My offering of an afternoon of pumpkin beer was met with a quick yes when I texted Grandma SueAnn last night.  I mean, we knew I wasn’t twisting her arm. 

(We had a busy morning – went to Bill’s for breakfast, then we ran out to Memorial Lake and Levitz Park to look around, and found ourselves stopping at Bradford Village Beer and Soda – originally looking for Ever Grain Brewing Company’s Sorbetto #66, but not finding it – Ben made this mix – a – six of pumpkin beers for Amy and SueAnn.)

Sunny Side Up Double Coffee Pumpkin by Pizza Boy

After going on a beer run we started the afternoon off with Pizza Boy’s Sunny Side UP Pumpkin double coffee stout.  The Pumpkin SSU comes in at 11.9% ABV and it is described on Untapped as an Imperial double stout.  It has an overall untapped rating of 3.97.  Ah Yes, the double coffee stout we know and love.  The coffee might be overpowering the pumpkin.  Even rocking at a 11.9 this stout didn’t taste boozy.  It kept us warm on a chilly and windy Sunday in October.  This one didn’t take long for Grandma SueAnn and I to share out of the vintage smurf glass.  This also reminds me, we need another pizza boy trip. 

I had to run out for a quick errand.  Grandma SueAnn couldn’t wait and was already knuckle deep in the Giant Pumpkin from Greater Good. She finally got her granddaughter to take a nap and was celebrating apparently.  This would explain the not quite full beer pic.

Giant Pumpkin by Greater Good Brewing

The Giant Pumpkin is described as a pumpkin/yam beer and comes in at a 8% ABV.  It is described on Untapped as “Sweet notes of creamy pumpkin pie, supplemented by hints of sugar and spice, across a clean and crisp 8% ale.’  The hints of sugar and spice definitely contained some cinnamon, that was the leading flavor we both had.   It has an overall Untapped rating of 3.84.

Forbidden Pumpkin by Abomination Brewing

Forbidden Pumpkin by Abomination Brewing Company

The third beer for the afternoon was the Forbidden pumpkin by Abomination Brewing Company, an imperial Milkshake style india pale ale.  This Imperial comes in with a 9.3% ABV and has an overall 4.06 rating on Untapped.  “Forbidden pumpkins is an Imperial Pumpkin milkshake IPA that clocks in at 9.3% brewed with malted oats and flaked wheat, double dry hopped with Citra and Mosaic then fermented atop a monstrous amount of pumpkins, vanilla beans, pumpkin spice and milk sugar.  This hazy IPA pairs perfectly with hoodies, fall hikes and nights out by the fire pit with friends!” 

This was the Grandma SueAnn Favorite of the day.  We both agreed this brew was light and creamy.  The fall flavors were not overpowering and this was sweet but just enough to entice you for another sip. 

And That Was the Day

Splitting 3 beers and the afternoon was gone.  Grandma SueAnn reminded me since we split them, it’s only 1.5 and that isn’t much.  Although I couldn’t get Grandma SueAnn to promise if she’d wait to crack open the last 3 when I was back.  I gave it a couple minutes thought contemplating if the beers were safe in her fridge.  I figure we have about a 50/50 shot.

This was a wonderful fall afternoon spent drinking beers with my mom, while Scarlet terrorized her living room and we watched some football!

• Drink More Beer!
• Amy

SueAnn Beer Reviews

• A Beer Review by Grandma SueAnn (Beer Review: Braaaiins! by Spring House Brewing Company)  
• Grandma SueAnn and More Beer: Beer Reviews of: Zaktoberfest (KCBC – Kings County Brewers Collective) and Devious Imperial Pumpkin (Fegley Brew Works)
• Pumpkin Beer Review with Grandma SueAnn – Abomination Brewing: Forbidden Pumpkin, Greater Good Brewing: Giant Pumpkin, and Pizza Boy Brewing: Sunny Side Up Double Coffee Pumpkin

Pumpkin Beer Reviews

• Two Beer Reviews: Hazy Burd (Ship Faced Brewing) and Pin-Up Girl Basic Witch (Janky Brew Co) at Maxie’s Brewhouse after hiking Sunset Rocks
• Grandma SueAnn and More Beer: Beer Reviews of: Zaktoberfest (KCBC – Kings County Brewers Collective) and Devious Imperial Pumpkin (Fegley Brew Works)
• Master of Pumpkins, Cupcakes, Cookies, and Bacon Cheeseburgers
• Beer Review: How Now Brown Cow (With Pumpkin Spice) (Aslin Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Pumpkin Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)
• A Beer Review by Grandma SueAnn (Beer Review: Braaaiins! by Spring House Brewing Company)
• Pumpkin Beer Review with Grandma SueAnn – Abomination Brewing: Forbidden Pumpkin, Greater Good Brewing: Giant Pumpkin, and Pizza Boy Brewing: Sunny Side Up Double Coffee Pumpkin

Abomination Brewing, Pizza Boy Brewing, and Greater Good Brewing Articles

• Brews and Bands for Bart
• Beer Review: Abbra Collabra 6 Way Banana Split Milkshake IPA (Tattered Flag)
• Brewers and the Industry Look Into 2023
• Beer Review: F*CK 2020 (Abomination Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Social Distancing (Tattered Flag, Abomination Brewing, and Pilger Ruh Brewing)
• Beer Review: Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Beer Review: Sunny Side Up – Bacon (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Pumpkin Beer Review with Grandma SueAnn – Abomination Brewing: Forbidden Pumpkin, Greater Good Brewing: Giant Pumpkin, and Pizza Boy Brewing: Sunny Side Up Double Coffee Pumpkin

Amy’s Column Series

Since getting back to writing for the blog after a short hiatus, Amy has started up a weekly column style writing for the blog. You can find these articles here:

• Brewfests with Anxiety (Amy’s original weekly column start)
• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• Beer and Pretzel Review: Legends and Lore (St. Boniface Brewing Company) and Garlic Parm Pretzels (Pretzels.com)
• Peanut Butter Eggs, Easter, Beer, and YAH Brew’s Shimmy Shake (Beer Review)
• Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots
• Amy’s Day Off
• It Was All A Dream (A Visit to YAH Brewing)
• Just Another Weekend (A Hike at Saint Pete’s Trail and Hares Hill Brewing)
• I’m Pretty Darn Lucky (Happy Mother’s Day)
• Ready to Kick of the Summer
• Beer Review: Beer Devil IPA (Niagara Brewing Company)
• World MS Day
• Have you ever picked a beer based on the can art?
• Happy Father’s Day
• What is Your Summer Time Go To Beer?
• Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles
• Baby’s First Ffej
• We Can’t Always Be a Glutton Right? – Perfect Portions and Allusion Brewing Company
• Beer Review: Pocono Punch (Barley Creek Brewing Company)
• Getting Sworn In: A Sneak Preview of Sworn Brewing
• Beer Review: Tropical Stout (Troegs Independent Brewing and Windy Bridges Brewing LLC)
• RAR Brewing Brings the Nostalgia with Muppets Out of Order Series
• Happy Birthday to Ben
• Brewery Review: Cold Spring Inn and Brewery
• Hummelstown Doesn’t Deserve Maritza
• Enchilada Stuffed Peppers and Sunshine Pilsner
• Master of Pumpkins, Cupcakes, Cookies, and Bacon Cheeseburgers
• A Beer Review by Grandma SueAnn (Beer Review: Braaaiins! by Spring House Brewing Company)
• Grandma SueAnn and More Beer: Beer Reviews of: Zoktoberfest (KCBC – Kings County Brewers Collective) and Devious Imperial Pumpkin (Fegley Brew Works)
• Oh Ever Grain: 7 Years, 7 Beers
• Pumpkin Beer Review with Grandma SueAnn – Abomination Brewing: Forbidden Pumpkin, Greater Good Brewing: Giant Pumpkin, and Pizza Boy Brewing: Sunny Side Up Double Coffee Pumpkin
• You can find all of Amy’s articles here: Amy’s Archive of Articles.

(And please take a moment to fill out Amy’s survey on her ‘Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles‘ column.)

Thank You For Reading

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

Cheers.

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

• MAPS OF BREWERIES

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

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

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Sunny Side Up

Sunny Side Up has been a staple of Pizza Boy since…. well, since as long as I can remember; and therefore a staple of the Central PA (Harrisburg – Hershey) beer scene. It is a fantastic stout and showcases how Pizza Boy could always make a really good (albeit rarely made) stout.

Sunny Side Up is a regular / semi – regular beer from Pizza Boy that they make, and is often one of the ‘come home to get’ beers for many who moved away (similar to how Nugget Nectar, Mad Elf, and Nimble Giant from Troegs is).

I’ll post the Untappd description here, since the version I’m reviewing here (Sunny Side Up – Bacon) doesn’t have a description.

Sunny Side Up:

Sunny Side Up – Little Amps! Double Coffee Stout is our rich, smooth oatmeal imperial stout brimming with locally sourced coffee from Little Amps coffee roasters in Harrisburg, PA

Untappd: Sunny Side Up

As you can see from the link, as of 11.15.21, regular Sunny Side Up has a global average rating of 4.16.

Pizza Boy has released a ton of different variants over the year, from hazelnut, to chocolate, to one off firkins, to pumpkin, to all different kinds, and this is no different. Though the ABV for this bacon variant is a bit higher than most of them, and certainly higher than the original (original is a 9.6%; the Bacon wash variant is 11.9%).

Beer Review

Beer: Sunny Side Up – Bacon
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Stout – Coffee
ABV: 11.9%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: (Blank)

Pizza Boy, also known as Al’s of Hampden, has been one of the staples and giants of the greater Harrisburg area brewery / beer scene. Along with Troegs Brewing and Appalachian Brewing Company, they were the ‘originals’ or ‘OGs’ (as the hip cool young kids say nowadays) of the Harrisburg beer scene. Their Untappd description is low-key and simple:

“A brewery inside a pizza shop. Pizza. Beer. Happy.”

They have (according to Untappd) 295 unique beers (I wanna say its far more than that in their history, but we’ll go with the stats given), with (as of time of writing this – on 11.15.21) 644,984 ratings, 99,695 of which are unique; for a global average rating of 3.88.

I personally would say they are primarily known for IPAs (typically hazy), sours (think Permasmile, etc.), and stouts like Sunny Side Up and all of its variants.

This was a variant that I was very eagerly looking forward to getting to try and so glad I did. So let’s break it down and discuss this. (As always, I break it down going by paragraphs as such – aroma, visual, taste.)

Cracked open the can, poured it out, and you get a wonderful aroma of roasty notes from the coffee, dark heavy stout smells, and a bit of a greasy bacon hint. The bacon and the cooking pan smell is definitely the most subtle to this, as the coffee aroma certainly overpowers it, along with your typical malt and stout and roast notes from a good dark heavy stout.

Visually there’s not a whole lot to say other than what you can see from the picture. It looks as if it could be coffee other than the beautiful head it has to it; which is a nice small ring, maybe a quarter of an inch, with varied bubbles, and left nice lacing. The head was an off white, slightly tannish hue, and lasted til first sip. The stout itself is a deep, dark ocher, or as I often say on the blog “as black as Razor Ramon’s hair” or “black like the abyss we all stare into”. Take your pick.

Taste I think is where your mileage may vary on this one. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this beer and it is one hundred percent a good beer. There’s zero off flavors, there’s zero wrong with it. Why I say the mileage may vary, is on the bacon flavor. I’ve talked to a few good friends who had it, and the person who I drank this with, and we all had different opinions and thoughts on how much the bacon flavor came through. To be honest, when I hear ‘bacon flavored’ in beer, I’m a bit skeptical right out of the gate, wondering how its going to translate and how they are going to make it work. I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t come through too strong. You get the coffee, you get the malt, you get the stout, you get some booziness, (especially with its 11.9%), but I don’t get a ton or even a lot of bacon flavor. More like a whiff of it, like its there, barely hanging on the fringes. I think the bacon comes through a bit on the back – end and the aftertaste. (I burped after drinking it, and I could taste a bit of bacon on the burp, so I suppose it has to be in there somewhere, unless I was over thinking my burp, which is always a very good possibility.) There is a sweetness to this that I don’t recall from the original Sunny Side Up (which I always thought tasted more bitter – though it has been several months since I’ve had the original). This could be from the greasy ‘wash out’ of the bacon in the beer, I don’t know, but it has a nice taste. I enjoy the flavor of this very much, I think like I said above, that the bacon flavor mileage will vary for many, though it seems overall people are saying its subliminal or subtle or minimal rather than being stronger or too strong. If you want to enjoy a good, strong, high ABV stout, this is still certainly a fantastic choice and you can’t go wrong with that.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 11.15.21)

Other Pizza Boy Reviews

Here’s a few other Pizza Boy beer reviews we’ve done:

• Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Beer Review: Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

Thanks for Reading

As always everyone, thanks for reading. This was a great stout to finish my day on, after a 10 hour day working the craps table, followed by errands to Home Depot and Target, and then having to run an errand and go to the bank for my ex-wife, this was a nice relaxing end of my day (while re-watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode from Sunday) and finding out my one fantasy football team barely edged out the win by .84!

Thursday and Friday is going to be a big trip for us. We’re running down through Maryland, over into Delaware, and up into New Jersey and then through Philly before heading home. So be on the lookout for big stuff coming out of this trip. And make sure to be checking back in daily here at the blog. News on the street is, our new writer may have her first post up tomorrow, so be sure to check that out!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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

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If your in the know, your in the know. One of the greatest parties – by invite only – is running two days this year. Ffej of July is back after a year break due to COVID-19 and is back better than ever. First night is in the bag and I personally had a blast, and I know everyone that went with me did too.

For the first time, Ffej of July is a two day event this year. With the first event happening on a Friday and then the main event all day Saturday. I just got home from night one, and here’s a quick recap of the day.

Due to having be the DD this year, I picked up Drew and Rome at his place, and we then made it to Annville for the party. We brought our contributions and put them in the sunroom and made our introductions to Brandi and Ffej. Running into Deuane and his wife, and several others.

It wasn’t looking good for a bit. From about 4:30PM to about 5:40PM it was a straight up massive thunderstorm in Hummelstown, and pretty much everywhere else in the vicinity (including Annville). But luckily the rains and the clouds dispersed, and we were able to have one kick ass party.

As we pulled into the parking lot area around 7:10PM, two guys were hanging out asking about the party. First rule of Fight Club…. err… I mean Ffej of July… well… wait, thats not really true either. Ok, here’s the thing, you can talk about Ffej of July, but you can’t just show up with “rando’s” from the Sheetz parking lot. You can bring guests, but its cool to do so with announcing them, and they must all be introduced to Ffej and Brandi. And obviously they must be cool people you can vouch for, because if anything happens, its on you.

After picking out our spot by the tree like we did last – two years ago – Ffej of July, Drew and Rome hit the beer cave and grabbed some suds, and we got down to listening to the bands. I milled around talking to people and we later made our way down to the Wheel of Zonks and other fun activities and then hung out at our spot. Rome had an eggplant sandwich and we all had Giant Center popcorn. Jason Miller and his wife Sherri showed up near the end, as well as Kelsey (from Drew’s stream) and her fiance Ben. So we had a jamming little section and loved the night’s music with UZO ending it – melting off our faces as they always do. (Thank god faces grow back!)

For those coming tomorrow, see ya out there, and happy Ffej of July everyone!

-B. Kline

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

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

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

For past links, go here:

• March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

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

Vote

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

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

Voting Polls for Round Two

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

• HEELs Conference: Round Two Voting
• FACEs Conference: Round Two Voting

Round One Has Finished

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

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

But first up, some statistics from the first round:

Round One Statistics

Voting statistics:

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

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

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

FACEs Conference:

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

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

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

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

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

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

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

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

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

Round Two

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

Round Two Match-Ups

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

HEELs Conference:

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

FACEs Conference:

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

Voting Begins Now

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

Thank you all for participating in the polls!

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

• March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

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

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

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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

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.

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

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

The Battle of the Breweries (2021) – 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.)

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

I had this on Nitro, had the I Voted Today, and later got a draft of this for Haley as her birthday ‘gift’ and she enjoyed it as well. So it does come …two-time recommended.

Beer: Shallow Grave (Nitro)
Brewery: Heretic Brewing Company
Style: Porter – American
ABV: 7%
IBU: 33
Untappd Description: Shallow Grave Porter is dark as night, perfect for a cool evening out in the woods. This is a big, dark ale with a complex and rich chocolate and caramel malt character followed by a touch of warmth and light malt sweetness, leaving you ready for more after each shovelful. You will love this so much you won’t have time to dig a six-footer, so make it a Shallow Grave. We’re sure you’ll dig it.

Heretic Brewing Company is a small microbrewery from Fairfield California. Their Untappd description reads: “Ordinary beer is boring; don’t drink it. Embrace your inner Heretic and join us to push the boundaries of beer flavors. We are crazy about beer and passionate about making it. Wanna be a Heretic too? There’s always room for one more.” They have 173 unique beers with a global average rating of 3.84 (as of 11.19.20).

This is a dark brown, but creamy looking porter. The nitro adds a layer of creaminess to the already brown silken look to it. It looks like a good dark brown porter should, not as dark as a stout, but with a heaviness that isn’t in brown ales. It had a very thin dispersed head with nice bubbles, all varying, smooth and creamy, with a lightly brown to off white coloring that dissipated pretty quickly.

Aroma is very deep complex rich and aromatic. Lots of chocolate and caramel notes. Sweet and bitter at the same time, like you are getting sweet candy and also the bitter baker’s chocolate at the same time. There is definitely some malt notes but its a little bit more subdued and hidden behind the chocolate and caramel.

This is delicious right out the gate, it starts with the bitterness of a baker’s chocolate, but very, very quickly, switches to sweeter chocolate, and sweet malt, and sweet caramel, all emphasized and stronger due to the nitro. This has a nice range of flavors amongst these – varying sweetness and bitterness, but mostly staying on the sweet side. I think the base malt gets really added to by the nitro and lays down a very solid foundation for the chocolate and the caramel. Most of the chocolate and caramel is a malty style, but there is some regular caramel and chocolate. The 7% ABV isn’t too high, but I definitely think you feel it with this, it has a bit of a heaviness to it all overall. You aren’t going into this drinking a four pack or a six pack, but this makes for a wonderful beer to drink by the campfire, or at the bar (when we can drink at bars again in Pennsylvania) in winter times. Nitro or not this has a great flavor profile, is exactly what a good porter should be, and will leave you feeling full but satisfied, everything you can really ask for in a beer during these colder months.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Average Global Untappd Rating: 3.84 (as of 11.19.20)

Well, back to writing on those Indy trip articles. They won’t write themselves after all. Until then, everyone stay safe and healthy, cheers!

-B. Kline

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

I always enjoy getting to review (and obviously drink) beers from out of state, ones that I most likely wouldn’t come in contact with. Don’t get me wrong, I love drinking and reviewing local beers and getting them some publicity, and I also love traveling and visiting breweries (just yesterday I was in Wellsboro Pennsylvania, visited the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, and visited the restaurant and brewery – The Wellsboro House), but its also nice getting beers to review, from family, co-workers, and friends. (Hint…. hint…. for any friends, family, etc reading this…. )

A co-worker, Jam, was coming back from South Carolina, and he stopped at a bottle / can shop and grabbed a few beers for me and other co-workers. From Jam, I received a bottle of ‘Up The Creek Extreme Ale’, a can of Sidestepper (Charles Town Fermentary), a can of Pixels (Seminar Brewing), and a can of of a Red Ale / IPA by a collaboration with a radio station (the name eludes me and I left it in my friend’s fridge; but it had a tiger on it, thus why Jam got it for me due to me liking the Bengals). So this is the first of the South Carolina series of brews I’ll be reviewing. (I’ll be doing Sidestepper soon, because I just recently drank that; haven’t gotten to drink the others yet, will probably do the Pixels beer while streaming with D. Scott over at Knights of Nostalgia).

Quickly, before I go too much further, I want to throw a quick shout out to Josh; who is jumping back into the reviewing game (don’t call it a comeback son, he never left). He will have his first review since his Beer Review of Adroit Theory’s COLONIZATION back on November 11th, 2019. Stay tuned, I’m sure you won’t want to miss his newest beer review!

Also, in industry news, Howling Henry’s in Hummelstown just opened this week, as well as Rubber Soul, and Spigot Brewing in Ford City has announced they will be closing.

Now…. onto the review!

Beer: Up The Creek Extreme Ale
Brewery: Thomas Creek Brewery
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 12.5%
IBU: 143
Untappd Description: Up The Creek is a hoppy behemoth of a beer with its 12.5% ABV well hidden under heavy layers of malt. The hops come through powerfully in the mouth, with rich roasted malt, sweet caramel, and a burst of vinous fruit. The finish is malty sweet and fruity, while the hops dissipate. Use caution or you’ll be Up The Creek!

Ok…. so firstly, let me just say, this is the highest IBU we’ve reviewed here on the blog. Probably by a pretty far margin. The highest IBU I’ve ever had, according to the Untappd records of beers I drank is – Gyroscopes and Infrared by Broken Goblet. It was 174 IBU. After that it was the Mean Manalishi Double IPA by Hoppin’ Frog Brewery, clocking in 168 IBU, and in third place is Mango Bomb by Pizza Boy – clocking in at 162 IBU. Up The Creek Extreme Ale is number 7 on my list (according to Untappd), and if you count home brews (at a home brew event I had one that would be number 5 on my list; called Idiot Parade by McCarthy Brewing.)

IBU is a term for IPAs that means: “International Bitterness Units are a chemical/instrumental measurement of the number of bittering compounds, specifically isomerized and oxidized alpha acids, polyphenols, and a few other select bittering chemicals, that make your beer taste bitter. (Last Call for IBUs: Fact, Fiction and What They Mean in Your Beer – May 3, 2017). Overall, its a term that’s not being used as much in the industry anymore, and many brewers aren’t even bothering with testing it or listing it when listing their beers on platforms like Untappd or Beer Advocate. But its still a valuable tool and measurement when it is listed, and I still like to keep track of it, and include it when doing the beer reviews here. Its just not the be – all – end – all it used to be in terms of understanding IPAs (especially since New England IPAs seem to be more mainstream now, actually, being made more than regular old school West Coast style IPAs).

This is an old fashioned high octane ‘pushing the envelope’ West Coast style IPA. Appearance and look for this is on the malty end of IPAs (West Coast IPAs). It has a brown / amber hue, slightly transparent, but mostly opaque. Malt colored and malt looking like a malt bomb through and through. Caramel colored. It has a very rich, frothy, foamy head to it, thick, creamy looking with lots of bubbles.

Aroma is caramel, sweet roasted malt, and then pungent face-punching, nose walloping, hop explosion (can’t even call it aroma, its about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the gonads). You get the idea that this is going to be bitter just by the hop nose to it, and the malt sweetness does nothing to cover it past that initial whiff of the malt.

This doesn’t quite live up to the description provided by Untappd. The Untappd description gives you the impression there’s a bit of hype to this, that there’s more complexity to this than there really is. It starts off with the barest of traces of sweet, or caramel, malt. And then takes a very heavy swan dive off the cliff into a sea of hops. A sea of bitterness, of super hop flavor, super hop bitterness, super hop everything. Overpoweringly so. Too much so. A blend and cornucopia of hops, that doesn’t let you really even distinguish and unique hop flavors or notes. Its just straight hop bitterness in such an overwhelming display of raw power and hop (bitterness) that it doesn’t leave you tasting much of anything else. The malt taste is so minuscule and minimal you don’t taste any of it as soon as you get your first taste of the hops. Unlike the description, the hops don’t really ‘dissipate’, they stay there, punching you like a… like a… like a hop drinking punching bag…. yea… like that! There is definitely no dissipation here. I also don’t really get any ‘fruity’ ending to this. Maybe subtle stone fruit notes… but I think its so awash from the hop bitterness that its too hard to tell, and its too hard to differentiate between hop notes and fruit (stone or otherwise) notes. I think its all just a blend, and whatever notes are supposed to be in there, are so overpowered by the hop bitterness, that its too impossible to tell or to be able to pull them out and take note of them or actually savor them. Now… all of this is to say its not a bad beer; its just not… a great beer. And particularly not my style as much anymore. I do like West Coast style IPAs, and the New England IPA craze hasn’t diminished that; its just… this is too much. Too bitter, too hoppy, not enough actual flavor to it, and too hard to differentiate and tell the various hop notes apart from each other. I’m sure theres lots of ‘ultra’ or ‘uber’ hop heads or hop nerds or beer nerds out there who will love this, and all the better for it and for them, this just isn’t particularly my favorite or something I would outright pursue again.

My Untappd Rating: ***.50
Global Untappd Rating: 3.60 (as of 10.10.20)

Be sure to check out some of our recent beer reviews:

• Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
• Unicorns Stomping Spotted Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Company)
• Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
• Esmeralda (Ministry of Brewing)
• Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)

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

Peace, cheers, and prost!

-B. Kline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers and happy trails!

-B. Kline

August (2019) Road Trip Series:

• Going on the Road
• The Trip: Day 1 Recap
• The Trip: Day 2 Recap
• The Trip: Day 3 Recap

Rickett’s Glen (2020) Road Trip Series:

• A Road Trip to Rickett’s Glen
• The Trip to Rickett’s Glen

Other Brewery Hopping Articles:

• Brewery Hopping – 12.27.19
• Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg – 9.6.19

My Article for Breweries in PA:

• Touring Breweries Around Harrisburg

My Podcast About Breweries in Central PA:

• Beers with Strangers – A Beer Thriller in Hershey

Some other brewery tour and road trip articles:

• A Sneak Peak at the New Rubber Soul Brewery in Hummelstown
• A Brewery Tour of Mellow Mink
• Brewery Review: Battlefield Brew Works
• Brewery Review: Cushwa Brewing
• A Trip to Gettysburg and Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
• Beer Review: Road Trip Snacks (Panther Island Brewing)