By now I’m sure you are all sick of your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even by text or phone or SnapChat or WhatsApp or Zoom or Flim-Flam-Floom or Blue Milk or Bantha Fodder or whatever telling you “May the Fourth Be With You” or some such ‘garbage’ or nonsense right? Maybe you don’t know the difference between a Dianoga and a Ronto? Or remember that the green Nautalan Jedi Master that attacked Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious in Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was Kit Fisto (c’mon…. with a name like that how couldn’t you remember him?), or that the Prune Face guy from Return of the Jedi when they attack the Bunker on the Endor moon was Orriamarko…… Maybe sportsball is more your thing. Either way, pro-Star Wars or anti-Star Wars, or Luke-Warm (ah, see what I did there?) to Star Wars, there is still good beers to be had about Star Wars or similar nerdy things.

So as any reader here to the blog will know, I am a huge Star Wars nerd. Starting back to when I was in 6th grade. Over at a sleep over a friend had Star Wars cards (Decipher’s SW:CCG – Star Wars Customizable Card Game) and he taught me to play. This led me to fall in love with Star Wars by watching the movies, and got me going to a local card shop called Omnidon’s in Hummelstown. This is where I ended up meeting friends D. Scott and R. Dibeler and a whole host of other people too numerous to even begin to list.

As I grew older, I watched the Original Trilogy (OT), the Special Edition Original Trilogy (SE-OT), the Prequel Trilogy (PT) and reading a list of books longer than I have time to type out here. (Authors like Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Matthew Woodring Stover, James Luceno, etc, etc, etc.). I even named my youngest daughter Mara (those who know – will know).

Flash forward to Disney buying the franchise, and at the time my oldest daughter was 7. I was ecstatic to get to watch new Star Wars movies with her in theater. In preparation we watched episodes 4 (A New Hope), 5 (Empire Strikes Back), and 6 (Return of the Jedi). We saw Episode 7 – The Force Awakens in IMAX at the Whitaker Center. She was hooked. She loved Rey, she loved BB-8 (she was already hooked by Star Wars, already loved R2-D2 and Chewbacca and Yoda). Over the years we saw Rogue One and The Last Jedi in theaters as well, and even Solo before it went to Netflix. (Last day possible in theater to see that one). Sadly, her love for the saga waned a bit after The Last Jedi (she’s not alone there), so we didn’t see Episode 9 – Rise of Skywalker in theater. But, that is part of our “May the Fourth” today – getting to watch it on Disney+ (uploaded to the streaming service today).

Fun trivia fact: my oldest daughter was featured on TV at a Phillies game (Star Wars night). She wore her Rey costume to the game and they had her dance with the Phillie Phanatic and some of the 501st Legion (cosplayers) who were there dressed as Rey, Stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, Vader, Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke.

…So…. whats all this got to do with beer right? Well, yesterday, me and my oldest two daughters made the trek down to Gettysburg to Fourscore Beer Co. For the weekend they were doing a Star Wars themed menu, including the release of ‘Wookie Monster’, a 9% oreo cookie stout; as well as food items – Sarlaac Fries (french fries, beercheese, and cole slaw on top), as well as Mynock Gravy and Biscuits (chipped cream rib-eye gravy and butter biscuits), as well as a cherry tomato and mozzarella salad. We stopped; and I got a food item of each (Lily got the Sarlaac fries and loved them, Olivia-Grace got the salad and ate it as we did the Auto-Tour, and I got the Mynock Gravy and Biscuits – fantastic). Unfortunately, the Wookie Monster was sold out. (As you can imagine, that was going to be a big feature of today’s blog post). [Sigh]. I did get a crowler of the Mango Marshmellow Jahmba. Can’t wait to crack that open and devour it. I’ve yet to have had a bad beer from them.

Here on the blog however, I have done several beer reviews of geeky, nerdy, Star Wars, and other similar movie franchises. Pop cultural references always plays a big role in a lot of breweries beer names and even branding.

My most recent Star Wars themed beer (and beer review) was the above mentioned ‘This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For‘.

This was an absolutely amazing 15% Imperial Double Stout by Fourscore Beer Co. Easily a contender for Top 10 (New) Beers I’ve had for this year (granted; this year will probably see me drink less NEW beers than previous years just due to everything going on). The Untappd Description reads: “Brewed with a British Maris Otter base, loads of malted oats and a variety of roasted and crystal malts with a touch of lactose. Heaps of peanut flour were used in the whirlpool and the wort was racked onto a ton of marshmallow fluff prior to fermentation. More marshmallow is added at the end of fermentation along with peanut butter powder. Huge aromas and flavors of fresh peanut butter and marshmallows straight from the bag. A rich malty base of caramel and chocolate tones carry the flavors to the finish. Brewed with Founders Club member Eric Acumen.” If you like peanut butter beers; this will definitely be right up your alley. There is still bottles for sale at Fourscore Beer Co (as of 5.4.20). To read my full review of it, click here: “Beer Review: This is Nut The Fluff You’re Looking For“.

Another fun beer I did a review of was “This is The Way” by Broken Goblet. Another Star Wars themed beer, though this time based off the hit Disney+ show ‘The Mandalorian’ rather than from the movies.

Jokingly calling it a ME-IPA (Mos Eisley IPA) rather than NE-IPA (New England IPA) Broken Goblet made one delicious IPA, be a ME-IPA or NE-IPA or whatever you want to call it. This is a juicy, tasty, easy drinking IPA. No bitter bite, slight creamyness to it, nice flowing beer. You can read my review of it here: “Beer Review: This is the Way“.

And where would I be if I didn’t mention Equilibrium’s “Moon of Vega”. If we’re talking Star Wars, we have to talk Space Balls! If you only ever see two space or sci-fi parody movies (and so far, you only really need to see these two) it best be Space Balls and Galaxy Quest. Anything else is inferior.

Moon of Vega is a collaboration NE-IPA by Equilibrium Brewery and J. Wakefield Brewing; and they absolutely nailed this out of the galaxy. This was a super tasty, delicious NE-IPA that was creamy, hoppy, juicy, dank, and all the things you look for in a NE IPA. A 4pk of this just wasn’t enough. As you can see, I had this during one of our podcasts for “So A Mexican and A Scott Walk Into a Bar…” a podcast ran by some of The Extended Beer Thrillers family – D. Scott and Esteban. To read my beer review of Moon of Vega click here: “Beer Review: Moon of Vega“.

Below is a list of the Star Wars related podcasts we did for So a Mexican and a Scott Walk Into a Bar… (I’m featured on all of these). (Warning, language is Rated R and might not be safe for work.)

• Esoteric Antics: The Mandalorian
• Esoteric Antics: Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian Wrap-Up
• Rise of Skywalker: Commentary Track

Don’t worry, there will be plenty more Star Wars podcasts in the future, I guarantee that!

Star Wars announced some big movie and TV show news today too. Taika Waititi is to direct his own feature film for Star Wars. This is super big news. Click the following news article link from Star Wars (dot com) to read more: Taika Waititi to Direct, Co-Write new Star Wars Film.

While not a Star Wars beer, I did enjoy reading a Star Wars book and drinking a wonderful beer in the nice sunny afternoon earlier. The beer was Blue Hippo by Boneshire Brew Works (look for a review of that soon) and the book is Star Wars: Rebel Rising by Beth Revis.

Sorry I didn’t have a new Star Wars beer to review for this, I hope you all still enjoyed the article. Let me know in the comments what your favorite Star Wars themed beers are (or even ones you’ve seen, heard of, or drank). I’m off to watch Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ with my daughter. Cheers, and May the Fourth Be With You. Always.

-B. Kline

Matt contacted us through the blog about visiting him at Mellow Mink and spending some time seeing the behind the scenes, the blending program, and just generally hanging out. Myself (Ben) and Josh immediately jumped at this idea. And to show just how hard it can be at times for just three humans to be able to meet, we started discussing when to visit mid-November and only got to actually meet January 2nd. A host of reasons attest to that; the least of all being a brewer, business operator, pharmacist, and all around busy man for Matt, for myself having only having two weekday days off rather than a weekend (whereas Josh has the weekend off), and myself having three daughters as well as another side-hustle (the podcasts). But we got to make it work, and it was a beautiful, and wonderful kick off to the new year and the new decade. Hopefully we’ll get to do more fun visits like this at other breweries. 

Here’s how this article is going to break down for everyone reading. I (B. Kline) am going to start off, giving my side of the events of the evening, and talk through what led up to us finally getting to meet, how the evening went, and then I’m going to pass the baton off to J. Doncevic who will give his side of everything.We’ll meet back up at the end giving reviews of the beers we had – specifically the absolutely fantastic bottle we all got to share; we’ll then go back and forth with a few closing comments, and I’ll wrap it up with post-brewery visit nonsense, general blog news and future events and things like that, last second plugs, etc, and that’ll be that. Hopefully this will do the visit, the tour, Matt, and the brewery – Mellow Mink – justice. I think this format will be the best and make the most sense for the readers, and give a more overall perspective of our time there and the visit and things we got to discuss with Matt. I know personally I can’t say enough wonderful things about Matt, about the beers, about the place, about everything, and just how appreciative we were that Matt reached out to us and invited us basically into his home away from home.

Ben:

As head of the blog I’m the one ‘saddled’ with having to do the behind the scenes upkeep of the blog, checking comments, media things, feedback through our contact page, generally all of the administrative and boring details. And to be honest, at a blog of our size, that’s really not much work, and I don’t mind one bit of it. Especially when I come across a notice like the one I received from Matt Miller. I immediately contacted Josh, my (main) co-writer here at the blog (one of a few now with the addition of Default Brewing joining in) and he was completely ecstatic right out of the gate just like I was. So I contacted Matt back and we stayed in touch via e-mail and messenger until we could finally hammer down a date – January 2nd.

My day was a bit hectic. Morning consisted of getting girls to school (driving my oldest two to two different schools, then walking my youngest), running errands, enjoying a nice lunch, and ultimately being late to my buddy D. Scott’s place. We were doing our podcast for The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian. The night before I was at his place to do the LOST Podcast (Seasons 1 and 2) with Esteban. So for the Star Wars podcast I got to Drew’s just shy of 3PM when I was supposed to be there at 2:30/2:45PM. We ended up finishing the podcast at about 5:35PM and I all but ran and flew driving to get from Grantville to Mechanicsburg to meet Matt and Josh. I was supposed to be there at 6PM, and my GPS said I’d arrive there at 5:58, but I ended up walking in the doors at 6:02PM. I hate being late and try not to make it a common occurrence. Josh is already there sipping on Super Fruit 6. He informs me Matt is taking a business call.

I order my first – the Janet Weisse – and hang out talking with Josh about the evening and what to expect and how we might do the blog article. As per usual with me, nothing set in stone and nothing definitive, I tend to do much of everything on a ‘let’s just wing it’ kind of approach and let the chips fall and land where they do. In no time at all Matt comes out, introduces himself to Josh and I begin thanking him for letting us come out.

We stood by the bar drinking our first beer, the three of us chatting about how its taken so long for us to get to meet up finally, how we were supposed to the last week of December, why I was a bit running behind (because of the podcast, traffic, etc.), and just general life things. We then transitioned into the brewery, how long its been opened, small details about Mellow Mink in general. 

Immediately Josh and I can tell just the wealth of knowledge Matt has. Certainly no one could ever doubt that this man knows beer. In one night’s sleep he probably forgets more about beer and brewing and sours and blending then I’ll ever learn / know in my entire life. You can tell up front and right away that this is a passion for him. That he’s knowledgeable, smart, and loves the business, the making of beer, the blending of sours, the people, the atmosphere, the craftsmanship behind brewing a damn good beer. 

We ordered our second beers, Josh got the Cloud Cove IPA, since his Peaches and Cream IPA was out, I got the Super 6, and Matt got the Mechanicsbock. Absolutely loved the Super 6, and Josh enjoyed his Cloud Cove. We then began to talk actual shop. Discussing the beers he likes, breweries he likes, some of his inspirations, aspirations, and all around influences and influencers. He discussed going to Monk’s Cafe and trying out Cantillion on Zwanze Day and falling in love with lambics and the Belgian brewing style. Talked about how he discovered the sours and lambics and the various blendings and how its so similar to creating a good wine. We started discussing the different brewing styles and methods of lambics and the Belgian and German and European ways of brewing. It was like storytime with a historian and a scholar. The information that came out of him was too much to even comprehend most times, phenols, blending styles, aeration, different barrels, temperatures, mashing temperatures, kettle styles, stainless steel, different yeast strains, different sour methods, different cultures, bact, lacto, etc. etc, etc, etc.

Even with a notebook, heck, even with a recorder, I wouldn’t be able to write everything down and get it correct. Like I said, he knows far more than I’ll ever even possibly learn. We then ordered our next – myself getting the Mechanicsbock, Josh ordering the Janet Weisse, and we then followed Matt into the back to take a look at the full facility.

I will be honest here, and Matt will back me up on this, the facility is a glorified home brew set up. But its a DAMN GOOD glorified home brew set up. Matt even called it a “enlarged home brewing environment” while we were there. But please, this takes nothing away from the meticulousness, the procedure, the quality, or the skill that Matt uses. If anything it shows you how much better of a brewer Matt is to produce the quality he produces on such a small size and scale. 

One of the first things that caught Josh’s eye was the grates in the floor. All breweries have them, their for flushing and letting out the water, and spills, etc, just like the backhouse of most restaurants, and even warehouses. But this was the first that either of us have seen where the grates had the logo of the brewery in them acting as some of the holes. The Mellow Mink logo distinctive in the grates was a super cool touch.

He walked us around showing his kettles, the mash tun, his various fermenters and equipment, showed us the cooler with the kegs that run up into the brewery and to the bar, every last nook and cranny of the backstage facility. It was glorious to get to walk around and listen to an expert explain what this piece was for, why he had it set up this way, what the water was like in Mechanicsburg, what he added/detracted from the water, why his setup was this way, where he did his souring, all of this so educating and elucidating, was just a marvel to see it all. I don’t believe our pictures can do it all justice, but hopefully it gives you at least an idea. 

While chatting behind scenes, Matt told us how he’s actually a Doctor and works at a pharmacy by day, highlighting his science knowledge and showing why he’s so knowledgeable about the technical aspects of the molecular side of things in brewing. He told us about his prior writing before opening Mellow Mink – his blog – called The Sour Blog or Sour Blog where he was known as Dr. Lambic. Now it’s all clicking into place. We then chatted about his blog, our blog, and the intricacies of writing and blogs. 

We then came back out to the barrels and he pulled the pin from a barrel to give us a pour from one, replaced the pin, and then did the same with another. We then took a seat at the bar again, and sampled the untouched and un-added-to beers from the barrels. A white and a red. Both like fine wines, tasting absolutely phenomenal. Dry. Tasty. So fantastic. Dr. Lambic, err, Dr. Matt, err, Matt – never call him Doctor – then got one of their latest bottle offerings, the Scarlet Sunrise – Blackberry and Blueberry. Now, I know this is early in the year, but this is a clear cut front runner for best beer of the year. Absolutely fantastic.

I’ll go into the beers we had and do beer reviews later in this article. So make sure you check that out. Might also do an individual posting for a beer review on just the Scarlet Sunrise. 

But to wrap up my portion of the night, after we sampled the Scarlet Sunrise, talked very in depth about barrels, aging, blending, sours, etc, we then began to wrap things up. Cole got a group selfie of the four of us (he is the artistic and creative one as far as that sort of thing goes after all), and we chatted a little bit more, and gave our farewells.

After leaving, me and Josh stood outside chatting for a bit and then made our ways home. So I’ll hand this article off to Josh and let him talk about his evening at Mellow Mink:

JOSH:

Imagine my surprise when Ben messages me over Facebook that there was a brewery that had invited the two of us to come in and chat. The first thought that crossed my mind was “which one?” and immediately afterwards, the second thought was “you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Ben cleared out the doubt when he told me it was Mellow Mink. Located just off the Carlisle Pike, in the Hampden Centre shopping plaza, right next to Pho 7 Spice, you’ll find an unassuming storefront. Step inside and you’re welcomed by friendly staff and a pleasant, upscale atmosphere that just feels right. If you’re looking for sours or farmhouse ales, you’ve stepped into the right place.

When Ben mentioned the sheer amount of time it took to set what would eventually become a January 2nd meeting, he wasn’t kidding. The offer for us to spend some time with Matt, drink his beer, chat, and view the inner workings of his passion took just under two months. Two months! Yes, various factors are to be taken into consideration, and on one occasion Ben & I were both available, but Matt had just received new brewery equipment that was coming in right around the time frame we’d have been there. Plus, like any brewer, Matt said he’d have new beer on tap that we would most likely be interested in. You don’t have to tell me twice. In retrospect, the day we were actually able to make our schedules work was probably the best as it was the start of a new year. Best time to hang out with a brewer and pick his brain, see what makes his brewery tick and try new things? YES! Before this sounds like some emphatic lovefest and a little too much fanboy fawning, allow me to place a little personal disclaimer: things like this usually do not happen to me. At least not on a regular basis. At any rate, I arrived a little early and checked my messages. Ben said he was running late, so I headed in and decided to, at the very least, let Matt know his 6 o’clock had arrived and was enjoying Super Fruit 6. Just a few minutes later Mr. Miller swings the backdoor open and greets me with a warm smile and hearty handshake. You can always tell when someone is about to talk about their passion. Their eyes are bright, their face is glowing, their smile is inhumanly wide and expressive. There’s this easy happiness that exudes from Matt as we share  a brief moment conversing about what now occupies our glasses before my colleague crashes the party. Just kidding! It was fully my intent to kill some time while Ben was en route to Mellow Mink. To be fair to Ben, he wasn’t that late, and once things got started, time was never the issue.

So where do you start when you’ve got the night and (mostly) the run of his establishment? The beginning of course! Not wanting to waste time, we asked Matt a slew of questions ranging from his favorite style to where he got the idea of opening a brewery in the first place. Then the second beer hit, well, it was ordered and while entertaining their respective contents, the information Ben and I were being given was something that we quickly realized we might have wanted a recorder of some sort. Let’s touch on the highlights though. 

Would you believe that Mellow Mink is not Matt’s only job? Hard to believe since the liquid luxury that pours from the taps is quite good. No, Matt has another job that pays the bills outside of being a brewer. He’s a pharmacist. Aha! At this point Ben and I realized the parallel that had been drawn between his profession and his passion project. Mr. Miller had moved us from the bar area to where he makes the magic happen. Sure there’s a lot of shiny metal tanks, fermenters, and even a HUGE refrigerator. None of this caught my immediate attention. No, what really got me excited was the fact that the drain grates incorporated the Mink from the logo. Matt was quick to add the company that made the grates offered to add the Mink for free so he jumped at the chance. I mean, wouldn’t you? Like a kid in a candy store, Ben and I are shown around and given a glimpse into what it means to be Matt Miller and what a typical month’s worth of brewing amounts to. In showing us what Mellow Mink really is, Matt also let’s us see that he’s not afraid to be resourceful and inventive. He shows us a bottle filling station with six separate spouts. Apparently when it was purchased it didn’t allow the proper amount of air to escape, so Matt set to work making it function the way he needed it. Way to go! Ben and I are having a great time, but now we’ve got an issue; our glasses are empty. Fortunately this is an easy problem to fix. However, we don’t want to fill our glasses just yet as Matt has something special for us. He gleefully shows us the barrels on sliding racks that occupy the back right corner and explains that the beer contained within is aged separately for at least 6 months and then blended together. Okay, brewers and distillers do this, but Matt uses beer aged in white wine and red wine barrels and marries them into one seamless, sultry mixture. He could have stopped there by telling us this process, but Matt believes in showing us this process. We are first given a sour that was aging in the red wine barrel. Although not finished aging, it comes across as mellow, smooth, and deep. We are then handed a sample of the sour from the white wine barrel. It is a stark contrast, in nose and experience. Where the red was mellow, the white is peaky, vibrant, upfront, and contains a lot more acidic bite. As the finale, Matt brings out a bottle of Scarlet Sunrise. This then is the end result of Matt’s incredible attention to detail as he deftly blends white and red into a sour with a luscious bouquet and more drinkability than anything this side of wine has a right to. This. This is what Matt does. Scarlet Sunrise represents what happens when someone has a passion for the craft and with every sip, that fact becomes more and more apparent. For me, Scarlet Sunrise puts the “Mellow” in “Mellow Mink” as it never feels the need to be the center of attention, nor does it completely fade into the background. Between the three of us we polish off the bottle, pay our tabs, grab a selfie with Matt and his partner Cole (the artistic side of the brewery), say our goodbyes then exit into the cold January evening. It was an incredible evening that Ben and I will not soon forget and one we might just need to have again. 

BEN:

Just to wrap things back up here, this was certainly a blast. I know I can speak for myself and Josh and say that we had an absolutely fantastic time at Mellow Mink. For anyone familiar with their beers, you’ll understand how great this was, and anyone unfamiliar with their beers will definitely want to check them out.

Matt is a genius brilliant brewer who certainly knows his trade. Getting to pick his mind on everything from sours, to brewing, to Untappd, to creativity things like naming and making recipes, to running a business, to being married and having another job and running a business, and just talking about his craft, his enthusiasm for what he does, his down-to-earth nature, and his pleasantness and niceness as a human being all shone through.

We visited on January 2nd, and we’re now posting this 20 days later on January 22nd. We’ve been a bit quiet on the blog homefront mainly because we’ve been working on this. Our last beer blog post was the duo 2019 recap blog posts: End of the Year – 2019 and The Best of 2019. I’ve also been busy doing podcasts.

We would like to take this time to thank Matt Miller extensively for allowing us into his brewery (basically his home) and showing us around and drinking with us and chatting with us. It was a blast!

For those reading, I have decided to move the beer reviews of what we had that night to a new article. I think this article is long enough and the beer reviews wouldn’t be necessary at this point. I will say we had some fantastic brews and none of them were below a 4 star review on Untappd. I will be doing the Scarlet Sunrise as its own review, and the others as a multi-beer review. I think thats the fairest way to do all of them. I believe Josh might also be doing a beer review article on the Scarlet Sunrise.

We are also considering doing a Q&A / interview series here on the blog. I know Matt has told us he’d welcome the idea of it and would gladly do one with us. If you are a brewer or brewery worker reading this and would like to do one, you can reach out to us here on the blog either through the comments or the contact page, and we would gladly do one!

Also, if you are a brewery (owner or brewmaster) and would like to invite us out to your brewery, we are super more than willing! We love hanging out at breweries, drinking, chatting, and will gladly do a review / write-up of your brewery. So once again, contact us, and we’ll work something out. We have covered a few brewery opening articles which you can find here: MidWest Coast Brewery Opening and Rotunda Brew Pub Opening.

I will also take this time to point out our various social media accounts for those of you unfamiliar with us, we have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (though sadly we don’t use Instagram as much, but looking to in the future), and Pinterest.

We have a ton of different articles here on the site for you to check out, from brewery reviews, like our review of Battlefield Brew Works and Cushwa Brewery, to beer reviews like Fuzzy Nudge, The Hog, Dillston, Should Have Put Him Into Custardy, etc.

I am also finishing up my series on the Tree House beers soon after this gets published. I’ve done Sap, Autumn, and Haze, and soon will do the review for Julius and Doppelganger.

You can also check out the podcasts I do with friends over at our Podcast page – So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar…. (The podcast is popculture themed, we discuss movies, shows, and drink beers and discuss the beers we are drinking while discussing the other esoteric stuff.) (The podcasts typically run from 1 Hour and 20 Minutes to 1 Hour and 45 Minutes.)

For a few months now we’ve been listed on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs; we’ve recently moved up from #11 on the charts to #9. And thats thanks to all of you checking us out, reading our entries, and clicking Follow and Like and Subscribe. We appreciate it so much! (We originally debuted at #137, then after a week we moved to #11 where we stalled for about a month or so, but now we’ve finally moved up again, to #9. Interestingly #2 and #3 is the same blog, so I guess in a way…. technically…. we’re #8…. but I don’t know. Just happy to be in the Top 10. There is some great blogs on this list.)

This was our first joint blog post (me and Josh), and I think it turned out pretty well. If you want to read more of our individual articles, you can find them here:
* B. Kline
* J. Doncevic

Click on the name and it’ll take you to a list of that author’s articles.

I will now close out with some pictures we took of the brewery:

(This was my first time using the gallery feature on the blog, so hopefully it comes out ok).

Thank you all for taking the time to read this blog post, article, whatever you want to call it. Brewery review… beer review… brewery tour….. However you want to label it, it was a blast, and we want to thank Matt and Cole for having us and for you guys for reading this! Please be sure to follow us, subscribe to our Facebook and Twitter pages, and check out our past and future articles here on The Beer Thrillers!

Cheers from Josh and Ben!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now onto the lists!

Boneshire Brew Works:

Beers:

• 2019 Holiday Reserve
• The Hog

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

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

The Vegetable Hunter

• Brother of Thor!
• Today’s Tom Sawyer

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

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

The Millworks

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

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

Malts: Pale, Vienna, Cara Pils

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

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

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

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

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

The Sturges Speakeasy

• Goggles
• Sunset

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

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

ZeroDay Brewing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• ZeroDay Beer Review
• The Millworks Beer Review
• November Recap
• Cushwa Brewery Review
• Battlefield Brew Works Brewery Review
• Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location
• The Trip Day 1
• The Trip Day 2
• The Trip Day 3
• Going On The Road
• Midwest Coast Brewery Opening
• Rotunda Brew Pub Opening
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

-B. Kline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, thanks for reading and cheers!

-B. Kline