows if its AM or PM, if its coffee, bloody mary, or tequila time.

A popular meme going around

So in this weird time…. I wanted to get this beer review out yesterday…. but…. time…. so elusive…. so ungrappable. (I think thats a word. If not, it should be.) But, then again, working in the casino and service industry, time is an illusion to me to begin with. With days off during the week, Thursday – Friday, soon to be Wednesday – Thursday, and time starts that can be anywhere from 10AM to 2PM and work goes til 6PM or 10PM time is all… very nebulous. And yesterday, became a total “non-time”. Me and my friend Drew started our adventures at Boneshire Brew Works, where we met up, then drove to The Vegetable Hunter, then to The Millworks, stopped at Sturgis Speakeasy, then over to ZeroDay to end the day, then back to Boneshire Brew Works so he could get his car back. So basically an entire blur of a day. Was deciding where all to hit, and we basically hit places we’ve all been to before, rather than venturing out too far. I had wanted to go down to Carlisle and hit up Molly Pitcher and some others, but we decided to stay closer to home base.

My morning was at least productive, I finished up the blog post on Sap (by Tree House Brewing), finished reading a book with my youngest daughter (Cutiecorns….. the excitement is real), and took the dog for a walk. Read some of the books I’ve been reading (Thrawn: Treason, and How To Make a Nerdy Living); so it was at least productive before spending my day boozing away with friends.

But I know how this goes…. you all really don’t care about the details, or my recent travels (that will probably be a post for another day), what you want to read…. is the beer review. So lets get to it then right?

Autumn by Tree House Brewing Company, pairs well with family and Christmas meals

Beer: Autumn
Brewery: Tree House Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Autumn is a fresh entry in the continuing evolution of Tree House’s seasonal efforts. Inspired by the vibrant sensory experience associated with hop harvest in Australia, and harkening back to extraordinary memories of the Tasmanian countryside, Autumn utilizes carefully selected Galaxy hops atop a heavily oated base beer. The result is chewy hop nirvana. It has the power to instantly transport you to a place of natural wilderness, pristine air, and awe from which these delightful hops originate. We invite you to use it as a vehicle to reflect, give thanks, and revel in the company of friends this Autumn.

This leads to one of my favorite beer reviews I just saw when opening this up on Untappd:
Andrew S.: It’s pretty inoffensive. Solid ipa. If you want to throw up, read the description of this beer. (10 hours ago, from the time of this writing). (No cap rating.)

And ya know, I guess that sums this up pretty well. Its solid. Its inoffensive. But maybe the write-up is “too much” …? I dunno. I will say, first initial impression was that this was a “bit too green”, which, Dan Arndt, the one who gifted me these Tree House beers, felt the opposite, thinking this was better than Sap and that Sap was too green. Just goes to show you how everyone’s palates are and how differing opinions can be.

Cracking this can open, even with the food already on the table, there was an immediate aroma of hop. This is a cornucopia of hop and a wallop of it, you get a ton of varying hop notes in this and its all very much. You definitely get the New Zealand / Australia style hop smell right up and very powerful. Sniffing from a glass, its very overpowering. You get notes of floral, citrus, and a little tinge of pine, very minute, very subtle. The notes of grapefruit, floral-flower, and open sea breeze strongly overrides it, but there is some of it there.

Appearance is your typical, as per usual, Tree House, IPA look. Its the prototypical, stereotype of New England IPAs that Tree House Brewing pioneered. Yellow / golden hue, bright, glowing, unfiltered look, slight bit of sediment (all basic hop sediment), cloudy, hazy, “dank”, etc. All the normal descriptors for a New England IPA apply here.

Taste is a big time punch of hops. Very green hops to me. A pure punch and a wallop of it, you get hammered with the floral, the grapefruit, the mango, the citrus hops right up front. It smooths and softens a bit after that, but the immediate sip is just a massacring of hop flavor upon your tongue and palate. That is definitely to say its not a bad beer. Far from it, this is a very good IPA / New England IPA. Its just that initial sip is a “wow, oh my gosh….” and kind of gives you that “bitter beer face” from the old Keystone commercials. There is a lot more complexity to the beer after that initial sip, so don’t write it off there. The hops mellow, the beer smooths, and softens, and the remainder of the can / glass is a very enjoyable beer. Its just a shocking first sip that then leads into a very delicious beer. There is a complexity to the hop profile after the initial bombardment, you get notes of floral, notes of mango, notes of grapefruit, some citrus, and a very tiny subtle note of pine. The bitterness lets off the gas and you get the floral and sea breeze notes that makes this a very nice beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.25 (as of 12.28.19)

(Always nice to see when global matches up with your own individual rating.)

So like I said at the beginning of this beer review / blog post, yesterday was a hectic crazy day of brewery jumping with Drew, then running into Dan, Youngblood, and Youngblood’s girlfriend at ZeroDay. All over Harrisburg basically it seemed. Sadly we missed a few places I woulda liked to stop at, but time never slows, only speeds up when you start drinking. So you know how it goes. *Shrug*

If you follow us on Twitter – The Beer Thrillers – you would have seen my pictures of the travels and the various stops and flights and beers I had. Quite a bit was consumed. Was a fun day overall.

I want to again thank Dan Arndt for the Tree House beers. I still have Haze, Doppelganger, and Julius yet to drink and review for you guys. I’ve had Julius before, I haven’t had the other two. Also want to thank Drew for hanging out and traveling from brewery to brewery.

The upcoming days will a bit busy. I go back to work today, and I work New Years Day and New Years Eve. On the 2nd, me and Josh will be going to Mellow Mink to do our brewery tour and write-up with head brewer Matt Miller. So definitely look for that, as we’re both super psyched and looking forward to that.

I will also be doing a few podcasts upcoming with the crew from So a Mexican and a Scot Walk into a Bar. I will be doing one with Drew about the Mandalorian season as a whole and Rise of Skywalker, and I will be doing one with Esteban about the show LOST from ABC. So thats some more fun stuff on the horizon for you guys to look forward to. They should definitely be fun podcasts, especially Rise of Skywalker, me and Drew have a lot to say about that one! And The Mandalorian had a tremendous finale episode for their first season, that should be a good season wrap-up podcast as well.

We are also still looking for thoughts and comments about your guys’ favorite beers, breweries, tours, and events of the year. So make sure to comment or email or contact us with your thoughts, choices, picks, and suggestions. We would love to hear from all of you!

As always, thanks for reading and cheers!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: The Hog (Boneshire Brew Works)

BKline — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 15:47:43 +0000

The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works, in collaboration with their muggers of the year (2018 – 2019) Mike Luckovich and Dan Ploch.

This will be as much a review about The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works as it will be a review of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker……….. I kid…. I kid…. I promise I won’t get into Star Wars too much here (well, maybe until the end of the post). We’ll see how it goes, play it by ear (or the Force ?).

But to set up why I’m even mentioning Star Wars, lets just say that Thursday (Dec. 19, 2019) was unofficially Star Wars day for me. Thursday being my day off (my Saturday; for now) was perfect. The Mandalorian released episode 7 “The Reckoning” on Wednesday, so I watched that first thing in the morning, then spent most of the day reading “Resistance Reborn” (my book review of it here: GoodReads – Resistance Reborn) and getting hyped for “The Rise of Skywalker”. We were set up with tickets for the first showing at 6PM at the Regal Cinema, so after picking Tony up, stopping at Rutter’s for gas, we had to pre-game before the movie, and what better place than Boneshire to pre-game for Star Wars?

Mug club members of the year – Mike Luckovich (left) and Daniel Ploch (right) with their brew – The Hog.

So what is The Hog? As I’m sure you’re far more interested in reading about the beer (the actual point of the beer review) than my thoughts on Star Wars (…or are you?) or what led to me getting to the brewery; lets get into this delicious beer and how it was made.

Checking to make sure everything is A-O-K

First off, given Boneshire Brew Works and their logo, its about time we had a beer called The Hog. Its perfectly apropos and was a very fitting beer for the brewery and for all involved.

This was a collaboration beer between Boneshire Brew Works (Alan Miller) and the two muggers of the year from their mug club – Daniel Ploch and Mike Luckovich. If you’ve ever visited the brewery, you’ve seen them. Their regulars, and that might be an understatement. As most breweries do – Boneshire Brew Works does a mug club; and there is always perks of being a mug club member (bigger pours, cheaper drafts, special events, special contests, cheaper merchandise, etc.) and at Boneshire the two muggers (mug club members) of the year got to join Alan Miller for a collaboration brew. This was said product of that collaboration.

Mike Luckovich working away at his collaboration – The Hog

In a bit of a first for Boneshire, this is a Triple IPA. Boneshire Brew Works is definitely known for some wonderful IPAs; you can see find reviews on many of them here on the blog.

Boneshire Brew Works IPAs on The Beer Thrillers:

Iscariot – Black IPA / Rye IPA
AuZealand 2.0 – American IPA
Caucus-Race 6.0 – American IPA (West Coast)
Road Less Traveled – New England IPA

And this is just barely scratching the surface of their amazing IPAs. Not even listed here is Green Machine (and double dry hopped Green Machine) which is probably their most recognizable IPA and possibly their best one.

Dan Ploch stirring the wort of The Hog

But The Hog is their first Triple IPA. They’ve done numerous variants; New England IPAs, Double New England IPAs, West Coast IPAs, Double West Coast IPAs, and Black or RYE IPAs. But this is a big boy here, and its a strong one with a hell of a kick to it.

Mike Luckovich preparing for The Hog

Dan Ploch and Mike Luckovich put a lot of hard work, and care, into making this beer with Alan. And obviously; it goes without saying, Alan put a tremendous amount of hard work and care into the beer, just like he does with all of his creations at Boneshire Brew Works. You can tell he passionately cares about the beer, the brewing process, and his brewery. And certainly all of his hard work has been paying off. He has a staple of favorites and a packed house most nights of regulars with them bringing in many new guests, and many new guests learning about Boneshire Brew Works and checking the place out. (Which, let me put a little footnote in here – if you haven’t checked the place out. Please do so. Cannot recommend the brewery and the beer more. You won’t be disappointed.)

The Hog by Boneshire Brew Works

Pretty apt description here; this is a big hoppy fruit forward IPA. Its a big smash-up of fruit and citrus style hops in a powerful triple IPA with a big ABV that gets you going on this bad boy.

Appearance is a beautiful New England IPA. Its golden hued, its a little hazy, its translucent, and its bright and bold. It has a good shine and an ephemeral quality to it. This may sound like a bit of a contradiction, but its both opaque and slightly transparent. Not completely see-through, not completely clear, but as you drink, it becomes noticeably clearer and more translucent and you can see the bar behind it. It starts off super hazy from the pour out of the tap and it settles down some. It has a tremendous head with various bubbles and a nice white foam, that crests down as you drink. Leaving good lacing on the glass. No extreme sediment, no hop bits, no pulp, nothing standing out in a bad way here.

Aroma is a straight up right undercut of hop explosions nailing you. Maybe not an undercut… maybe a good crossface right through the nose. This has all of the hop notes you want in a big fruit hop beer.

Lets break down the hops used:

Simcoe

Simcoe is often compared to Cascade, sometimes called “Cascade on steroids”. It is described as being both fruity and earthy. It can carry notes of berry, apricot, passion fruit, and citrus, but also has pronounced aromas of pine and woodsy earth. Flavor and aroma is quite complex and unique. Simcoe is a dual-purpose hop. It is most often used in bittering additions and creates a clean, smooth bitterness along the same lines as what you would expect from magnum hops. But, unlike Magnum it holds more potential when it comes to flavor and aroma. It can impart some spicy, fruity, and earthy notes through aroma and dry hopping additions

Amarillo

Distinct flowery, spicy, tropical; citrus-like with qualities of orange and lemon, like Cascade but much stronger. Considered a Cascade type hop. Dual-purpose aroma and flavoring hop with low enough Co-Humulone levels to allow good bittering properties also. Often it is used in dry-hopping to augment the lemon/orange citrus character in the beer. This citrus quality makes this a particularly good variety for the wheat styles. The myrcene oils that produce the grapefruit/orange character are so high that overuse of the hop can also create a somewhat metallic flavor.

Zythos

It features notes and aromas of tangerine, grapefruit, pine and even pineapple. Its high alpha acid content means it can be useful for bittering but is largely intended to shine as an aroma hop.

Citra

Citra lends a wide range of delicate fruity characteristics including wonderful aromas and flavors of lime, grapefruit, bright orange, mango, lychee, and gooseberry. Citra is considered a flavoring/aroma hop. It does have the requisite high alpha acid and low co-humolone to make a good bittering hop, but in most cases brewers have found its bitterness too harsh.

Ok, now that we got the hops out of the way, you can see how the aroma (and flavor / taste) is so extremely fruity and hoppy. These hops are loaded into this beer and are all very fruit and citrus forward. You get heavy notes of mango, tangerine, lime, orange, lemon, with small hoints of pine, little earthyness, and it all wraps up nicely.

Enough looking at it and smelling it, lets get to drinking it. This is one delicious beer! It is extremely citrus, extremely hoppy, extremely fruit, extremely strong and powerful, and extremely delicious. I think the over usage of the word extremely here is needed. (And hey, I’m fresh off of watching The Rise of Skywalker, so extreme seems to be a right word choice). You immediately get the fruit and citrus hop notes, you are bombarded right off the bat – like from a Star Destroyer in space – of mango, orange, tangerine, lemon, lime, zest, lychee, and other fruit notes. It all kind of swirls around and hits you. There is some btitering to the hops, you get some pine notes, a little bit of earthyness, but all in all its a clean NEIPA style triple IPA. Its smooth, definitely has the feel (mouth feel, appearance, taste) of being New England style; just with a much heavy handed boozyness with the 9.8% ABV. The ABV does sneak up on you though. I think a good comparison beer for this would be Troeg’s Nimble Giant, where you don’t feel the ABV and then it kind of hits you… especially after your second or third of these; which with how smooth and how tasty it is, they go down so easily. It would be too easy to sit back on a football Sunday and kill a good number of cans of this.

This is a strong, bold, powerful, delicious Triple IPA, and Boneshire Brew Works through Alan Miller, and the collaborators Daniel Ploch and Mike Luckovich did a fantastic and wonderful job of crafting this brew. I would certainly love to see it enter ‘regular rotation’ rather than be a bullpen beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25 (hard to choose between ****.25 and ****.50 but settled for .25; I think after future refreshings of this, I will probably go with .50)
Global Untappd Rating: 4.34 (as of 12.21.19)

As the Winter Solstice brings the night to a close, and I wrap up this beer review; which took me longer to write than it should have; this was a fantastic beer, and a good strong first-day-of-winter Triple IPA. With the holidays upon us, we should soon be treated to Boneshire Brew Works’ Holiday Reserve 2019 (annual beer but different each year). Definitely looking forward to that to round out the year.

Sooooo…. after watching The Rise of Skywalker with Tony, drove him home, dropped him off, I was supposed to head over to Drew’s to hangout while they did their podcast on Christmas / holiday horror movies. But I got called to my parents to help them with a few things and unfortunately I didn’t have the energy at 10-10:30 after stopping at home to then go back out (20minute drive) to his house. My friend Dan and his fiance Kat were fresh home from a trip up north where they stopped at Tree House, Dan was nice enough to pick up me a few cans – Sap, Julius, Haze, Doppleganger, and Autumn. So you can definitely be sure to get some reviews on these bad boys – as lets be honest here – who doesn’t love Tree House?

For those interested in hearing the Christmas / holiday horror podcasts; you can check them out here:

The podcast is “So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar” and you can view their full listing here: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar. I have been featured on a few of their podcasts now – The Irishman, The Mandalorian, Breaking Bad / El Camino Pt. 1 and Pt. 2. I typically discuss beer while discussing the movies. For the Breaking Bad pocast I brought with me Boneshire beer and for the Mandalorian and Irishman podcasts I brought Pizza Boy beer, and we also sampled some Troegs as well.

STAR WARS AHEAD

Since I started off this post about seeing Star Wars, and this being such a cultural phenomena, and Star Wars being one of my biggest joys and loves, and a huge factor into things, I can’t not use this space to discuss it. So if you have no interest in Star Wars, you can stop reading here (or skip to the bottom where I give credits, and a few last second blog comments, and my sources) or if you want to see my thoughts on Star Wars and Rise of Skywalker, you can continue. I will keep it spoiler free.

As I said, I’ll keep this spoiler free, which for the movie makes it hard to review, so this won’t be the biggest review you’ll read. At some point, somewhere, I’ll post up on my thoughts in full on it, and I’ll probably link it here in the blog. Likewise, most certainly, we’ll be doing a podcast on the movie, and it will be spoiler heavy, and you can listen to that then as well.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Episode IX

I…. well… I didn’t hate it. Its certainly no The Last Jedi (take that however you want, but let it be known, I am not a fan of it). This is certainly not a masterpiece movie, and its probably not the final movie of the series that we needed. I will say; and this isn’t a spoiler, unless you’ve avoided movie posters, and all trailers and pictures of the movie – Emperor Palpatine’s return is…. so meh. It reeks of desperation, and it reeks of ‘we need a new bad guy!’. I know there has been some hints and things about the Emperor in the new canon’s EU (Expanded Universe) – through books like Aftermath trilogy and the comics Shattered Empire, but even then it didn’t really hint at his return, and kind of made it all seem like it was a set-up for Snoke. Who we saw in The Last Jedi is not the big main baddie. So Emperor Palpatine’s return is very meh and very lackluster.

I will say, I’m also not a fan of exactly how Kylo Ren / Ben Solo has been handled, but I think he was done very well here. Rey is super over-powered in this movie, moreso than in the previous two, and if you watch the movie, I know the explanation they’ll give, but its not really one I buy. I think another disappointing character becomes Finn. Who potentially had a very cool backstory and arc – a stormtrooper who defects, and becomes good, but that gets all kind of shunted to the side to make him just a sidekick. Poe certainly becomes a main character; far more than in The Force Awakens here. Leia is handled well… considering the real life issues of Carrie Fisher’s passing away. So there was certain limitations in how they could handle her character, and I think they did it very nicely.

At the end of this though, I think the biggest takeaway though, is that its not a good wrap of the entire saga. The whole 9 movie saga feels ‘changed’ and not for the better because of how the Sequel Trilogy (ST) impacts both the Original Trilogy (OT) and the Prequel Trilogy (PT). I know the PT had a lot of flaws and problems, but I never thought it undermined or made the OT worse. Whereas the ST feels like it made the OT worse; and undermines a lot of it. Mainly Anakin / Vader’s descent, fall, rise, and redemption. It also seems to undermine Luke in the grand scheme of those things as well. It also makes the sacrifice of our beloved characters in the OT more meaningless; and not because of their being a new war, but because its the SAME war over again, and because their characters reverted – Han – or were ruined – Luke – or underutilized – Chewie / R2-D2; only Leia really gets usage and remains primarily unscathed (as far as character persona).

I will say the movie felt impressive, and looked impressive. It was a Marvel superhero formulaic movie, mixed with a big (BIG) budget blockbuster and thrown in some Star Wars. This might be the future and new wave of Star Wars; I dunno, maybe I’m an old curmudgeon, but I’m not a fan of it. I do love The Mandalorian, and I did love Rogue One, but this trilogy just didn’t do anything for me. The lack of cohesion, the undoing of TFA by TLJ and then the undoing of TLJ by TRoS, just…. its flattening and its disappointing and depressing. Especially given that this is the complete wrap-up of 40 some years and 9 movies and so much more.

My movie ranks for Star Wars now goes:

5 – 4 – R1 – 6 – 3 – 7 – Solo – 9 – 1 – 2 – 8

Obviously thats subjective, so take it with a grain of salt, and some of those could be interchanged. And with future viewings might change too. Your mileage will obviously vary. If you want to discuss it more, I will answer questions / thoughts in comments (or we can move to private then if you want to discuss spoilers). Please, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the movie, so be sure to leave some thoughts or comments here on the blog, I’d love to hear it!

—END STAR WARS—

Ok, back to blog stuff and this post stuff. Be sure if you check out The Hog at Boneshire Brew Works, you check in at The Wall along the back leading to the bathroom, that is where you will most likely see Mike Luckovich, and by the corner of the bar is where you will most likely see Dan Ploch. Tell them good job and congrats.

Hop sources are:

Learn-Keggerator (Citra, as well as Simcoe, and Amarillo)
Hoplist (Zythos)

You can check out Boneshire Brew Works here on Untappd: Boneshire Brew Works. And make sure you check out The Hog on Untappd. And check out The Wall location on Untappd to see the collaborators.

As always, thanks for reading, be sure to leave a comment – on either the beer, or Star Wars, or Rise of Skywalker, or whatever, be sure to click follow, like, rate, all that good stuff. And we would as always, ever so gladly appreciate you following us on Twitter and Facebook and passing this on and sharing it. Hopefully you all enjoy reading this as much as we do writing it and drinking it.

In the coming weeks you can expect some end of year re-caps and beer reviews and brewery things, as well as our trip out to Mellow Mink this thursday (Dec. 26th). So be on the lookout for that as well. Me and Josh will be making that trip, so we will both most likely be writing something up. Sorry this review took a while writing and getting out there, started the title of it Thursday night, did a little writing Friday amongst the thousands of errands I ran, wrote the bulk of it Saturday night (Winter Solstice) after work, but finished it this morning (Sunday the 22nd). But its done and out there, so hopefully you enjoy.

Also, check out our buddies at Let Us Drink Beer’s blog where they interviewed beer bloggers, writers, journalists, podcasters, and YouTubers from around the country – (myself included) – and asked them what their drinking for Christmas. You can find the article here: What Craft Beer Enthusiasts Are Drinking For Christmas.

As always everyone, cheers, and enjoy your holidays, tomorrow is Festivus afterall. Can’t wait to hear some airing of grievances and seeing some feats of strength.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

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