Irish Car Bomb Stout on Nitro by Rotunda Brewing

Embracing the Dark Side: A Guide to Stout Season

As the leaves turn and the air chills, beer enthusiasts know it’s time to embrace the darker, richer, and more complex flavors of stout season. This beloved time of year is when breweries release their most anticipated stouts, ranging from the robust and creamy to the bold and barrel-aged. In this guide, we’ll explore the allure of stout season, highlight key styles to seek out, and share tips on how to get the most out of these darker brews. Whether you’re a stout aficionado or a curious newcomer, prepare to be enveloped by the warm embrace of stout season.

The Allure of Stout Season:

Treats of Strength by Icarus Brewing

Stout season unofficially begins in late fall and stretches through the winter months, offering a comforting counterpoint to the colder weather. This is when the depth and complexity of stouts truly shine, providing a sensory experience that is both warming and satisfying. Breweries often use this time to showcase their creativity, experimenting with aging processes, ingredients, and blending techniques to produce flavors that range from sweet and velvety to smoky and bitter.

Key Stout Styles to Explore:

1. Imperial Stout: Known for its high ABV and intense flavors, the imperial stout is a staple of stout season. Look for variants aged in bourbon, rum, or whiskey barrels for added complexity.
2. Oatmeal Stout: Creamier and smoother than other stouts, oatmeal stouts offer a gentle sweetness and a silky mouthfeel, making them incredibly approachable.
3. Milk Stout: Also known as sweet stouts, milk stouts are brewed with lactose sugar, which yeast cannot ferment, resulting in a sweeter, fuller-bodied beer.
4. Coffee Stout: Perfect for coffee lovers, these stouts incorporate coffee beans at various stages of the brewing process, offering a delightful marriage of coffee and malt flavors.
5. Pastry Stout: A newer trend, pastry stouts are inspired by desserts and often feature chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and other confectionery flavors.

Tips for Enjoying Stout Season:

• Pair Wisely: Stouts pair excellently with rich foods and desserts. Try them with chocolate cake, aged cheeses, or hearty stews to enhance the flavors.
• Serve at the Right Temperature: Unlike lighter beers, stouts should be served at a slightly warmer temperature (around 50-55°F) to fully appreciate their depth and complexity.
• Explore Local Breweries: Many craft breweries release limited-edition stouts during stout season. Visiting local breweries can provide a unique opportunity to sample exclusive offerings.
• Host a Tasting Event: Gather friends and host a stout tasting event. It’s a fun way to explore different styles and share the experience with others.

Conclusion:

Santa’s Bake by YAH Brew

Stout season is a time to explore the rich and diverse world of dark beers, offering an opportunity to savor flavors that are as complex as they are comforting. By seeking out different styles, pairing them thoughtfully with food, and sharing the experience with friends, you can fully embrace the dark side of beer. So, as the nights grow longer and the temperatures drop, remember that it’s not just the cold that’s setting in—it’s stout season, and it’s time to celebrate the depth, warmth, and richness it brings to the craft beer community.

German Chocolate Cake by Wicked Weed Brewing

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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Onto the Round of 16

Week two has begun and we’re now down to 16 flagship beers and their breweries! Congratulations to the 16 breweries and their flagship beers that have moved on. We do have a results page showing who won here: The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 Results.

For the articles on the tournament so far, you can check them out here:

• The Battle of the Beers (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 (Voting)
• The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 (Results)

Remaining Voting Schedule

The remaining voting schedule is:

• Round of 16: July 8th – July 14th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 8: July 15th – July 21st at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 4: July 22nd – July 28th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 2: July 29th – August 4th at 11:59PM (EST)

Please remember – you can vote once per day.

Voting

So let’s get right down to it, and get to the voting! Here is this week’s beers to vote on (The Round of 16):

You can vote once per day. The voting for this round (round of 16) will end on July 14th at 11:59PM EST. So you have just under one week to vote.

Beers and Breweries Left

Quick recap of where we’re at – the following beers and their breweries that are left are:

• The Alchemist – Heady Topper
• Boneshire Brew Works – Green Machine
• Rotunda Brewing – Annville IPA
• Pizza Boy – Murren River
• Tattered Flag – TMI PA
• Bell’s Brewery – Two Hearted Ale
• Dewey Beer Co. – Swishy Pants
• Toppling Goliath – Pseudo Sue
• Lawson’s Finest Liquids – Sip of Sunshine
• Sierra Nevada – Pale Ale
• Ommegang – Three Philosophers
• Von C Brewing – Walking on Clouds
• Rubber Soul – Dropout
• Deschutes Brewing – Fresh Squeezed
• Troegs Brewing – Perpetual IPA
• Tree House Brewing – Green

So there is still an eclectic mix left. Be sure to like and bookmark this page so you can follow along with the voting! And also be sure you to share on all of your social media pages and tag friends and breweries involved as well!

Blog Update

So, just to give everyone a bit of some news. This post is going up a little bit later than intended (got the results post done before the doctor’s appointment, but this one is going up afterwards). There’s been quite some news here for us at The Beer Thrillers. Amy and I are expecting our first daughter (together) (I have three daughters with my ex – wife). She is due in November.

Also, on Sunday my aunt passed away. So things have been in a little bit of an up and down state here at Bender Braus Brewery / The Beer Thrillers homestead / The Beer Thrillers HQ. (Working names in progress I suppose.)

But we do have lots of stuff on the lookout. We are still working on getting the podcast set up and to go live (or recorded) with that soon. We are also looking at getting a new layout for the blog, that will hopefully look a lot nicer, be smoother, and easier to use.

We also have some great new articles I am hoping that will be all dropping in the next few days – including a few brewery reviews / visits as well as getting some beer reviews done (I know its been a little bit of a while), as well as several news articles. We also have some big articles that will be dropping as well. (Also, hope you all like ‘list’ articles, because we have several with it being the halfway point of the year. I know a lot of blogs and pages are doing similar, and we’ve decided to follow suit. So, hopefully that will rank up there with some stuff you all will enjoy.)

Amy is also transitioning to her new job, so she is a bit busy, but will be getting back into the flow here at TBT – HQ (The Beer Thrillers HQ…. like I said…. name in progress.)

But thank you all for all the continued support you are showing us here at the blog and our social medias. It really means a lot. We just hit 2K followers on Facebook and we’ve been hovering right around 500 followers on Instagram. So thank you all very much for following us! We appreciate all the love and support so very very very very much!

As always, we are looking to grow, expand, and innovate here at The Beer Thrillers. These tournaments are a blast to run, and I hope everyone is enjoying them just as much as we are hosting them. We are always on the lookout for writers as well and other people who would like to become involved with The Beer Thrillers, if you are interested, you can contact us directly at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com and we will get back to you.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks For Reading

Like I do with every post and article, I enjoy ending with a “Thanks for Reading” section that has some upcoming projects, news, and what we’re doing behind the scenes, and then goes into my ‘end credits’ paragraphs. I did most of that in the above section, but just want to throw out a few other things here.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone for the support. Secondly, I want to thank everyone who has taken an interest in the tournaments we do here, and that we really hope everyone enjoys them.

Thirdly, we’re looking at a busy weekend. Today and tomorrow is the annual Ffej of July (if you know – you know). Drew, Amy, myself, and several other friends (maybe Jason, Andy Parys, maybe even Amy’s mom SueAnn), and of course lots of our other friends in the industry and craft beer community will be hanging out. We are also looking to get back out on the road soon and hit up some fun breweries and check out some new places, so please be sure to stay tuned for all that.

Ok, enough rambling, get out there and vote and share this for everyone to vote as well! Thank you all for reading and supporting us and have a great weekend!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

Well this post was a bit of a long time in coming I suppose. This was meant to be worked on and written and finished many times throughout this week. Sunday night was the usual hang-out at Irgo’s Tavern with co-workers, so that night was definitely a no-go for writing this up. (Especially since then afterwards went back to a co-workers house and watched Elimination Chamber and left his house at 3AM.)

Monday night was a bit busy and hectic as well. A family member was taken to the hospital where she has been since. (Not coronavirus or COVID-19, so don’t worry, I’m not infected. Obviously, I mean no offense to anyone, I’m just using humor to keep things together and keep the stress at bay, much like I use this blog itself.) Tuesday night after work, was the annual co-worker fantasy draft. Typically what ends up happening at these drafts is – my co-workers get my pretty good and drunk and they let me draft for a person who can’t make it. Inevitably that team lands Top 3. Doesn’t matter the sport, baseball or basketball (the ones we do). I don’t even watch basketball, NBA, college, whatever, so I know next to nothing about it, yet the one year I drafted the team that ended up winning. (The guy only made 5 roster moves all season.) I even drafted a guy with the last name DUDLEY solely because I liked the Dudley Boyz; ECW / WWE / TNA / ROH / etc. tag team.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was spent at the hospital. With the daughters. And doing a host of other things; which also consisted of my oldest daughter’s first softball practice of the season. I had walked a combined total of 9 some miles. And this was on a day where I only got home at 4:15 from the festivities the night before. (The fantasy draft, then led to going to a bar doing Irish Car Bombs, then led to hanging out for a bit before getting home.) So needless to say, the week quickly went by and we find ourselves here at Thursday morning.

Not sure how we got here, but all I know is, we made it to this point, and its about time I do this review, and owe it to you guys. You’ve been patiently waiting, so its time I get around and get writing! (I’d say “get off my fat butt”, but I sit to write, so I literally have to sit ON my fat butt to write it.)

So where do we find ourselves at? Ahh yes, reviewing some New Trail beer. Friday night while waiting out my youngest’s ballet class, I was at Funck’s Restaurant in Palmyra. They have a pretty heft selection (56 taps). Found two good New Trail beers on tap, and enjoyed them both immensely. Now, sometimes in the past I’d do this as a double-beer review, and I’m even thinking of doing it now…. but I think I’m going to hold off and make this two separate beer reviews. (In the past I’ve done “Two Beer Review” and “Multiple Beer Review” posts; especially when its the same brewery, at the same location, drank at the same time.) I think going forward with the blog I’m going to restrain from doing that (except perhaps in particular circumstances). I’ll do multiple beer review posts for beer flights I have at breweries, and outside of that always keep it to single beer reviews.

Thus this will be a single beer review and I’ll first cover Icicle by New Trail Brewing; the next post will most likely be the Sticky Barrel Aged Porter I also had by New Trail Brewing there at Funck’s. (Unless I decide to split it up with another beer that I’ve had.)

Let’s get to this!

Beer: Icicle
Brewery: New Trail Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: Icicle is a Hazy IPA brewed with a blend of oats, wheat, & spelt. Drippingly hopped with Simcoe, Amarillo, & Centennial. Expect luscious citrus flavor mixed with that earthy green. Enjoy the long thaw with us.

One thing that can be said for New Trail; they pretty much deliver spot on with their descriptions. If they say a beer tastes like 1930s bubble-gum wrapped in bacon with a hint of ranch dressing; then you better believe thats what it’ll taste like.

Appearance for this is typical straight up hazy New England IPA. (Which is pretty much typical for all New Trail beers; IPA at least; which is their bread and butter anyway.) Turbid, dank, murky, dark orange to orange juice in hue. My friend (D. Scott) ordered the same as his second beer, and his looked a bit more brighter and fluorescent than mine, but same similar appearance, and both very dank and hazy. Certainly no clarity with these beers. Slight bit of sediment, but nothing to extreme.

Aroma is hop… hop… hop bomb through and through. Citrus and strong tropical notes but all hop and all day and all throughout hop. Strong citrus, strong tropical fruit, some stone fruit, late notes of grass.

This is a New Trail IPA, through and through; meaning be prepared for a juicy, strong hoppy, New England hazy style IPA. There is no denying they know their style and ability to make these are great, but you know all this going in, and they confirm it with each new IPA they release. Your not going to get a bad IPA from them… but, overall you also probably are not getting a massive variety of IPA from them. Insofar as I mean that their substituting a few hops for a few different hops and you get a more X (say citrus) flavor and then in the next one you get more Y (say stone fruit) or something similar. They are all GREAT and AMAZING beers. I’ve yet to have had a West Coast IPA from them (not sure if they’ve even made one and released one). And like I’ve said, I’ve yet to have had a BAD beer from them. I do think with NE-IPAs that they all tend to flow together. Substitute Hop 1X for Hop Y, meanwhile keeping hops Hops 2X and 3X the same, and then in beer 2, you substitute Hop 2X for Hop Y2, etc. For just subtle, slight, nuanced variations. But they sell, and they sell good, and you can keep re-naming them all too, and super inflate your ultimate Untappd, Beer Advocate, and other beer rating platform totals. Its a great marketing idea. This isn’t a hounding on them or hating on them, just something I’ve noticed with them, and a few other breweries have done the same. Its not a horrible practice, in fact its downright smart. But enough of that, lets talk the flavor of THIS particular beer.

Like the description says, you are getting oats, wheat, and spelt; so you are getting a hazy, dank, juicy IPA. Haze. Craze. For hops they used simcoe, amarillo, and centennial, giving this a massive amount of tropic flavor. Immediately on sipping you get the tropical juice, up front, coming straight at you, then it leads itself into a bit of stone fruit, a bit dryer, a bit off the sweet side, nothing tangy, nothng off, nothing bitter, but then it ends in the earth, giving you a bit of a grassy, green, earthy finish. Like working through a weird and exotic forest; starting with tropical fruits then seguing into stone fruits before you finish on the forest floor getting the grass and earthyness. This is certainly a fun, full, luscious beer. Its nothing too dry, sweet, or cloying, its just right all over. A fun, tasty beer all around.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 3.12.20)

As I said at the start of this, sorry for the delay in getting this blog post out, as I’m sure you can all understand why. Depending on my night, I might do a second (I know I say this a lot and then it doesn’t happen), or I might fire one off before work tomorrow morning. Saturday, all fingers and toes and other appendages crossed, I will be attending the Kegs & Eggs at Rotunda Brewery / The Batdorf. J. Doncevic will also be there. You can find the event listing here: Kegs & Eggs 2020. Money goes towards Elliot’s CP Journey. So come on out and support a good cause.

In other blog news, I edited the Haze Charmer article to include the links and articles like I said I would at the end of it. Forgot to do that on initial release of the post.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers, prost, and slainte!

-B. Kline