This is Karl Larson’s first beer (or art, or contribution, or… insert your word of choice here) that I’m getting to review or write about for the blog. Its a long time in coming, and if you know Karl, you know his amazing ability at brewing, his love of home brewing, and teaching about beer and brewing, and his open heart and willingness to share and give. Back at the Ffej of July ’19 we had discussed about me reviewing his award winning homebrew but sadly things didn’t work out that I got a chance to try it and review it.

I’ve known Karl now for quite a while, probably roughly five years or so, dating back to a homebrew competition or event or some such thing where I got to meet him and hang out and chat with him. Its been great seeing him every time and getting to sample his various homebrews. And then him doing small batches for Boneshire Brew Works (the old Piglet series) were all fantastic. So its great to get to see him brewing on the small batch system at Newfangled Brew Works. So on release day of his first beer for them, I had to stop out and try it (after all it is sorta.. kinda… not really… on my way home from work).

He also just released another beer with Newfangled (the plan I believe is a new one each week). I sadly have yet to try the new one, and I imagine its gone by now. I know the Loki didn’t last long (I think it might have lasted into Wednesday, but thats it). So be on the lookout for small batch releases from Karl every Tuesday at Newfangled Brew Works. I don’t believe they even update their Untappd list to include it (I know the Loki wasn’t listed, I had to search for it). You won’t be disappointed!

Beer: Loki – Wild IPA
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Brewer: Karl Larson
Style: IPA – Farmhouse
ABV: 6%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: IPA with Voss Kveik and Brett yeast blend. Dry hopped with Citra, Callista and Ariana hop blend.

This isn’t a sour IPA, but its getting towards that range. Its a tart Saison esque IPA.

Appearance is light hue, golden, lighter than a typical West Coast IPA, more in the appearance of Saisons and Farmhouse Ales. Nice carbonation with a good bit of foamy head that retains a fair amount of time. And as per typical with a well crafted beer, good interspersed bubbles of varying sizes. Lacing on the glass.

Aroma is interesting, its got the hoppy smell of an IPA, but that unique spice of a Saison / Farmhouse. You definitely pick up the wheat notes and the Kveik and Brett yeast plays into this too. You get a bit of coriander / orange peel like smell that rounds out the hoppy aromatics.

This is a delicious beer. This has the tartness of a Saison but the hoppyness of an IPA. You get a delicious blend from the hops too, both aromatically and tastefully on your tongue. Get notes of coriander, dry stone fruit, little bit of earthyness to it all. A slight musky earthy undertone. The body is deep and complex and full, not watery or thin, and lays great on your tongue and mouth as you drink. Even with the tart and hop it all combines nicely and at only 6% its easily crushable. Would be a fantastic six-pack beer. The Kveik and Brett yeasts add a very complex and complicated system for the beer that really entices you to drink more. Very very tasty, shame its gone so quick.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.97 (as of 2.15.20)

As always, I cannot recommend Karl Larson’s stuff enough. Fantastic brewer and even more fantastic guy. If you see him (and he is completely hard to miss at 6′ 20 inches) make sure you let him know just how good his stuff is. He’ll thank you and probably try and get you to adopt a pit bull. (I recommend doing that as well.)

As always everyone, keep on drinking and reading, enjoy and cheers!

-B. Kline

Some days the blog posts were easy. Other days not so much. Some days I had the blog post done at 7:30 or 8AM… other days I’m struggling to get the blog post done, and wrapping it up at 11:58PM.

I never truly felt like I had burnt myself out…. until I came to doing this recap blog post. Thats why its now December 7th and its getting posted; when this was meant to be posted on December 1st. And I still don’t think I’m ‘burnt out’. I think its a case of ‘start-up issues’. The hardest part about any blog post is starting the blog post. Like writing anything, the hardest part is the beginning, is putting ink to paper, or to type those first few words. So, as the time stretched from December 1st… to December 2nd…. to December 3rd…. I hesitated and procrastinated more and more, and this post went further and further by the wayside. So for that, and for the fact that the blog as a whole hasn’t had a single post in December, and no new blog post in a week, I apologize. For those of you who were looking forward to this recap posting of my “November NaNoWriMo Challenge”, I apologize. And yes, I know I’m not REALLY doing a NaNoWriMo, and I know I’m not using the term correctly.

But this is the recap post, and it is finally going live. I apologize for its tardiness, but hopefully you will enjoy it all the same.

I met all three of my self-set hard challenges for November, and fell short of a soft-challenge for myself. My hard challenges were: 1) One new blog post per day, 2) One new unique beer per day, and 3) One 1-mile or more walk per day. These challenges I completed. (Figured the 1-mile or more walk would counter-balance the fact I was drinking every day.) The soft challenge I failed was hitting my 10K steps per day. And I only failed that one day…. ironically the second day of the month. I only got 8.8K steps that day, mainly due to a friend gathering and party and having gone to it right after work.

But you all don’t really care about the challenges, and just want to see the recap right?! So here’s whats going with that. I’m going to make a list here of the dates (November 1st, November 2nd, November 3rd, etc.) as headings, and then underneath it, list the different blog posts we posted that day (mine, J. Doncevic’s reviews, AJ’s Default Brewing post, and the guest writing blog post by Let Us Drink Beer). I will also list what new unique beer I had each of those days (or in the cases of some days, ‘unique beers’). So lets to it!

NOVEMBER 1st:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Pumpkin Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Pumpkin Spice Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Catchin’ Feels (Tattered Flag)

NOVEMBER 2nd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Rose Cider (Wyndridge Farm)
• Blood Orange Cranberry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Strawberry (Delp Brother’s Home Brewing) (Friend’s Homebrew at the party)

NOVEMBER 3rd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Fields Collective)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Watermelon (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 4th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Sogni D’oro, Wastin’ Daylight, Market Research, Peach Novelty, Oktobock, Lucky Cat Lien (ZeroDay Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)
• Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)
• King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 5th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Black Cherry (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 6th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Apple (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 7th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: S’Mores LazaRIS (Boneshire Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 8th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory (J. Doncevic)
• Beer Review: There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 9th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)

Unique Beers:

• Schwarzbier (The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery)

NOVEMBER 10th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 11th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Colonization (Ghost 779) – Adroit Theory

Unique Beers:

• Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag)
• Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Government Overspending (2019) (Tattered Flag)
• Seven. Point. Six. Two. (Tattered Flag)
• 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company – CBC)

NOVEMBER 12th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )

Unique Beers:

• Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 13th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alcatraz Sour Apple (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 14th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag), Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works), Government Spending 2019 (Tattered Flag), Seven.Point.Six.Two (Tattered Flag), 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

NOVEMBER 15th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 16th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Birra di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 17th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Syndicate City Sour Peach (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 18th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Birra Di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 19th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beer:

• Great American Apple Pie (Stout Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 20th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Mechanicsberry, Bargain Black IPA, Embers Remain, Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Mechanicsberry (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Bargain Black IPA (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Embers Remain (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 21st:

Blog Posts:

• Default Brewing

Unique Beers:

• Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Nitro Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 22nd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)
• NVP (Nitro Series) (Breckenridge Brewery)

NOVEMBER 23rd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 24th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Cheers from Default Brewing!

Unique Beers:

• Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 25th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Crowd Control (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 26th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery(

NOVEMBER 27th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Scratch 394 – Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 395 – Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 396 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Mad Elf 2019 Vintage (technically not a ‘new’ beer, but my first of this year’s vintage) (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Coco-Nator (non-scratch version) (Troegs Independent Brewing)

NOVEMBER 28th: (Thanksgiving)

Blog Posts:

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

Unique Beers:

• Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 29th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Not My Style, Might Rate Anyway (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Visions of Yesterday (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 30th:

Blog Posts:

• Official BBQ & Burgers: Pizza Boy Secondary Location
• Five Must See Breweries When Visiting Atlanta (Let Us Drink Beer)

Unique Beers:

• Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Gose (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Whew, what an exhausting month November was. I think part of the reason it took me so long to get the energy to do this recap post, was knowing the amount of formatting involved and the photos…. and now that the challenge is over, a malaise kind of settled over me. Like my job was completed. I started this post this morning before work, and had to finish it now after an extra hour or so of work on it this evening. I still want to put in some statistics of the month, for the blog, and for myself, and will most likely come in and do the edit for that later tonight or tomorrow. I will also add the tags and categories. But for now, I just want to get this live and up on the internet. Its 7PM and this is long overdo.

I would like to thank my contributors and co-authors on this blog for making this month (and all the time in general) go so well, and for providing so much help, fun and entertaining blog posts to read, and for helping so much with the blog! Thank you J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (Default Brewing), and Let us Drink Beer Blog. My blog post for Let us Drink Beer’s blog will go live tomorrow and I will provide a link here for that in the statistics edit I will do. In the meantime you can read their post about their upcoming additions to their blog here: Let us Drink Beer: Exciting Additions Coming Soon!

Cheers and I hope you all enjoyed all of our blog posts in November. Heres to the rest of 2019, and then on to the future, 2020, and the next decade!

-B. Kline

EDIT:

Some statistics from the month here at The Beer Thrillers:

Blog posts:

• 34

Unique authors:

• 4
• B. Kline, J. Doncevic, AJ – Default Brewing, and Let Us Drink Beer

Visitors and Views:

• 2,767 Unique Visitors
• 6,293 Total Views

Twitter Followers:

• 95
• (Goal was 100, just missed it)

FaceBook Followers:

• 130

Most Vewied Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Breweries reviewed/beers of their’s reviewed:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Cox Brewing Company
• Adroit Theory
• Troegs Independent Brewing
• Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
• Levante Brewing
• WISEACRE Brewing
• Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
• Southern Prohibition Brewing
• Heist Brewery
• Toppling Goliath Brewing
• Dewey Beer Co.
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Appalachian Brewing Company
• Crosstown Brewing
• Fonta Flora Brewing
• Westbrook Brewng Co.
• Equilibrium Brewery
• Pretoria Fields Collective
• Wild Leap Brew Co.
• New Trail Brewing

Styles:

• IPA
• Double IPA
• Black IPA
• Brown Porter
• Stout
• Pilsner
• Lager
• New England IPA
• Belgian Dubbel
• Sour – Fruited
• Sour – Other
• Fruited Beer
• Gose
• Sour
• Belgian Strong Dark Ale
• Pale Ale

Some personal stats for me:

Unique Beers:

• 50

Total Beers:

• 68

Breweries Visited:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewery
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Appalachian Brewing Company

New Restaurants/Bars:

• The Gin Mill
• Official BBQ and Burgers

Again, thank you all for reading. This post has now been updated with tags and categories. Please leave a like, a comment, and please follow us!

Thank you everyone!

Cheers!!

-B. Kline

Going back to how I would like to do more varied styles, and ones that don’t get done often, and having a comment discussion with 716Beer here on the blog, I decided to do today’s beer review based on the Newfangled Pilsner I had when there Thursday night. I have to admit, the toll of 30 blog posts in 30 days is starting to get to me here. Even with having a new beer a day, which I am maintaining (sitting here, typing up this blog post / beer review, while drinking “Gotta Get Up to Get Down” by WiseACRE), I am beginning to struggle to come up with some good beer reviews. Or at least unique ones. Or interesting ones. A varied list at any rate.

I don’t like doing too many of the same brewery over and over. But at the same time, its hard to have a new beer every day to review as well. And I’m not a beer hoarder, and when I do my trades and or get some from mules, I drink them pretty much right away. So I don’t have exactly the greatest ‘unique’ stock-piled beer fridge. I have a decent stack of Tattered Flag beers from when I’ve done canning, and some Boneshire yet from a bit ago, as well as plenty of Troegs seasonal. So my fridge doesn’t have a lot of the heavy hitters as I tend to drink them right away, either by myself, or with friends. So unfortunately I don’t have a ton of Aslin, Burley Oak, Tired Hands, Tree House, Trillium, or Hill Farmstead or others in my fridge. I also don’t use Tavour so I don’t always get a crazy amount of beer to throw in there. Not saying I don’t GET these beers from time to time, just that when I do… their pretty much gone right away.

I also tend to go out and meet my buddies at various locations; like The Warwick, Newfangled Brewery, Boneshire Brewery, Troegs Brewery, The Gin Mill, The Manor Restaurant, Penn Hotel, Parkside Bar, etc, etc, etc. so I get to try some various styles and breweries and typically on draft then.

So, since Thursday night I met my friends D. Scott and D. Arndt at Newfangled for a short brief time. While there I had two beers, first the Pilsner (Newfangled Pils) followed up with their stout on Nitro. While both were good and delicious, I’m going to review just the Pils in this blog post / beer review.

Beer: Newfangled Pils
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Pilsner – Czech
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: 35
Untappd Write-Up: Using classic hops this pilsner is clean crisp and refreshing. This beer is crystal clear and easy drinking.

It certainly is crystal clear. Much like their lager that I had the other time I was out with D. Scott (and reviewed here as well), its crystal clear, transparent, and a light yellow straw color.

Aroma is airy, light, with some hoppyness to it. Slightly herbal / earthy hop notes with a bitterness to them. This has a generic beer smell to it. Nothing crazy. No crazy adjuncts to change the aroma. Just a ‘lite beer’ pleasant smell and aroma to it.

Taste is simple. Its direct. Its the same from first sip to last drain. Its nonplussed. Its simple, its nothing extraneous, nothing daring or crazy. But what it is is efficient, well done, pleasant, good, and crafted well. This is a well created tasting pilsner, its light, its crisp, its low ABV means you won’t be getting drunk on this, its refreshing, its just a fine beer to enjoy with friends for any occasion. Perfect for the type, style, and location – the brewpub / brewery of Newfangled Brew Works. A great lowkey but big and open atmosphere in a community area, where the Newfangled Brew Works acts like the community’s gathering place, for everyone to come together and drink, and have a good time. And this is a perfect beer to help facilitate that.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.64 (as of 11.23.19)

Getting into the home stretch now. #23 down. That just leaves 7 more. One more week to go basically of blogging every day. Its funny how some days feel a lot harder than others at doing this. And typically the days where I wait til after work are the hardest. If I can belt out the blog post in the morning before work; or at least start most of it; its a lot easier, than waiting til 11PM (like I am currently doing, as I drain this coffee milk stout from WiseACRE and fight just turning on Netflix or Disney+ and passing out).

But as always, we love to hear from you guys, and see that we’re actually getting read out there in the bloggosphere. Leave a comment. Click the like. Share. Whatever works for you.

We appreciate it!

Thanks!

Cheers!

• B. Kline

Normally I don’t do back-to-back beer reviews from the same brewery or from the same trip to a place…. but…. this time I am. (Though I did do it recently with the reviews from the Gin Mill of King Sue and Intergalactic Warrior ; and then followed it up with a review of the Secret Machine which I also had at the Gin Mill). I don’t also like to keep doing the same breweries over and over, and me and J. Doncevic discussed this a bit recently. (Though, I just did Newfangled Brew Works’ Pumpkin Stout on November 1st, and their Double IPA yesterday – November 16th. I also did their Twin Mount .50 beer, as part of my multiple beer review flight I had at Tattered Flag on Veterans Day as well.) Its very nice to have a large variety. Some locals to give them some attention, and some bigger, national beers, that gets attention from all over. So this might be a bit of an outlier review. BUT…. also… we don’t do many lager reviews. Lots of IPA and Stout and Sour beer reviews here on the blog. Few pilsners, lagers, etc. So its a nice change of pace at least in that way. Plus…. I am doing 30 blog posts in 30 days…. so I need to write, write, write, and get as much out as I can….. (Plus, I’m also doing 30 new beers, one at least per day.)

Beer: Lager
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Lager – Pale
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: 20
Untappd Write-Up: When someone asks for a beer, this is the “beer” to get. Brewed to be a tasty light straw colored beer thats great for backyard parties, lawn mowing, and drinking on our patio. Sort if a bridge between adjunct American Pils and classic Cream Ale this is just a refreshing BEER.

This is a lager. This is a tasty lager. This is how a lager should be. Not Budweiser. Not Coors Lite. Not Miller Lite. Not any of that crap. This is how a lager should be. And I have to think all of those who drink the above mentioned, would be more happy drinking this (or at least just as happy). And if blindfolded and given a blind-tasting, they either 1) choose this because of its taste, or 2) can’t really tell the difference between Bud, Coors, Miller, and this would just be as acceptable to them.

Appearance is a ‘lite beer’ coloring. Clear, like pilsners, with nice consistent constant bubbling. Light straw coloring, filtered, little bit of head with very nice carbonation though as you can tell from the bubbles, and good lacing on the glass as you drain it down.

Aroma – there isn’t really much to say here. It smells like beer, it smells like your typical beer. Here you’ll notice the biggest similarity with Coors, Miller, Bud, in that it smells the same as those, with no discernible difference.

Taste is super smooth, super crisp, super refreshing. It is basically just an upgraded, much better, vastly improved version of a Coors Lite or Miller Lite. Of a really good lager done really well. Its got a slickness that those don’t though, a much smoother and easier to drink, almost creamy like quality to it. This is a perfect summer time beer, a perfect fall time beer, a nice winter beer indoors, watching football, watching soccer, watching baseball, mowing, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Just a well rounded, well made, tasty, enjoyable lager. Would be perfect in cases for parties at home on Labor Day or Memorial Day or whatever with friends who only drink the ‘swill of the masses’ and other ‘crap not craft’ beers.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.45 (as of 11.17.19)

Cheers all! Have yourself a fantastic Sunday and go out there and be awesome!

-B. Kline

Yesterday for lunch I picked up my friend D. Scott before dropping him off to get his car back from inspection; and where else are we gonna meet up for lunch? At a brewery of course! And this time we chose Newfangled Brew Works; a good distance in between the two of us, as well as his mechanic shop, so it worked out perfectly.

Topics of conversation ranged from The Mandalorian, Star Wars in general, Fargo Season 4 that is currently filming, the blog, beer, our podcasts, future podcasts, politics, Trump, the Impeachment Inquiry, Disney+, work, promotions, his car in the shop, spam phone calls, etc – pretty much the whole gambit of a normal two hour conversation as we drank.

BUT…. you all really could care less about what we talked about, and are much more interested in what we drank right?

For round 1, I ordered the Double IPA, and he ordered the Saison.

For round 2, I ordered the lager and he ordered the Ariana Flockhart.

Beer: Double IPA
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: 50
Untappd Write-Up: Light in color and body this DIPA showcases Azacca and Citra hops in a chilled whirlpool addition as well as in the dry hop. Coming in at 8.2% abv this beer will get you where you’re going.

This was a very nice, smooth, crisp DIPA. Appearance is a little more amber in hue than most Double IPAs or IPAs. Almost looks like an Amber Ale like Nugget Nectar (an amber ale or red ale). Little head, nice lacing.

Aroma is more or less hoppy. Not super strong, not kick in your teeth hoppy, but the hop notes are there and obvious, but subdued. Not a whole lot else going on smell wise, so you get the hop aroma.

Taste is very smooth, very crisp, and clean. No outright bitterness. Mouthfeel is nice, not watery, not heavy. There isn’t much to say about flavor other than a nice herbal and earthy hop variety. Not quite spruce or pine, but just a earthy hop and herbal flavor. Just a generally good and pleasing flavor and just a genuine pleasing beer.

I wavered back and forth on my rating, deciding to go up and give the benefit of the doubt with a 4 star rather than the 3.75.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.75 (as of 11.16.19)

Cheers all, until tomorrow! Same Bat Blog, same Bat Beer, Same Bat Time!

-B. Kline

So, first off, this is interesting… decided to make this my first beer review / blog entry for November; and its not quite what I thought it was going to be. As you can see, this is a bit of a “weird” moment and I’m curious what my recall on this all is.

I met D. Scott after work on Tuesday at Newfangled Brew Works for a quick beer before picking up my girls from my parents, and he had gotten the Festbier (which they have a Festbier called ‘Fest’) and I saw they had a new “Pumpkin Stout”. So I ordered that and had a draft, and drank it down and it was delicious, and thus why I chose to make this the blog post for today… but now, checking it on Untappd to write-this up, there is no Pumpkin Stout, and what I had checked in as Pumpkin Stout has turned into Pumpkin Spice Ale, and the pictures of my beer and others don’t align – and don’t look – at all similar. So I’m wondering if it was a one-off adjunct of their regular stout and that they released an actual Pumpkin Spice Ale that I didn’t have but everyone else did apparently.

So before I get into all that, let me get into about last night / this morning. So like I said with my Fatum: Member Berry review yesterday, I was planning on doing one (last night); after Trick or Treat and everything. Well, like I also said, that was a “tentative” plan, and I did want to. But, again, like I said (can I really do three straight sentences where I say “like I said”… yes I can…) with my hectic life I wasn’t sure if I would. I really wanted to, but it just didn’t work out. So, Trick or Treat in Hummelstown was canceled and rescheduled to tonight (like nearly everywhere else) because of the massive storm that came through. So we went to Pizza Boy for their kids buffet thing, and then went to Boneshire Brew Works for their Halloween Bash – which sadly was pretty empty due to the storm – and then after all that, and having to stop at Wal-Mart for last second kid Halloween school parade neccessity we got stuck in some flash flooding and everything and didn’t get home til late, and then had to do the work for said outfit, …and well, by 11PM I was just too exhausted for this, so I turned on BoJack on Netflix and I was out in no time. (Didn’t hurt I also had the St. Thomas 11% pastry stout from Pizza Boy, and the 9.5% Smores LazaRIS stout from Boneshire).

So back to where I started this off…. I’m in a bit of a conundrum here it would seem. I’ll show the picture of the beer I have, with the knowledge that it was listed as a “Pumpkin Stout” and tasted as such, and the signage at the bar said that, and the bartender repeated what I ordered. So here’s my beer:

Now, the next two pictures are from people I know who later (one being even later the same day / night as the time I was there) ordered and their check-ins are listed as “Pumpkin Spice Ale” (just like mine was moved to):

From the pictures alone, it is clearly evident that its two different beers. I believe one (the lighter brown, that others have had) is the Pumpkin Spice Ale its listed as on Untappd, and the one I had is just a variant of the Newfangled Stout – a Pumpkin Spice variant. So I will be doing my review on the basis of it being a variant of the stout, and that it is/was/is a stout, and just a Pumpkin Spice Stout.

I will give listings and information for both the Stout from Newfangled Brew Works and the Pumpkin Spice Ale from Newfangled Brew Works. I would assume that the ABV / IBU and information would be spot on with the Stout; just that it has Pumpkin Spice flavorings, rather than being similar in ABV / IBU to the Pumpkin Spice Ale.

Beer: Stout (Pumpkin Spice)
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 40
Untappd Write-Up: (None)

Beer: Pumpkin Spice Ale
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Festbier
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (None)

So theres a few similarities right there. Perhaps they are the same beer? Perhaps… but I dunno. I don’t see why mine would be so dark, and it definitely wasn’t lighting. And I know for a fact it tasted far more like a stout than a festbier or marzen.

Anyway, onto the review…. of…. the beer….. I think… pretty sure…. possibly…. had….

So as you can see in the picture above, its black, stealth bomber black. There is a thin small head to it with a little foam, little carbonation, little bubbles mostly interspersed. Typical appearance and look of stouts.

Aroma is very heavy pumpkin and spices. Nutmeg, cinnamon, a variety of the fall oriented spices. The pumpkin is certainly the strongest, but you do get notes of the spices heavily, and slightly roasted malt aroma as well.

Taste is upfront pumpkin, with backbone typical stout. It tastes very similar to the Newfangled Stout, but with Pumpkin and spices. You get notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and coffee all mixed in with the stronger presence of pumpkin. You get some notes of roasty malt, some notes of a bit of caramel malt, but the pumpkin and spices pretty much overflows this.

So this was certainly an interesting one to review.

I gave the Pumpkin Stout a rating of: 3.75
I had given the original Stout a rating of: 3.50

Global Stout Rating: 3.63 (as of 11.1.19)
Global Pumpkin Spice Ale Rating: 3.94 (as of 11.1.19)

I started writing this review up early this morning, but had to get the girls to school, then had to go to the DMV, and had breakfast, and stopped at Tattered Flag and had a beer, and now finally getting it up a fair bit later than I wanted, but at least its getting posted. Sorry for the confusion on this one.

But I think we got it sorted out, or at least, I hope so.

As I’ve said before, in previous, blog posts, for November, in honor of NaNoWriMo, I am hoping to write a blog post every day of the month. So stay tuned to see how long I can go; hopefully the whole month! That’ll be 30 blog entries. So lets hope I can do it!

Speaking of that, some stats on the blog, since I have the moment and it feeds in with what I was just saying:


May: 121 Views – 9 Posts
June: 1,174 Views – 14 Posts
July: 2,500 Views – 18 Posts
August: 3,993 Views – 15 Posts
September: 4,370 Views – 16 Posts
October: 5,611 Views – 18 Posts

So here’s hoping for 30+ posts in November, and hitting 6K in views.

Thanks everyone for checking us out! So be sure to click like, follow, subscribe, save, bookmark, do whatever ya gotta do, to get to see each and every post, and to see if I can go 30 days and post 30 times. Thank you all for making this such a successful and fun blog to write for!

-B. Kline

The article I have written as a guest writer and contributor to Breweries in PA has been uploaded to their website. You can check that article out here:

Touring Through the Breweries that Surround Harrisburg

It was written on 9.6.19, and posted on 9.11.19. Some tap listings and other information might become out-dated as the article ages. They have also edited it to remove some things like the Tattered Flag can release that took place last Saturday (9.7.19) and added a few other things (including a map). You can check out my original article here : Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg (9.6.19).

I will also be making a few edits to that post to reflect the article coming out (linking it directly to the article there) as well as the addition of reviews and links to them. Make sure to check out both their edited version of my article, as well as my original.

You can look forward to seeing more blog posts here by myself, and J. Doncevic in the near future. As well as more content from me as a freelance writer for Breweries in PA and several other blogs in the future. As well as my friend’s podcast (when he gets it all setup). We will link to all of these articles and materials in the future, so you can be kept updated and in the loop!

As always, make sure to click follow, subscribe, like, and comment, to make sure you get all of our latest information and posts! Don’t want to miss a thing!

-B. Kline

–The Beer Thrillers