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Boneshire Brew Works Celebrates 8th Anniversary

B. Kline — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:57:50 +0000

Boneshire Brew Works is Set to Celebrate Their 8th Anniversary

This weekend – Friday through Sunday – October 25th (Friday) until October 27th (Sunday) – Boneshire Brew Works is set to celebrate their 8th Anniversary! Located at 7462 Derry St, Harrisburg, PA 17111 in Rutherford (Harrisburg suburb), PA. (They also have a taproom at the SOMA in Harrisburg downtown as well.)

No details have been announced yet on their social media platforms, and for those who receive their newsletter all you received was the above picture – but – you can expect special one off beer releases, a special food menu, and an all around wonderful time at their brewery. So make sure to stop out and visit them and check out the brewery if its your first time or if its your five millionth time. It’ll be a great weekend!

For More Information on Boneshire Brew Works

The following comes via Untappd.

Boneshire Brew Works is a micro brewery from Harrisburg, PA. They have 251 unique beers with over 52,000 ratings, and a global average rating of 3.85 (as of 10.24.24). Their Untappd description reads: “Welcome to Boneshire Brew Works. We are located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Derry Street.”

You can find them at these social media platforms:

For More Articles on Boneshire Brew Works

For past Boneshire Brew Works articles, please check these out:

Brewery News

Interested in finding out about many other brewery openings, new locations, closings, movings, and in general brewery news? You can check out our links below:

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Cheers.

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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 #5 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of August 2024.) 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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It’s been a long year, wait its only April?

AmyMWolfe — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 02:55:02 +0000

It’s been a long year, wait its only April?

Long Tongue Liar by Boneshire Brew Works

It was time to sit down and have a beer with Grandma SueAnn. I have spent so many recent weekends testing my limits of caffeine to work a part time job and it’s time to unwind. Reaching for a Belgium Tripel just feels right.

As soon as it was bottled we picked up some Long Tongue Liar from Boneshire Brew Works. This tasty Belgian comes in at a 9.6% ABV according to Untapped. It is described on Untapped as “OH, what a wicked tale you weave.’ So immediately Grandma SueAnn and I are excited.

Boneshire Brew Works’ Facebook Announcement

The Facebook announcement states: The Liar has returned! Finally after several years Long Tongue Liar will be available on draft (tomorrow) and in bottles (Thursday). This beautiful Belgian beer is brewed with Belgian Candi Sugar, Honey, and our favorite Belgian yeast and clocks in at 10%. Its not for the faint of heart, drink too many of these and you might turn into a Liar!”

(See Boneshire Brew Works Facebook Announcement.)

This is very tasty. I’ll assume Grandma SueAnn thought the same since the first pour from the bomber bottle was gone in a couple minutes. We both agreed this was a tasty treat; It has a silkiness to it that dances over your tongue. We shared a salmon salad and we picked up on some buttery-ness that we attributed to the fish.

Skip to a few hours later and I’m home making dinner. I’m sneaking some spinach into some homemade beef/turkey enchiladas and I’m thinking of cracking open the second bottle of LTL. It has a slight boozy taste to it but the honey flavor shows up to compete.

In previous years it was aged in California Chardonnay barrel with Pennsylvania cherries and Brettanomyces Lambicus.

(See B. Kline’s beer review previously posted here: Beer Review: Longue Tongue Liar Aged with Cherries and Brettanomyces Lamcibus by Boneshire Brew Works.)

Long Tongue Liar with Salmon Salad

If I took a guess I’d say it was aged in Chardonnay barrels again. That oaky taste is apparent and contrary to most dry chardonnay this one is one I’d like to sip on all night long. I have to say by the second one, I am indeed a Long Tongue Liar.

End Notes

(This is Amy’s first column back after a while. Busy with Scarlet, life, and everything in general, its great to see her jumping back into her Personal Column series again. We have sorely been missing her weekly posts here on the blog, so its so wonderfully great to have her back. You can find her full list of ‘Weekly’ Personal Column series below.)

Ben’s notes – we’ve had a busy few weeks lately. With the Battle of the Breweries tournament – which wrapped up and we got to announced Liquid Noise Brewing Company as the winner – as well as the in – person fun share of Central PA beers and Girl Scout Cookies pairing, to WrestleMania weekend, to the Eclipse, to going to the AC Brewfest, and so much more – in both our personal lives as well as our work lives, as well as here on the blog. We also have a lot of stuff coming up as well. We’ve all been certainly busy here at The Beer Thrillers. Especially Amy. So I am so glad that she was able to find time to write again. And great that she got to spend some time with Grandma SueAnn to enjoy a beer and write about it too. Please make sure you follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with all that we’ve got going on, as we will certainly be having a lot more happening. Cheers!

From our Instagram post:
Long Tongue Liar is a favorite from Boneshire Brew Works. A delicious way to end the day.
(Not a dirty glass, just the bubbles from the carbonation and camera shot with flash on.)
Cheers!

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:

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.

MAPS OF BREWERIES

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

The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

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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Boneshire Brew Works is Expanding into Harrisburg with a Second Tap Room

BKline — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 14:48:07 +0000

Boneshire Brew Works

Boneshire Brew Works is moving into Harrisburg. While always been a part of the Harrisburg beer scene, their physical tap room and brewery has been kind of on the periphery and outskirts of Harrisburg proper. The brewery itself is located on Derry Street next to the 717 Armory and Blue Smoke BBQ food truck, as part of a small outlet mall that includes Marino’s Pizza, Signal 5 Crossfit, and Everest Spice. The address being: Boneshire Brew Works, 7462 Derry St, Harrisburg, PA 17111.

But now, they are moving into the city proper. The city that they’ve helped and worked on so much through events like Harrisburg Beer Week and sip @ soma and 3rd in the Burg, and other great events like brewfests and Beers and Bacon. The city that has loved and embraced Boneshire Brew Works so much, is now fully accepting them into the capital itself.

As reported yesterday – Monday July 13th 2020 – on The Burg’s website, as well as on our Facebook page, and then later on PennLive and with an interview Alan Miller did with Breweries in PA – Boneshire Brew Works will be setting up a taproom on 3rd Street in Harrisburg.

Boneshire Brew Works beer line up. English Curse, Green Machine, Devil’s Burden, Tried and True, and Dark of the Forest.

As quoted from The Burg’s press release on the brewery’s expansion: “On Monday, Harristown Enterprises announced that Boneshire would open a tasting room in the SoMa neighborhood on S. 3^rd Street in space that had been the location of Sip@SoMa.

‘We are a small brewery that focuses on providing an opportunity for community gathering, and we think Boneshire and SoMa are a perfect fit,’ said Alan Miller, majority owner of Boneshire, which is based in Swatara Township.

In early 2019, Harristown opened the snug, 25-seat Sip@SoMa in a first-floor storefront as an interim measure until it could attract a brewery to the location. Since then, breweries from around PA have used the 12-tap system to serve their beer on a visiting, rotating basis, often in conjunction with 3^rd in the Burg, though the COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to that undertaking.”

SoMa at night, Harrisburg Life

Harrisburg is a vibrant and large city with a diverse culture and many tourist opportunities and attractions. The capital of Pennsylvania, it sees many people coming from all over to visit annually. Located along the Susquehanna and near towns of Hershey and Hummelstown, it provides a lot of entertainment options for visitors. From museums to the waterfront, from bars to restaurants all over the city, there is much to see, eat, drink, and do in Harrisburg. Harrisburg currently has a few other craft breweries – ZeroDay Brewing and The Millworks are the two largest, but there is also a small craft brewery in the vegan restaurant – The Vegetable Hunter.

The sip @ soma location has been a prime target for craft beer and has been a vital part of the craft beer scene in the Harrisburg area. Sara Bozich, a regular planner, and part of the creation of Harrisburg Beer Week regularly (well, regularly pre-COVID-19) hosted ‘block parties’ there, offering a variety of craft breweries and craft beer – but one staple that typically was well represented at the block parties was Alan Miller’s Boneshire Brew Works.

sip @ soma storefront, photo courtesy of The Burg website.

According to Harristown Enterprises: “Boneshire expects to open its SoMa tasting room in spring 2021. It also will continue operating from its main location on Derry Street outside of Hummelstown.

‘Having a dynamic, local craft brewer like Boneshire take over the space is exactly what we’re looking for in the neighborhood,’ said Brad Jones, Harristown’s president and CEO.”

Alan Miller is very enthusiastic for the growth. As well as he should be. Expansion is the key to much of the craft beer scene. Growing, maintaining quality, growing, maintaining quality, is the key to success. You can look at other local breweries like Troegs Independent Craft Brewing or Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery, and see how their growth has led to more growth. Troegs Brewing originally started in Harrisburg on Paxtang Street and has since moved to Hershey, just outside of HersheyPark on HersheyPark Road, growing to become one of the largest producers of beer in Pennsylvania (behind Yuengling Brewing and Yards Brewing). Likewise, Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery has grown to several additional locations – Gettysburg, as well as the old Hershey Biergarten and soon to Lancaster. Growth can be difficult for some breweries, and there is usually a small bit of a ‘adjustment period’. Breweries like Rotunda Brewing Company expanded in recent history from a small little bottle shop and near home-brewery size equipment, to a 7 Barrel System, as well as opening a second brew pub in Hershey. There was a small window of time for them that was an ‘adjustment period’, but after that small blip and bump, they’ve maintained that quality they were known for before hand, and now providing it on a bigger scale, and to more people – which is ultimately the goal of all craft breweries and craft brewers. Alan being no exception to that.

Alan is an extremely smart brewer and knows what he is doing. I, personally, think he will have no difficulty with the adjustment and addition of the new taproom, due to open in Spring 2021. The new tap room won’t be adding any additional brewing size capacity to Boneshire Brew Works, but will be providing a second location to have their beers on tap. This will likely mean a quicker turn-over for their production though, so Alan will probably have to spend more time brewing to meet the demands of two locations as well as wherever else their kegs are shipped, and if they further their market by moving cans into beer distributors.

From The Burg’s press release, Alan had to say: “We love the feel and vibe of the SoMa area in Harrisburg, and we have been involved in the SoMa block party since day one and are excited to have a permanent place in the neighborhood.”

This is certainly an interesting time for brewers, not just in Pennsylvania, but the world over, as the coronavirus – COVID-19 is still working its way through the human population. A difficult time for brewers with a lot of uncertainties. Hemauer Brewing recently opened their doors during the pandemic, and Wolf Brewing Co, has had their opening pushed back a bit due to the pandemic as well. Likewise, Rubber Soul Brewing in Hummelstown which was due to open back in late May / early June, still has yet to open, and is looking to open tentatively late July / early August.

The tap room is typically described as ‘intimate’. Its small, and cozy, relaxed, ‘intimate’, but will feature a vibrant tap list. The seating is only 25, which is rather small, but will work well for Boneshire Brew Works. The current tap system has 12 taps, and will thus be able to cover the full spread of Boneshire Brew Works’ beer menu, as well as possibly other ‘guest taps’ if they so choose to do. (As per their licensing, Boneshire Brew Works can have guest taps for craft beer from any Pennsylvania brewery.)

The map and distance from Boneshire Brew Works brewery to their new taproom location in Harrisburg.

The current location for Boneshire Brew Works (their brewery) is 7462 Derry Street Harrisburg PA. The tap room’s location will be 13 South 3rd Street Harrisburg PA.

Boneshire Brew Works

For additional information, you can check out these sources:

For more articles from The Beer Thrillers on Boneshire Brew Works, check out:

Brewery Openings and Expansions:

Definitely excited for the opening of this tap room. It will be great for the residents of Harrisburg, it also shows off the hard work Alan Miller and his co-owners / partners have been putting into Boneshire Brew Works, it will also be great for the craft beer scene in Harrisburg to feature another great craft brewery, and will be great for craft beer enthusiasts in Harrisburg; as well as be great for Boneshire Brew Works. Hopefully soon, in Spring 2021 I will be sitting and having a drink (or two, or three) with some of you at the new Boneshire Brew Works taproom!

Until then – cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

Boneshire Brew Works

Official BBQ & Burgers: Pizza Boy Secondary Location

BKline — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 15:49:41 +0000

Official BBQ and Burgers, back behind Rutherford Heights, on Lyters Lane

For many locals, they’ve known about Official BBQ and Burgers for a while now. Unfortunately I only found out when Pizza Boy announced they would be using the little unassuming BBQ shack as their secondary location.

And now I feel like I’ve been missing out for quite a while.

You can check out their website, which lists menu, their about information, their services, their catering, as well as the new Pizza Boy beer menu here: Official BBQ and Burgers.

The new Pizza Boy bar at Official BBQ and Burgers (photo provided by their Facebook page)

The new Pizza Boy bar at Official BBQ and Burgers is to the right as you enter with it being the counter for ordering your food as well (and opposite of pick-ups if you ordered your food by phone or to-go). They have twenty taps all set-up for Pizza Boy beer only. There is also a fridge by the entrance for non-alcoholic kid drinks as well as four and six packs of Pizza Boy beers.

Pre-opening day setting up the bar at Official BBQ and Burgers (photo provided by their Facebook page)

The bar counter itself is large and with enough seating that it should provide enough space for just drinkers, there is also a row bar against the wall by the main bar where people can eat and drink as well. Plus their is a moderate sized dining room for families and people to get together and eat and drink.

Official BBQ and Burgers dining room (photo courtesy of their Facebook page)

On a busy night the dining room area will be cramped, but not too severely. When my family arrived roughly 6:30-6:45PM Friday night, the place was well packed, but not too the point of cramping (though we did snag the next-to-last table).

Opening night seemed to have a few hiccups and hitches. By the time we got there, Mac and Cheese and Brisket were sold out. And while in line, they took a phone call that got the remaining pulled pork until they could make more (which ended up taking roughly 25-30 minutes, even though they told us it’d be 15 minutes). But things happen and this can be expected for a “new” opening.

I say “new” because its not their first day, and its not an opening. The Pizza Boy bar located inside Official BBQ and Burgers was new and just going live, but the BBQ shack itself has been around for quite a while. Talking to a few locals/regulars, it seems like they’ve been doing ‘ok’ but never consistently busy or crazy packed; and hopefully the new bar with Pizza Boy’s marquee name will change that for them (it seemed to while we were there, though the place was empty when we left at 8:30PM). (They closed at 9PM).

While waiting for our food, I ordered my (first) drink; which was “Not My Style, But May Rate Anyway”. A delicious NEIPA from Pizza Boy.

Not My Style, But May Rate Anyway by Pizza Boy Brewing Co.

Since I’m doing a ‘brewery’ / ‘secondary location’ / ‘restaurant’ review rather than a beer review, I’ll just give a glossing over details of the beer.

Beer: Not My Style, May Rate Anyway
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: IPA w/ almond flour, coconut & lemon

This is a very bright yellow beer, with a very distinct hazy juicy IPA taste and feel with a powerful lemon kick to it. Not sure exactly what all the almond flour adds to it, because I don’t exactly taste almond, possibly because of how over-powering the lemon is (definitely in a good way, especially for me because I love lemon). Slight noticeable coconut but it is pretty subtle. A nice sippable beer with no ‘hop bitterness’ and really embodies the New England style IPAs that are more of the craze nowadays.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.81 (as of 11.30.19)

Visions of Yesterday by Pizza Boy Brewing Co.

The salad came first, and everyone dug into that. The salad was massive, 5$, and as the menu said “NOT SMALL”. It definitely lived up to that. So while everyone chowed into that, I ordered my second beer which I started sipping just before our full meal came.

Beer: Visions of Yesterday
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Pale Ale – American
ABV: 5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)

This was a fine, well tasting, clear translucent pale ale. No frills, nothing super crazy going on. No adjuncts, no dry hopping, no late additions, nothing silly. Just a down to earth pale ale that was tasty and went perfectly with pulled pork, angus beef burger, and the green beans.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.60 (as of 11.30.19)

Pulled pork, green beans, french fries, wings

For a family of four, we got pulled pork, dozen wings, french fries, the salad, an angus beef burger, and the green beans. My daughters enjoyed trying out the numerous different BBQ sauces that were there, and they enjoyed their cream soda and root beer to drink theirs down, while I enjoyed my beers to wash my food down. The french fries were massive for a side. The wings were good with a smoked spiceyness to them even before putting on the sauces. The pulled pork was delicious. The green beans were absolutely amazing.

Beans, fries, wings, and burger

The food was absolutely phenomenal. I will say as a warning, for a family of four be prepared to drop a decent amount of cash. All told our meal was around the 100$ mark with the beers, the sodas, the food, and the tip. Obviously prices vary on what you order and how much, and the sodas do certainly add up as well as the beers. Most BBQ places are expensive or on the more costly side of things to begin with. And we knew this going in. This is no gripe, just a ‘heads up’ for those with larger families or those living on a budget.

The food is downright amazing though and well worth the costs. The time to receive the food took a while, but we are assuming hiccups with the increased volume of customers. The staff was amazing and downright friendly and talked with the girls and us and were very nice to us the entire time. The building was clean, the bathrooms clean, polished, the locals and regulars all friendly.

The four of us left full (belly aching full), happy, feeling good (especially me with the two beers in me) and with a ton of leftovers (which I am currently picking apart right now). We will definitely be back in the near future and most likely a lot of times after that. Official BBQ and Burgers is only about ten minutes from Hummelstown, two-three minutes from most of Rutherford, five-ten minutes from the outskirts of Harrisburg and fifteen minutes from Harrisburg itself, and fifteen minutes from Hershey and ten minutes from Linglestown. Its kind of ‘out in the middle of nowhere’ but its also an easy accessible drive from everywhere in the near area. Great secondary location for Pizza Boy, and one far closer for those in Hummelstown, Hershey, Linglestown, so this will make a great stop for many. And being so close to other breweries like Boneshire Brew Works, Newfangled Brew Works, Troegs Independent Brewing, Tattered Flag, and Iron Hill (Hershey) it can make for a nice easy stop for a nearby brewery tour. (Its about two minutes from both Newfangled Brew Works and Boneshire Brew Works).

Hopefully you all will stop in and check the place out. I highly recommend checking it out, and not just for the beer. Great food, great beer, great time. BBQ, Beer, Happy. (To go along with Pizza Boy’s other motto of “Pizza. Beer. Happy.”).

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)

BKline — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:09:21 +0000

Hershey’s Chocolate by Yuengling

This is going to be something different, and don’t expect much more of this kind of thing. I’m not a huge fan of doing the mainstream beers, and I definitely don’t want to be doing macro beers (so have no fear, no Naturdays review coming up or Bud Lite Platinum or whatever other BS their peddling).

Yuengling is Pennsylvania though, through and through. You walk into any bar in Pennsylvania and say ‘lager’ you are going to get a Yuengling. Simple as that really. So if I have to drink the “lesser” beers, or the “swill” or “macros” or “mainstream” or “lower quality but mass produced beers”, Yuengling is usually my go to. Over the other heavily distributed beers like Miller Lite, Coors, Bud, Corona, or Heineken. I am not above drinking macro and I’m not making this a beer snobbery post, I drink, and I’ll drink anything/everything if nothing else is available. For instance, family parties where say a brother in law has just Corona, I’ll drink the Corona. So be it.

At the Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary party on Friday night (which by the way, look for an upcoming joint blog post from both me and J. Doncevic) I was hanging out with J. Doncevic and we discussed this exact drink, and we also discussed Yuengling in general, and macro beers as a whole. He’ll be upfront with any of you who ask him, he takes his beer snobbery to a whole new level, and he’s damn proud of it. He was telling me he’s never had Miller or Coors or Bud and won’t, and would rather not drink at a party then drink those. My unabashedly candid alcoholism tells me to drink everything and anything if available – so I do. Different strokes; different folks. Nothing wrong with either approach (in my opinion). But we did have a consensus that Yuengling is craft (it is by definition of the Craft Brewer’s Association) and that we both are willing to drink it.

In the South Central PA area, primarily every Hershey bar/brewery, beer place, etc, as well as in Harrisburg, Hummelstown, Elizabethtown, etc, nearly every place that has a good enough distributor got this (the Chocolate Porter) on tap. Specifically Hershey, Hummelstown, and Harrisburg. The Warwick, the Bear’s Den, Hershey Biergarten, Primanti Brothers, Hotel Hershey, Boro Bar and Grill, Chick’s Tavern, Boneshire Brew Works, The Sturgis, Ted’s Bar and Grill, Arooga’s on 422, Arooga’s on 22, just to name a few places that carried this.

Most places even did a glass give away the first night of the tapping. I know Boneshire Brew Works did (thus the glass in the picture), as well as the Gin Mill in Lebanon did. Hershey Biergarten did as well and I believe the Primanti Bros. did also. It is a lovely glass, a nice tulip with the logo in gold on it, looks very lovely and is a nice drinking glass for stouts, porters, belgians, etc.

So, on Wednesday the 16th, Boneshire Brewery announced that they were going to be tapping a keg of the Hershey’s Chocolate Porter and giving away the glasses. I got done with work at 5:40 (NEO from my work) and went straight to the library to drop off books, and was going to be meeting a friend at Newfangled Brew Works, but stopped at Boneshire to try out the porter.

So let’s break down the beer thats basically taken the beer industry, Twitter, social media, and the internet by storm. The beer that all of your non-craft beer friends have been bugging you about and asking you about for your opinion of it. Well, now here you go, you can just point them to this article, because I’m sure I speak for everyone. ………I kid…. I kid.

Hershey’s syrup

I feel like I could just break down Hershey’s syrup and that would be all the review needs to be. A slightly alcoholic version of the syrup, and bam-o there you go, review done. But, its not quite that simple, and there are a few more subtle notes.

This does seem to be the point of contention, for some it tastes like the syrup, for some it tastes completely different, it seems theres two sides to the coin of this beer, and the multitude of my friends fall on both spectrum(s).

Beer: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter
Brewery: Yuengling Brewery (or D.G. Yuengling and Sons Brewing Company)
Style: Porter – American
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: Yuengling, America’s Oldest Brewery, and Hershey, America’s most iconic chocolate, are collaborating, for the first time in their history, to provide a once in a lifetime creation for their loyal fans to enjoy. America loves beer and America loves chocolate, so Yuengling and Hershey joined forces to bring the best of both worlds to their fans with a limited-edition Yuengling Hershey’s Chocolate Porter. This collaboration gives consumers the opportunity to savor and indulge in the unique beer from America’s Oldest Brewery and America’s most beloved chocolate brand.

Yuengling Hershey’s Chocolate Porter is a fresh take on Yuengling’s 200-year-old Dark Brewed Porter. Don’t miss your chance to enjoy, for a limited time only, America’s #1 craft brewery, Yuengling, come together with America’s most iconic chocolate brand, Hershey’s, for their first-ever collaboration — Yuengling Hershey’s Chocolate Porter.

Thats quite the marketing ad write-up right there. Gotta give an A+ to the ad team on this one, or at least a raise or something, that was a very well crafted (ah….. pun intended) and well made Untappd write-up for the beer. You can tell if a Brewery has a good marketing or ad-team with their social media presence, and things like a good Untappd write-up for their beers (like Troegs usually has a fantastic write-up, even for their Scratch beers) is a good sign of it; great Twitter posts, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc posts are always a good sign of a good marketing team which reflects well on a brewery as a whole.

So you have the oldest American brewery (left) and a staple of the East Coast (specifically North East Coast) dive bar, and the “most iconic” chocolate company in America teaming up to make a beer. Yuengling is the oldest brewery in America; by process of elimination. It wasn’t the oldest founded, it wasn’t the first founded, but it has survived through prohibition, and other stretches when most American breweries folded, by changing what they sold, how they sold, downsizing, upsizing, etc, and they are to be commended for how they were able to achieve and survive and thrive despite times like prohibition, etc.

Hershey’s is iconic, insofar as anyone from the United States has heard of it, if not had it. From Pennsylvania to California, from Maine to Texas, Hershey’s is distributed. And that’s not speaking internationally. I could go into the history of Hershey’s (or even Yuengling) and talk about how the company was started, by who, how they’ve grown, etc. I could talk about Hershey Park, Chocolate World, the town of Hershey in Derry Township, etc, but its all stuff we pretty much know, and its all stuff that’s not really necessary or relevant to the beer review. Suffice it to say that the write-up is pretty spot on despite everything; Yuengling and Hershey are both iconic. Perhaps some hyperbole but it is mostly true, and a sound argument, and a pretty remarkable thing for the two of them to hook up and collaborate on this beer.

The idea of these two brands hooking up and collaborating on a beer is pretty amazing and impressive in its own right. I don’t know what the process was; who contacted who; what the involvement was that each brand had (I can’t imagine Hershey had much say, I have to assume its kind of like how the write-up reads, that they took their recipe for their old Dark Porter and just added Hershey’s ingredients to it, and called it a day – it tastes that way as well). But its brilliant marketing and strategy plan, especially given the anniversary of Yuengling, and with Hershey doing their big launching of the new entrance to Hershey Park and everything.

But enough of all this gibberish and jibber-jabbing…. lets get onto the actual beer itself.

Chocolate Porter

Appearance is a typical porter, Razor Ramon hair black, full bodied, thick, like some entertainers of the evening. It has a nice head to it, foamy, bubbly, a good half-inch that dissipated with nice interspersed and varied bubbles. The foam has a light brown look to go with the richness of the beer.

Aroma is chocolate syrup… Hershey’s chocolate syrup to be exact. Like flipping the lid of the syrup container and immediately getting that whiff of it. You get malty roasty grains from the porter to go with it, but the chocolate smell overpowers much of that. This is fine, this is what its being billed as, and it works well for this.

Moving on to taste; once again the very first thing you are going to note and taste is the Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I’ve likened this to drinking an alcoholic version of the famous Hershey’s syrup. But even in that aspect, its not too much of it, since the ABV is only 4.7% anyway. So its not a boozy version of Hershey’s syrup thats for sure. There is some malt, some roast, some dark notes underneath the chocolate syrup abundance, but its pretty subtle and mute. The mouthfeel is heavy, its thick like a good porter, and it hangs and feels right in your mouth, all signs that the beer is well made. I think beyond the chocolate syrup, there is a blandness to the beer. The chocolate syrup wears thin on the taste as you start to sip, and then its just a kind of generic bland porter with not enough malt backbone to really keep the taste alive or to really hold the beer. The more you sip and drink it, the less notable and profound the chocolate syrup taste is, and the weaker the beer as a whole gets. This is in general a discussion of mass market beers typically; that they don’t usually have the most flavorful beers, the most robust character notes, that there is just an underlying general blandness to most beers, like Bud, like Coors, like Miller, like Yuengling lager, like Corona, or Heineken, etc, theres just a ‘blandness’ or ‘been there’ kind of taste. Like McDonald’s to your local diner or restaurant, might be a very apt comparison for that sake. There’s just a mute blandness that this beer takes on as you sip it more and the chocolate syrup dissipates more. …or perhaps I’m full of it and reading too much into things and have my head up my own…..

Either way on this beer, it has certainly gotten the beer universe a flutter for a while, from Twitter to Instagram, from your friends at work and family who know you like beer “so how was it” or “did you hear Hershey and Yuengling are teaming up?” to actual craft beer enthusiast nerdy hipsters willing to try it out, it has gotten the attention, and the marketing it was aimed and designed for.

Overall, its not the worst beer you are going to drink, you know the hype is overblown, like it usually is for anything; not even just the craft beer industry, but all aspects (stares at the latest Star Wars trailer…. I know what your game is….). Its worth seeking out for the novelty of it. I couldn’t imagine myself ordering this again, but it was acceptable, and a fine drink at the moment of.

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.03 (as of 10.27.19)

This review was started yesterday morning (Sunday, October 27th) but I wasn’t able to finish it before work, and then work happened, and then post brewski’s happened with my friend D. Scott. Which, he has finally finished the podcast that we did discussing Breaking Bad and El Camino, so I will provide the links for that, its two podcasts (a two-parter) because of how ridiculously long it was. This was done with our friend Esty and its for their podcast channel “WTF did I watch”.

You can check them out here:
WTF Did I Just Watch: Breaking Bad and El Camino – Part 1
WTF Did I Just Watch: Breaking Bad and El Camino – Part 2

Just as a heads up, there is some language in the podcasts, it would probably receive a R rating from the FCC, they are also long podcasts, so devote some time if you are going to watch them.

Thank you all for reading, please click the like, follow, subscribe, comment, etc. we always appreciate that here at The Beer Thrillers. When I do more podcasts with D. Scott, I’ll be sure to post them here (I won’t be posting the ones I’m not involved in). Also look for an upcoming collaboration article between myself (B. Kline) and J. Doncevic about the Boneshire Brew Works 3rd Anniversary Celebration. I also have plenty of beer reviews to post up. So please be on the lookout for all of that!

Tonight will be busy, work from 10-6, then blood donation at the Hershey Library, then the Hummelstown Parade, and then a party at a brewer from Tattered Flag’s house, so most likely no posts or blogs from myself tonight, but I’m sure I’ll have something for you all tomorrow, so be on the lookout!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Book Review: For the Love of Beer (Dr. Alison E. Feeney)

BKline — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 03:45:00 +0000

For the Love of Beer by Dr. Alison E. Feeney

I got to pick up this book by Dr. Alison E. Feeney last Thursday at the Mid-Town Scholar ahead of her panel discussion (alongside Hannah Ison, Jeffrey Musselman, and Sara Bozich). You can read about that here: “For The Love of Beer – Panel Discussion“. It was a fun and entertaining (and informative) night at the Mid-Town Scholar getting to listen to the three of them discuss breweries, beer, brewing, and community.

And that is the heart of this book. Communities. Even moreso than the breweries this is ‘about’, the heart of the book though is communities. And at the heart of a lot of communities, and growing, is craft breweries. Breweries, in particular craft breweries, are the seat of many things in communities now adays. Places like Boneshire, Moo-Duck, Troegs, and many other breweries that give back to their communities through charities and other activities. Breweries like ZeroDay and Millworks that act like centerpieces for revitalization of downtown areas.

There is so much to love about craft breweries and what all they do (and can do). And Dr. Feeney’s book covers that so well. From revitalizing downtown areas, or old historic buildings, to providing a center and a place for a community, to being an employment opportunity for the local town, to sustainability and environmental help, providing spent grain for local farmers, to helping charities, to hosting events, to having delicious food, to having local ingredients, etc, there is so much that breweries do for their local communities.

Dr. Alison Feeney has traveled all across Pennsylvania checking out various breweries, hop farms, malts, grains, communities, universities, etc, and has gotten a feel for the state, its history, its brewing industry, and the breweries and the people. She’s interviewed tons of people, she’s talked to customers, brewers, hop growers, home brew shop owners, just about everyone you can think of attached to the industry.

The book covers a lot of different breweries across the state. From big to little. From regional powerhouses like Victory and Troegs to smaller localized shops like Moo-Duck, Boneshire, Bonn Place, etc. She has traveled all across the state, all of the regions covered.

There is a wealth of information in the book detailing the history of beer, the history of brewing, the history of Pennsylvania, and brewing and beer in Pennsylvania, as well as a wealth of information and knowledge on brewing, the beer industry, and hops and other things in general. There is a ton of information on the breweries she’s visited as well, small details like the beers they have, or the information on how they restored the buildings they occupied, or little bits and info on the brewers or their styles.

The book is filled with pictures and images from all assortments of things, like hops, to the various breweries, to beer, to the workers at the breweries, to signs, to locations, etc. These pictures help fill in an overall image and idea of the breweries from across the state for those who haven’t gotten to visit them yet. Also with each brewery mentioned there is a small map of Pennsylvania showing where its located with an actual address as well. Its not a complete map of every brewery, and Dr. Feeney even states at the beginning that she isn’t providing a comprehensive listing of every brewery in PA as it’d be out of date before the book even saw print. Case in point – the book mentions Harty Brewing which has since folded up (relatively recently). But don’t let that fool you, this book is chock full of information and knowledge about PA beer and breweries.

At the beginning of the book is a note saying that a portion of the proceeds of the book are going to animal shelters and local places for animals. After this is the chapter previews which list which breweries are mentioned in which chapters and provides an outline for the book. Early chapters discuss beer and the history of it, progressing from Europe and Africa and Asia to America. Detailing the early pioneers to America and bringing beer over on the Mayflower, etc. It then discusses the history of beer and brewing in Pennsylvania.

Following this is how breweries affect communities, how they revitalize communities and buildings, and a chapter on historic buildings and how breweries are reusing old buildings. A chapter on the sustainability and environmental issues and help that breweries are doing and then a closing chapter on looking forward.

This book is a good read for anyone interested in beer, brewing, and especially for those interested in the craft breweries of Pennsylvania. She has provided lots of knowledge on the inner workings from the beginning to the present day on just about every tangential topic with the beer industry. I would certainly recommend this for anyone looking to learn about brewing and beer in Pennsylvania or just loves reading about breweries in Pennsylvania.

My GoodReads Score: ****
Global GoodReads Score: 4.00 (two ratings, three now, as of 10.9.19)

This was the first book review on the blog, hopefully you all like it, I know its a bit different then the beer and brewery reviews. But I am looking forward to doing a few more of these as I have a lot of beer books to read and go through. This is combining two of my loves – literature / books and beers, so this is definitely a double-win for me getting to review books about beer here for the blog. So if you are interested in this, let us know! Also if you have any beer book recommendations, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Thanks and cheers all!

-B. Kline
My GoodReads review link can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3007622590

Beer Review: Tried and True (Mango) (Boneshire Brew Works)

BKline — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 12:15:27 +0000

Tried and True (Mango variant) at Boneshire Brew Works

If there’s one thing I love, its a Monday Night Football game between two 0-3 teams. Especially when that one team is mine – the Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, every season is a long road of torture and abject humiliation, and watching the Bengals is somewhere near the level of being waterboarded at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay base). But I push through every year. We have a new coach now, Zac Taylor. The most whitest of whitest and blandest of blandest men. He wanted to prove to his father he was the bigger WASP so he went and played QB at Nebraska. He drives a mini-van, knows all the words to baby shark, wears short khaki shorts, and thinks Desperate Housewives was the culmination of the television medium. When fist-bumping the black players on his team he refers to himself as “Zakky T”. The Bengals team can be actively described as “aggressively milquetoast”.

….and those are the positives we have on the Bengals this season. So I find myself rooting them on (actually, in a perverse way, rooting for the loss so we can go 0-16 and lock up Tua and get away from Andy Dalton for good) sitting at the bar at Boneshire Brewery alongside Owen and a host of other characters playing Dungeons & Dragons (while MNF “rages” on around them, all of whom are oblivious to it) and Jimi manning the bar. And this was probably the best way to view this schlocking and revolting display of “football” pageantry by a team who legitimately (maybe) Alabama a run (though I’d still bet on Alabama).

The nice takeaway from it all is that Steelers might look better but its all a sham because they got to play at home (like they always do) on MNF to a very enthused crowd, so their 27-3 thrashing of an extremely subpar team is all smoke up the back end of a buffalo. The now 1-3 Steelers will go on with their backup QB to have a subpar / below average season, but at least they got this one big win in. I always love the statistics before these games, like Steelers are 13-0 in their last 13 (now 14-0) Monday Night Football home games. Which makes you wonder just how few away Monday Night games they’ve had, and what their record is on those extremely rare occasions. And just how lopsided that statistic becomes if you are always the home team for these games (note: they don’t give Bengals home games on prime time.) And, Andy Dalton now progresses to a 3-14 lifetime record against the Steelers (which includes a botched playoff game courtesy of Vontaze Burfict, who incidentally enough got himself suspended for the season yesterday).

But enough of this tragedy known as the NFL season 2019, and onto this delicious beer.

Currently on tap at Boneshire Brewery is two Tried and True variants. One of which is pineapple, the other being mango. I got to try the pineapple version at the Lititz Brewfest just before it ended and before I got to help Alan pack up / move equipment to his truck after it all ended. The pineapple version is absolutely delicious. But mango in beer is always a surefire way to make it good (in my opinion at least).

Tried and True is one of the biggest staples for Boneshire. I even have two cans in my fridge as we speak. (Saving them for a review as well coincidentally, having traded the other two for the Mississippi beer mail I received before, and the South Carolina beer mail I just received). Tried and True is a 5.5% ABV Witbier that is extremely delicious on its own right. Alongside other Boneshire Brew Works (BBW) staples of Green Machine, Iscariot, Angels on the Sideline, Lazarus, Dark of the Forest, Testify, and Devil’s Burden; this is one of their consistent staples that rotates on their system and is a beloved fan favorite. Its nice, juicy, soft, low-key (5.5%) and always hits the spot. So adding mango or pineapple can only make it better. Both variants are absolutely delicious and tweak the original and just make it better (or at least the same high quality but with a slightly different taste).

The juicy witbier from Boneshire Brew Works known as Tried and True — but with mangos!

Beer: Tried and True (Mango)
Brewery: Boneshire Brew Works
Style: Witbier
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-up: Tried and True with mango.

The original Tried and True lists a 15 IBU, and has this for it’s Untappd write-up: This witbier, meaning “white”, is good for any occasion. With notes of orange peel, coriander, Belgian yeast, and wheat, this beer is sure to satisfy your thirst. Pours a slightly cloudy gold with a hue of orange and fluffy white head. Delicious.

Appearance is a beautiful golden orange. Juicy like orange juice, unfiltered looking, delicious looking. Poured to the top to almost overflowing by Jimi (one of the many favorite bartenders at Boneshire, along with Owen, Jared, Jason, Shawn, Alexis, or even one of the owners – Alan, Carson, or Alex; occasionally stepping in) there’s not much head to this, but a slight foam ring right at the top barely there. It looks like sun reflection through a window with that beautiful golden hue. The second picture I have here makes it look like it has a bit more haze and sediment then there really is, but it is hazy and it is cloudy and it is unfiltered, but in all the right ways.

Aroma is Tried and True esque and similar to how the original was, and similar to how the pineapple version I had at the Lititz Brewfest was. BUT, like the pineapple one, this one has a lot of mango in the nose (that one, obviously had a lot of pineapple in the nose). Very upfront heavy mango smell. Followed by the orange peel and coriander and a lot of the golden wheat smell that witbiers are known for. This is one of my favorite styles, mainly for the smell. Alongside many of the Belgian styles, you can smell the yeast strain in there. A staple for Belgian breweries this is just a fantastic style overall. You can smell the wheat and the Belgian yeast strain, you can smell the orange peel that is so characteristic of the style, and you can smell the various spices used, typically coriander, which is what Tried and True uses.

If you’ve ever had the Tried and True before, this tastes very similar, but you get punched in the face first by mangoes (and you didn’t even do anything to deserve it!) and then it goes into the true Tried and True (see what I did there?) taste. Extremely strong mango upfront that slides into the orange peel extremely well and like a perfect tandem, before sparking the coriander, the Belgian yeast, the softness of the wheat, and the juicyness that comes from the mango, as it all easily drinks down. It is quick to finish a pint of this and find yourself getting a second (and then third, and then fourth, and fifth, etc.), and at 5.5% ABV its not too bad on you either. You’re not going to get walloped after two or three of these, and it’ll pair so well with the new Smoked Blues BBQ truck next door or with a good steak, and potatoes, and green beans… ok, now I’m just making myself hungry (and its only breakfast time, and besides, like I’ve said before, I’m no foodie). I honestly don’t foresee this one lasting long at Boneshire, so I’d make good usage of it and stop in and drink it up yourself while you can. Maybe pickup some 4-pks to go.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.71 (as of 10.1.19)

And quickly, while I sat there, watching my Bengals jump up 3-0 it quickly, oh so quickly, vanished, into a final score thrashing of 27-3. Onwards Bengal Soldiers, onto 0-16! The road continues on with this beautiful 0-4 start. #tankfortua is going to be the hashtag most used in Cincinnati for this year I believe, despite the Bengals home office attempt to get people to use #seizetheDEY.

I know from talking to a few people who got to go to the Kennett Square Brewfest (so jealous) that the Tried and True (mango) was a huge hit, so I highly recommend everyone stops out to Boneshire Brew Works and give it a good solid try before its gone. Get the pineapple version as well for comparison sake.

Also, fresh Iscariot just hit the taps, and that is always a delicious Black IPA.

Iscariot (a black IPA) by Boneshire Brew Works

This is possibly one of my favorite black IPAs, which can be a miss or hit breed. And I always love seeing it come back on the taps and make sure to get a pint or two before its gone. (Which I had to do last night during the thrashing, and talking old Harrisburg Heat stories with Owen. Reminiscing on John Abe, Mark Pulisic, Scoop Stanisak, Bob Lilley, and the various other notable Heat alumni.) I figure I’ll save this for another beer review rather than doing a two-fer here.

As always, I have a ton of things in the pipelines here. As J. Doncevic said to me last night (he was one of the many playing D&D behind me at the tables), I currently have three opened tabs in the blog control panel for the various events and things I need to write up, including the Midwest Coast Brewing article that is nearing finishing (just waiting for their big weekend to settle down for them). I have the Lancaster Brewfest and the Lititz Brewfest to write up, as well as several beer reviews (like the Iscariot), and so much more, as always I’m running behind and their piling up. But October should be a good month to get them all written down and posted (some dating as far back as July). So be on the lookout for them and much much much much much more.

Currently we’re still listed at #11 on the Top 100 Best Beer Blogs, but it refreshes and reloads weekly – today at noon, so in my review of Iscariot tonight, I’ll be able to see where we stand after this week. We’ve been holding solid, so hopefully that continues.

I am astonished by how well the blog continues to grow in readership, we started out in May with only 100~ views, got to 1.2K in June, hit 2.5 in July, and 4K viewers in August, September concluded with 4.3K viewers, and here’s hoping October tops that and we get to 5K viewers. (These are poor month and not overall totals.)

J. Doncevic also said he has quite a few writings he wants to do, like a recap of the Kennett Square brewfest where he got to help pour for Rotunda Brewing Company, and many more things (like a lot of beer reviews, so be sure to check out his stuff, he gets to try a lot more eclectic things than I do it seems with Tavour and his friends trading with him, so you’ll see a multitude of whaler beers from him).

As always everyone, continue to hit the like, the follow and subscribe, and as always, make sure to leave comments, we love hearing from you guys, its always great to get in touch with our readers (potentially fans? too?).

Until tonight – keep those livers pumping, you’re going to need them boys (and girls)!

-B. Kline

Only a good beer could get me through the travesty that was this Monday Night Football game…..