Before jumping into the book review by Paul R. Kan, a quick note from myself (B. Kline). Like with his last book review (Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone), Paul Kan reached out to me asking to do another book review, and I happily said yes. Unfortunately since the time of his last book review, his brewery Burd’s Nest (in Carlisle, Pennsylvania) has closed. We look forward to what his future brings and we offer our condolences to his business. We appreciate his dedication and commitment to craft beer and wanting to stay active in the community. He has expressed interest in writing some semi regular blog posts here for The Beer Thrillers and we are so happy to oblige and have him on board writing with us.

Paul chose to take his picture of the book at Wolf Brewing Company – a brewery co – owned by a woman (Elaine Wolf). Wolf Brewing Company is a wonderful brewery in Mechanicsburg, with Derek and Elaine Wolf owning it. Derek is the head brewer. (See end of article for other articles about Wolf Brewing Company.)

On a somewhat related – but unrelated – but related – note, I had gotten Amy this book and she has been reading it when finding time (Scarlet keeps her a little bit busy right now) and she has been meaning to review it as well. So sometime in the near future, you should be able to find here on the blog a review by Amy as well. Will be interesting to see the contrasts between Paul and Amy’s thoughts on the book.

And now, onto the review….

Paul R. Kan’s Book Review of A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin

Jessica Fierro is the owner and head brewer of Atrevida Beer Company in Colorado Springs, CO. With its motto “Diversity. It’s what’s on tap!”, her brewery became an important center of community life in the city. The Colorado Springs Business Journal named her a “2022 Woman of Influence” and her beers have won awards for their taste and quality. But what earned her brewery national attention was the shooting at the Club Q nightclub in November 2022. Her husband Richard, an Iraq War veteran, was instrumental in subduing the gunman. The positive attention that fell on him quickly fell on his wife’s brewery as well. Soon, the brewery was racing to meet the online demand for its merchandise.

Atrevida’s sudden increased profile illustrates one of the core points of Tara Nurin’s book—men have often overshadowed women’s accomplishments in brewing. Nurin, the beer and spirits contributor to Forbes and adjunct Beer 101 professor at Washington University, plows through history up to today in a lively way to demonstrate that women have always brewed beer, but their global contributions to beer have been overlooked, ignored or sidelined. The belief that brewing has always been the domain of men has “erased women from beer’s timeline of the past two thousand years.” (p.7)

Nurin’s book reminds us that women’s role in brewing goes even further back than two thousand years ago. The first recipe for beer is from 3900 years ago; it was part of a hymn praising the Sumerian brewing goddess, Ninkasi. For Nurin, women have had an “ancestral right to brew” and men have been the late participants. In fact, many of our common words like “bridal” (referring to the “bride ale,” a traditionally made wedding beer for women by women) and “brewster” (the female equivalent for “brewer”) have their roots in the role of women in brewing. Given archaeological and anthropological evidence, beer “may have been birthed by the discoveries and collective consciousness of women who across the globe had, at varying times, reached a similar level of human development.” (55). As civilization grew, so did women’s responsibilities associated with brewing and serving beer. In Babylon, women not only ran taverns, but were critical in keeping political order. Women as tavern keepers were required to report any talk of rebellion against Hammurabi or face execution. In ancient Egypt, women brewed beer for key religious ceremonies.

Brewing was also part of mundane “kitchen work” associated with women making meals. In early American history, women routinely made beer at home or in taverns that their husbands or fathers owned. In pre – Civil War United States, some slave women who brewed were often able to purchase their freedom…at least for a time. Patsy Young lived free for 15 years in part by using the profits from brewing exceptional beer to pay for her emancipation before she was hauled back into slavery.

For those of us who live in present-day Pennsylvania, we can boast about Carol Stoudt’s trailblazing work to open craft brewing to the nation and that the four great-great-granddaughters of Yuengling’s founder currently own and operate America’s oldest continually operating brewery. However, Carol was often mistaken as an employee; male customers regularly asked her for some of “Ed’s beer” (Ed being her husband). (47). Debbie Yuengling admitted, that “people look at us and think we need to prove ourselves because we are women working in what has been thought of as a man’s business.” In PA’s beer industry, out of approximately 400 breweries, over five dozen breweries are fully-owned or partly-owned by women.

While Pennsylvania can celebrate its proportion of brewsters, it is still below the national average of over 40%. As for the percentage of fully women-owned breweries in the U.S., it shrinks to a shocking 2.9%. Nurin shows how women in craft brewing have been routinely overlooked by pointing out that the Brewers Association only started keeping stats on women – owned breweries eight years ago. When we don’t account for women in today’s brewing world, it’s easier to overlook how they’ve counted in the narrative of beer’s history.

What happened? How did the visibility of women become rare in the brewing world when they created it and ran it for centuries? Without too many spoilers, Nurin engagingly explains how witch trials, capitalism and industrialization all played their roles in pushing women out of the realm that they once dominated. Once beer was viewed as something that could be sold to more people and at a greater profit, men who controlled the levers of society swooped in and pushed women to the margins.

But other chapters in the book are reminders that women today are not forfeiting the brewing realm to men. Nurin’s chapters “These Boots are Made for Brewing;” “From the Back Office to the Boardroom;” and “Sisters are Brewing it for Themselves” tell the stories of women in craft brewing who are supporting one another through mentoring, scholarships and collaboration. These efforts are paying off. When the Pink Boots Society of female brewers began in 2007, it had just over 60 members; it now counts over 2000. There is also the fast-growing Alliance for Women in Beer which seeks to unite suppliers, distributors and retailers to create more opportunities for women in the beer industry.

Brewster Jessica Fierro named her Colorado brewery Atrevida because it’s Spanish for “bold, daring, audacious woman.” After reading Nurin’s important book, you’ll be convinced that all women in brewing have been, and are, Atrevidas.

GoodReads

You can find more information about A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse at GoodReads: A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin. It currently has a global average rating of 3.68 on GoodReads (as of 1.5.23).

The GoodReads description reads:

• North American Guild of Beer Writers Best Book 2022

Dismiss the stereotype of the bearded brewer.

It’s women, not men, who’ve brewed beer throughout most of human history. Their role as family and village brewer lasted for hundreds of thousands of years—through the earliest days of Mesopotamian civilization, the reign of Cleopatra, the witch trials of early modern Europe, and the settling of colonial America. A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse celebrates the contributions and influence of female brewers and explores the forces that have erased them from the brewing world.
 
It’s a history that’s simultaneously inspiring and demeaning. Wherever and whenever the cottage brewing industry has grown profitable, politics, religion, and capitalism have grown greedy. On a macro scale, men have repeatedly seized control and forced women out of the business. Other times, women have simply lost the minimal independence, respect, and economic power brewing brought them.
 
But there are more breweries now than at any time in American history and today women serve as founder, CEO, or head brewer at more than one thousand of them.

As women continue to work hard for equal treatment and recognition in the industry, author Tara Nurin shows readers that women have been—and are once again becoming—relevant in the brewing world.

GoodReads: A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin

Paul R. Kan

Paul R. Kan is a beer lover and a lover of stories. Which goes hand in hand. Sharing stories over beers is as old as time, and now Paul gets to help others share their stories over beer. He’s been able to do both as a beer writer and former owner of Burd’s Nest Brewing Company. He’s also a brewery taproom consultant, helping others create their own beer stories.

Other articles by Paul R. Kan on The Beer Thrillers are:

• Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone)

Wolf Brewing Company

As I mentioned earlier, I would link down here other articles about Wolf Brewing Company, a local female co – owned brewery.

• Beer Review: Wolf Prints (Imprint Beer Co.) (Collaboration)
• Beer Review: Abbra Collabra 6 Way Banana Split Milkshake IPA (Tattered Flag) (Collaboration)
• Beer Review: Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro (Tattered Flag) (Collaboration)
• Wolf Brewing Company Opening in Mechanicsburg PA

Beer Related Book Reviews

For other beer related book reviews, check these out (and don’t worry – more will be coming soon!):

• Book Review: For the Love of Beer (Dr. Alison E. Feeney)
• Beer and Book Event: For the Love of Beer
• What is Craft Beer?
• Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone
• for all other book reviews: Book Reviews Archives

Thanks For Reading

As always I end every article with my ‘thanks for reading’. I (B. Kline) appreciate all of you reading all of our articles, commenting, liking, following, subscribing, it means so much to us.

I want to thank Paul R. Kan for reaching out to me and submitting this book review. He also has a fun series of articles he wants to write. I can’t wait to get them running on the blog, I think… no, I know… you’ll all love them.

In a few days our podcast with Central PA Pour will be uploaded. I will make sure to make an article and link it here on the blog so you can all watch it. Josh and I had a blast with the Central PA Pour crew; their a great bunch of guys.

And one last time, thank you all for reading. It is so very much appreciated.

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

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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 #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. 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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In celebration of my birthday tomorrow, my buddy and I are hitting the road and heading out to Reading Pennsylvania (PA) to try out several breweries. So I took a look at the local breweries, some websites, maps, etc, and decided on what all we’re going to be doing tomorrow. The above image comes from Google Images and is courtesy of KlinesServices.com (so the tag says), and interestingly when I uploaded it here on the blog, it immediately through that caption on it. (I added the tagline in parenthesis.)

There is lots of things to see and do in Reading, PA. We won’t be seeing or doing most of those things. We will be seeing, and doing, breweries. We don’t have an extremely long time in the area, but we do have some time, and we will be putting it to full effect.

There is certainly a lot of great breweries in the Reading PA area. Some are:

• Chatty Monks
• Schaylor Brewing Co
• Oakbrook Brewing Company
• Broken Chair Brewing
• Saucony Creek

Two Sly Fox locations:

• Sly Fox Taphouse at Knittings Mill
• The Den by Sly Fox

Leaving Reading and heading towards home, there is also the famous Stoudt’s Brewing Company, that we could stop at in Adamstown.

The following maps are courtesy of Breweries in PA and their Breweries of PA map.

Based on opening times, it looks like order of events might be this:

Slyfox Taphouse – (Opens at 11:30). Then hit The Barley Mow (opens at 12). Then hit Oakbrook Brewing (opens at 4). Then hit Chatty Monks (opens at 12) and see David Morrow who is a good friend, he is currently the head brewer for Chatty Monks. Follow this up with Broken Chair (opens at 5). Then as we leave the city hit Schaylor Brewing (opens at 4). And possibly on the drive home stop in at Adamstown and visit Stoudt’s Brewing Company (opens at 12).

We might even put in a stop at The Pagoda as seen above. Why not, looks pretty.

I donate blood at 11AM. So we will be making the trip soon after that. And will most likely be staying out until about 8-9PM before making the return trip. Coming to and from Harrisburg, its about exactly an hour drive (depending on time I check it, Google Maps tells me 54 minutes, 56 minutes, 1 hour and 1 minute, etc., so must fluctuate due to traffic).

So let us know, is there anything we’re missing? Anything we should hit? Any places to avoid? Anything we should know about before making our trip out? Let us know in the comments!

See you guys afterwards for the wrap-up of the tour!

Oh, and final note, I had my first day of hop harvest, and you can see the results below:

As always everyone, cheers, stay safe, and enjoy a nice refreshing craft beer!

-B. Kline

For more info:
7 Reasons to Visit Reading PA

On February 8th, 2020, Tattered Flag and Breweries in PA co-hosted an event at the Tattered Flag Brewery in Middletown PA. It was a ticketed event and promoted across Tattered Flag’s social media and Breweries in PA’s social media (their Facebook page and their Facebook group). Tickets were free. Welcome to all that were to come out. According to Justin (brewer for Tattered Flag) 62 tickets were given out. Myself and my friend were two of those tickets, and so let me take you through the event.

Let’s back this up a bit from the time of the event. Starting with the event itself. It was first announced near the beginning of the year. Luckily it was a Saturday I was able to get off from work (a rarity in my case). And my friend D. Scott was also off and along for the idea. So, the premise of the event is simple – bring 2-3 (or more) beers. Everyone who comes to the event, does so, and once the event is underway you place your beers in the corresponding coolers (IPA, Sours, Wheats and Kolsches, Stouts), and then after everyone has grouped up, you start cracking beers and sampling and moving on.

The premise is simple and neat. Anyone whose ever done a beer / bottle / can share or swap at home with friends, its the same premise just on a much larger scale. (A 62+ person scale that is.)

Leading up to the event my friend stopped at Breski’s Beverage and picked up a four-pack of larger beers to bring with. He grabbed Thief Share (2016) by Strange Roots Experimental Ales, Blue Farm (2017) by Free Will Brewing Co, a German Chocolate Cake Stout from a brewery I’m drawing a blank on, and New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk (2019).

I had set up to do a beer trade with a guy from Eureka California. We were both set to send our packages on either January 31st, or February 1st. (I sent on 31st and showed proof.) He unfortunately, kept saying he would get to it… and get to it….. and he kept NOT getting to it…. and NOT getting to it. Finally, he promised he would expedite it next day to make up for its tardiness…. and I get a message from him “Sorry, it’d be 200$+ to expedite, so I sent it regular. Sorry it won’t be there in time.” …..Massive annoyance and disappointment on those fronts. So at last second, I had to figure out what I was bringing.

Unfortunately I had just ran through my cans from Tree House brought home by my friend D. Arndt. If I would have known…. I would have brought the Sap, Autumn, Julius, Haze, or Doppelganger I had. So I likewise stopped at Breski’s Beverage and picked up some beer for the event. I got Grimm Artisanal Ale’s I Still Love the Old World (2018), Lickinhole’s Virginia Black Bear, Clown Shoe’s Coffee Sombrero, and Trial by Wombat (mainly for the name and picture).

Saturday morning comes and I do my typical morning chores and errands and take Leela (my border collie) for a run. D. Scott is Ubering to Tattered Flag, and I’m going to meet him there. Planned to get there at 10:40, but ended up getting there closer to 10:50 with our tickets and my beer and meet him just inside the door. He shows me the beer he’s bringing and we go over our small sample size. At just a bit before 11AM, Justin comes through and tells everyone to follow him down into the brewhouse.

Since 2018 I’ve done some volunteer canning work with Tattered Flag – though recently they’ve stopped using volunteers now that their employee force is big enough to keep it all done in-house, so I’m quite familiar with their brewhouse and back of the brewery operations and location.

At the time, there’s not too many people yet. Maybe 15-20. Justin goes over the rules. (Big rule: don’t touch any valves. Little rule: throw your trash away. Big rule: DON’T TOUCH ANY VALVES. Little rule: put your beers in their appropriate tubs.) They had bussing tubs with a label for each: IPA, Sour / Saisons, Wheats / Kolsches, and Stouts. Bigger bottles were kept in the front or where room was for them.

The guys from Breweries in PA introduced themselves. And then we were off to the races (…or beers). Talked with the lady from Breweries in PA and she was saying how the Dayman can was the last “known in the wild” can to exist, due to them getting hit with a Cease and Desist from Disney. And we talked about Disney with recent news, and how past places have gotten hit with some C & D’s.

After sampling Dayman, and then Nightman, I saw a lovely looking Smoked Porter big bottle. Unfortunately I forget the name of it, and it appears I never checked it into Untappd (something I didn’t do too good of a job of). (Just like pictures, unfortunately I took no pictures of the event either, so I have no pictures of my own, and had to try and remember the beers I tried for Untappd later on.) So whoever brought the big bottle Smoked Porter, I’d love to know what it was. ….but also… oh boy that carbonation! As soon as I popped the cap on it, it just gushed. Foam everywhere, so much so that I had to set it down under the table over the grate, it just wouldn’t stop, for a good solid 2 minutes it kept going. (So yes, I apologize for being ‘that guy’, but….. it wasn’t my fault!)

Me and D. Scott kinda hovered over the Stouts area. Talked to Justin and his girlfriend Aimee, about recent events with Tattered Flag, as well as Hibrewnation that took place, as well as the upcoming Prototype Brewery and Meadery and the Prototype Invitation Brewing Event.

After a few more samples, me and D. Scott headed back into the caverns a bit, where there was more space, as by now we were likely up to about 40+ people in attendance. And out by the brite tanks and fermenters it was getting pretty crowded. After a bit, the guys from Breweries in PA brought a few of the bussing trubs out into the side-room where we used to do the labeling for Tattered Flag’s canning run. They brought out a few beers of each type as well and so there was now a more mixed variety in the different areas.

While in the side-room, I branched out a bit from my stouts and sours and had a few IPAs. Bearded Iris’ Homestyle, Psycho Simcoe by Three 3’s, Ex Novo Brewing’s Spirits of the Dead, and Double Luv by East Branch Brewing. Hanging out, talking with D. Scott and some of our fellow drinkers in the area, we also cracked open the Black Tuesday (2017) by The Bruery, which was amazingly fantastic. While discussing the ridiculously high ABV on it (19.5%), one of the guys talked about the beer he brought from Nimble Hill, a Maple Stout in their Mysteria Series, that was a 25%. I’ve always been a huge fan of big ABV beers…. so my ears and eyes and nose, and mouth, all perked up. The kind gentleman went back and got it and brought it out. After a bit of a struggle getting the cork off of it, we each drew a good sample size of it (and I won’t lie and say I didn’t have two samples of it).

The description on Untappd for it reads:

MAPLE SYRUP STOUT
This super limited creation is an off shoot of Turbo Diesel.
But instead of using hops, we added a few gallons of maple syrup and a dash of molasses and fermented it to the limits.
The result is a thick dessert stout with a strong maple syrup and imperial stout finish, followed by hearty warming from the 25% abv. Served without carbonation for a smooth and velvety finish.

It was smooth, dry, but with an amazing maple syrup flavor. Tasted like drinking a maple syrup wine. It was pretty much fantastic. And the nice 25% ABV to it, certainly didn’t hurt. I would like to throw a shout out to Ryan Haraschak. Fantastic, gorgeous gem to bring to the bottle share! Kudos my man!

We also tried a gentleman’s RIS Homebrew that was wonderful as well. And somehow, quickly, we realized we were approaching the end of the time for the bottle share, so me and D. Scott went back by the fermenters to try some of the beers still over there.

While hanging out there, and chopping on some tortilla chips, the Harris Brewery guys came in. Got to talk to Harris guys for a long time about their upcoming brewery, black culture in brewing and craft beer, Allison Hill, the impact their hoping to make, the old Coke-Cola building / factory on the corner of 19th and Derry, the obstacles their having to overcome for their brewery, their GoFundMe vs. the Kickstarter, and much more. We also drank from their growler of their collaboration with The Vegetable Hunter which was fantastic. If you would like to support the Harris Family Brewery, and add to their GoFundMe you can do so here:

Harris Family Brewery Start-Up Go Fund Me

As the time dwindled down, we quickly tried to sample a last few beers. There was an Intuition Ales that I tried with a large dragon on it (wax sealed originally, no idea on the name), as well as two Hegemony Anniversary Beers from St. Boniface. Also back to back Black IPAs; one from Pour Man’s Brewing – Black Market, and the other from Heavy Seas – Night Swell. Also tried the 2SP and WaWa coffee stout – Winter Reserve. As well as a last sampling of the Candy Hearts by New Trail Brewing.

As it wrapped up, they told us to take anything we wanted that was unopened. Seeing my Lickinghole Virginia Black Bear unopened I grabbed that, as well as an IPA from Mainstay Brewing and one of the bakeries from The Bruery. My buddy grabbed a couple and we put them in the six-pack holder and took them out to my car and then came back in to use our free beer and food discount.

Tattered Flag with the (free) ticket, being the gracious host was giving one free pour with the ticket as well as 10% off food. D. Scott got an order of loaded chips, and I got Because I Was Inverted (Chocolate Covered Strawberry). His free drink was either the Custardy Tropic Like Its Hot or the Custardy Black Crumble. We had also sampled these in cans during the bottle share.

My list of beers sampled (that I was able to record on Untappd) was:
* Nightman (Stable 12 Brewing Company)
* Schmoojee Strawberry Orange Banana (Imprint Beer Co)
* Bible Belt (2019) (Evil Twin Brewing)
* Frucht: Fruit Punch (The Bruery Terreux)
* Churro Sombrero (Clown Shoes)
* Autumn Friend (Forest & Main Brewing Company)
* Spirits of the Dead (Ex Novo Brewing)
* Psycho Simcoe (Three 3’s Brewing Co.)
* Black Tuesday (2017) (The Bruery)
* Maple Stout, Mysteria Series (Nimble Hill Brewing)
* Double Luv (East Branch Brewing)
* Kriek Marriage Parfait (2015) (Brouwerji Boon)
* Black Market (Pour Man’s Brewing Company
* Night Swell (Heavy Seas Beer)
* Pack & Brass Coffee IPA (Wallenpaupack Brewing Company)
* I Still Love the Old World (Grimm Artisanal Ales)
* Bourbon Barrel Aged Hegemony Anniver7ary Reserve (Blue Wax) (St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co.)
* Bourbon Barrel Aged Hegemony Anniver8ary Reserve (Blue Wax) (St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co.)
* Cold Pro (Union Craft Brewing)
* Winter Reserve Coffee Stout (2SP Brewing Company / WaWa)
* Candy Hearts (New Trail Brewing Co.)
* Homestyle (Bearded Iris)
* Custardy: Blackberry Crumble (Tattered Flag)
* Custardy: Tropic Like Its Hot (Tattered Flag)
* Thief Share (2016) (Strange Roots Experimental Ales)
* Blue Farm (2017) (Free Will Brewing Co.)
* Gingerbread Crunchee (Other Half Brewing Co.)
* Double Vice Coffee Porter (Grist House Craft Brewery)
* Chili Nelson Hazy Habenero (The Vegetable Hunter)
* Winter Wassailand (The Vegetable Hunter / Harris Family Brewing)
* Dayman (Stable 12 Brewing)

These are the ones I remembered / checked-in on Untappd anyway. There were so many more I didn’t get to try, some I definitely wanted to. I saw some Aslin cans, I believe 4th Anniversary Sours, that I missed out on, as well as a few Other Half’s and similar. In the comments – for those of you who went – I’d love to see what you brought, had, and what was your favorites.

This was a fantastic event. I’ve been to some friend / home beer bottle / can shares, and its always a blast. Passing around beers, sampling, and talking about beer and just hanging out with good people. The craft beer community is an exceptional and diverse community and its so great to talk to so many different people. Bottle shares are like mini-brewfests in a way, sampling a ton of different beers from different places / breweries that you most likely won’t get into contact with. Its not a bad way to kill a Saturday morning, thats for sure.

My favorites that I got to sample were: Black Tuesday (2017) by The Bruery and the Nimble Hill Maple Stout Mysteria (the 25%). D. Scott said his favorite was also the 25% Maple Stout as well as the Custardy: Blackberry Crumble.

It was great of Tattered Flag to put up some of their own beers in the share, a great gesture on their part. Also, humorous note, I think I did see a Blue Moon in one of the tubs, not 100% sure though, but I think I did. Kudos to whoever brought that. I did think it’d be funny to bring a single Coors Light bottle or Miller Lite High Life bottle and sneak it in, but didn’t know how it’d go over.

As you can see from the kill shot, there was a ton of great beer brought in, and sampled and served. Breweries from all over Pennsylvania, as well as numerous other big breweries like Other Half, Bearded Iris, Aslin, Dogfish Head, Brewery of Omnegang, Grimm Artisanal Ales, as well as some homebrew, and some heavy PA hitters like Free Will, Tattered Flag, Strange Roots, Imprint Beer Co, Dancing Gnome, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing, and New Trail, and even upcoming brewery Harris Family. It was a wonderful and diverse selection, bottles, bombers, growlers, crowlers, cans, and even wine bottles.

Interested in reading some reviews of beers from some of these places, you can check out my beer blog: The Beer Thrillers. We’ve reviewed beers from Tattered Flag like: Should Have Put Him Into Custardy, Inexplicably Juicy, Pink Guava, Fatum Series: Member Berries, and more. New Trail’s Broken Heels. Broken Goblet’s This Is The Way, Burn Them All Away. Boneshire Brew Work’s The Hog, Dillston, Harrishire (with Harris Family), Sunburst, Good Walk Spoiled, Road Less Traveled, and more. Wolf Brewing collaboration with Tattered Flag – Imperial Churro and collaboration with Imprint – Wolf Prints. Rotunda Brewing’s sWheat Tarts: Mango Guyabano and Juicy Fruit. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing’s Fuzzy Nudge, Coco-Nator, and Scratch 400. You can check out our brewery visit and recap (and review) of Mellow Mink and their Scarlet Sunrise. Or our brewery reviews of Battlefield Brew Works and Cushwa Brewery. Or the recent, unfortunate news of the closings – Crystal Ball and Stoudt’s.

You can also read our other article on Breweries in PA: Touring the Breweries that Surround Harrisburg. (Also located here: Breweries Around the Outskirts of Harrisburg.)

We are currently listed on FeedSpot’s Top 100 Beer Blogs at #9, and have been there for a few weeks now (moved up from #11). (If you would like to write for us, you can contact us through our contact page. Or if you would like us to write for you.)

You can check us out on Facebook as well as Twitter. Or just search for us – Facebook – The Beer Thrillers – and on Twitter – @thebeerthriller.

The blog is ran by me – B. Kline, and mainly written by me, but other writers for the blog include J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (of Default Brewing). We also have Let Us Drink Beer Blog do some contributions as a guest writer.

I also do podcasts with D. Scott and Esteban – So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar… where we discuss beer, pop culture, movies, TV shows, and much more. Always hilarious and always insightful, so make sure to check that out as well.

(Ok, that concludes the article for Breweries in PA. The rest from here on out, is just for the Beer Thrillers faithful and my blog only. Its also a little more personal and detailed than the above, so keep reading if you want to hear more.)

So as per usual with me, after the beer share event, my night didn’t end. It was about 3:30-4PM by the time we finished up at the Tattered Flag bar. Way too early to call it a day. Being in the area, we decided to check out the Lancaster Brewing spot off of Eisenhower Boulevard in Harrisburg. Neither me nor D. Scott had ever been there. And this checks off a “new brewery location” that I want to do each month. (January was Liquid Noise Brewing, so February will be Lancaster Brewing, and hopefully March – before they close up – will be Stoudt’s.) Its funny that neither of us have ever been here to this location. Its so close, and we’ve jumped and hit all of the Harrisburg breweries numerous times before.

While there we met up with friends D. Arndt, Youngblood, and Youngblood’s girlfriend. I did a flight, D. Scott got a draft of their eggnog, and I have no recollection of what the others got. My flight included:
* Jam Series #22 Mexican Style Lager
* Jam Series #21 Gingerbread Spiced Brown Ale
* Lancaster Lager
* Jam Series – Track #20 Eggnog Blond
* Jam Series – Track #19 Chili Smoked Baltic Porter
* Winter Warmer

All were pretty tasty. I enjoyed the Smoked Porter the most with the Spiced Gingerbread coming in second. Wasn’t a huge fan of the eggnog blond, but I’m not a fan of eggnog so kind of knew that going into it. Drew loved his, but then again, he’s a huge eggnog fan. So mileage may vary on that type of beer.

Finally around 730-8PM or so we left and went to D. Arndt’s house, where we hung out with him and his fiance Kat and his dogs (the one of which is a Corgi named Indiana Bones). While there he had a can of Intemperance by Tree House which was absolutely delicious.

Look for me to be adding the Intemperance to my series on Tree House. Also, most likely tonight Doppelganger will be going up to finish what was originally the series. But now, with the addition of Intemperance, the series will be going from 5 to 6, making it a nice easy and sensible six-pack. Makes sense for a beer blog (a beer blog making sense?!), I like it.

So, this was supposed to be written and was supposed to go up Sunday, the 9th. But… work was crazy, as it was a ticket promotion give-away and we were swamped there, and afterwards, I was supposed to go to D. Scott to watch the Oscar’s (and drink the remaining of the beer share beers), but… Haley forgot the crowler of Rotunda Brewing Company’s ‘Beautiful Trauma’ that I got her, so I had to swing back to work and then deliver it to her at Irgo’s Tavern. Where I then proceeded to stay and play pool with several co-workers until 1AM. So obviously… no posting that night.

Then Monday I did go over to D. Scott’s and we watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (finally got around to seeing it, fantastic movie, and Tarantino is still just as good as he always was). So once again, no blog posting Monday. But, last night I did start this, and sadly, only after editing, getting to finish it this morning. Sorry for the delay in things, but I rather edit and make sure I like the way blog looks, and that there’s no misspellings or grammar problems or anything (though I’m sure one or two will still sneak through). There’s two ways to write:

“You either write sober and edit drunk, or write drunk and edit sober.”

I also finally got that California beer mail Tuesday. Looks like some delicious brews to drink down and dive into and review for you all.

So definitely expect to see some beer reviews come out of that 10-pack. There’s a lot of tasty ones (I am super looking forward to the Chocolate Donut porter.)

Blog news – I am going to be trying to get 2 blogs up a day for the next few days to catch up some of the beer reviews I’m behind on. Fingers crossed anyway. This blog post is also going up on Breweries in PA’s website, so you’ll be able to check it out there (albeit abbreviated). Once its live, I’ll come in and edit this to include it here.

Tomorrow (Thursday, the 13th), I have yet another funeral to go to. This time my Uncle (mother’s brother in law) passed away. (Last Thursday was a funeral for my Great Uncle, my father’s Uncle.) In the evening Funck’s in Palmyra is doing a tap takeover for New Trail. I might be stopping out for that (might not, depends on time). New Trail makes some great beers, so I’d love to check it out.

Some beer reviews that are due up are Doppelganger and Intemperance, New Heights I Cannot Tell a Lie, Boneshire Brew Work’s Anagnorsis, Revision’s Pete’s Stache, Rivertown’s Triple Belgian, and much more. So be on the lookout for a lot of beer reviews coming at you in the upcoming days.

Like I said earlier in the post (mainly for the Breweries in PA page), please check out our Facebook, Twitter, and other social medias, and please click follow, like, subscribe, both on those platforms and here on the blog itself. You can enter your e-mail at the bottom to get notifications immediately whenever a new blog post hits the internet, and we’d greatly appreciate it. We also love it when you use the ‘rating’ at the bottom so we know how we are performing, and click the LIKE down below as well. Also, even more importantly, we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, feedback. So leave us a comment, or two, or three, or forty-four. I try to respond and reply as quickly as I’m able to. And if you ever want, you can contact us at our contact page and leave me a message.

Thanks everyone so much for reading, and hopefully you enjoyed it, and if you were at the event, hopefully you had as much of a blast as I did (and D. Scott). (Which speaking of, be on the lookout for some new podcasts on LOST Seasons 3 & 4, Fullmetal Alchemist, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and potentially / possibly / hopefully BoJack Horseman.)

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

This is certainly not the blog article I wanted to do today. Yesterday (2.3.20) the news came out while I was at work. In the morning before work, I started writing my next beer review – This Is The Way – by Broken Goblet, but with the news of Stoudts Brewing closing, I’ve pushed that back. Around 1PM or so yesterday, Stoudts Facebook page posted this message:

Predictably, the Craft Beer online community erupted upon the news. Soon after their announcement, PennLive.com and LancasterOnline both ran stories (links provided at the ending in the sources). In Central PA, this is sadly not the first closing news in recent history. On January 25th, Crystal Ball Brewing in York PA closed up permanently. (You can read our coverage of it here: Crystal Ball Closing.)

All day yesterday, and so far today, my Facebook and Twitter feeds, Facebook groups, etc, are all posting the Stoudts message. Accompanied by congratulations to Carol Stoudt for retiring, as well as dismay at the closing of the actual brewery. Even across the country where Stoudts isn’t readily available there is all kinds of talk about its closing. Being one of the oldest craft breweries – at least of the new wave – and closing, its extremely disheartening.

Just to give you some kind of scope and size of Stoudts’ Brewing, look at how they have their own Wikipedia page: Stoudts Brewing Co. Not many craft breweries can claim that, let alone ones in Pennsylvania.

For some background on the Stoudts and their brewery, lets look to their beginning. Carol and Ed Stoudt began brewing and opening their brewery and restaurant in Adamstown, Lancaster County, PA, back in 1987. Carol is credited as being one of the first female brewers since Prohibition. At the time of their startup, there was only 150 active breweries in America, there is currently 8,000 some (at the start of the year).

Carol announced her retirement this year, and with that, the brewing aspects of the business will be shutting down. The Black Angus restaurant – Ed’s original start-up – will continue. At the start, Ed had his Black Angus restaurant and they added the brewing operations to it.

“This was a difficult decision to make, but we’re not moving enough volume to justify the expense of keeping the brewery open. However, we’re not closing the doors to any business opportunities that could help the Stoudts brand live on.” Carol Stoudt stated for the press release posted on their website (and circulated on social media).

Recently, Sly Fox and Stoudts did a collaboration for a new beer – Black Lager.

Similar to Crystal Ball’s closing recently, cited reasons are over-saturation of the market, pressures from giant breweries like In-Bev and CoorsMiller, and economic factors like the new sales tax, aluminum upticks, and other factors. PennLive recently did a write-up (just posted a few days ago) on the over-saturation of the craft beer market: Suds Up. Its a rather weak article, but does go over the talking points that most people have been discussing (in and out of the industry). (This will possibly be a future article here on The Beer Thrillers, where, perhaps myself and J. Doncevic and maybe others will discuss reasons for closings, and preventative measures for breweries in the area.)

Central PA definitely has a large assortment of breweries, and the list is ever growing. In Dauphin county, looking at towns like Hershey – Troegs Independent Craft Brewery and Iron Hill Brewing (with a Rotunda Brew Pub), in Harrisburg – The Millworks, ZeroDay Brewing, Boneshire Brew Works, The Vegetable Hunter, and Pizza Boy’s secondary location at Official BBQ and Burgers, in Middletown with Tattered Flag (as well as their location primarily for their distillery options in Hershey), Elizabethtown has Cox Brewing Company as well as Moo-Duck Brewery, and Hummelstown is set to open Rubber Soul Brewing (tentative date being April / May) and Howling Henry’s Tap Room. And this is just a small sample size. Its not going into other new breweries opening like Hemeaur’s and Wolf Brewing. Or the many other options in the Lebanon, Lancaster, Perry, and other counties close by.

For Stoudts Brewing, the brewery operations will cease in Spring, allowing the brewery to go up for sale. No word on any specifics on the sale or if there is any interested parties yet. The restaurant, and other adjoining and adjacent businesses will remain open for the foreseeable future. No word on exact dates, just the ambiguous ‘spring’ announcement. Most likely to give time to move all product on their floor. And to finish out the tanks and release what has been made.

In 2019 the Brewers of Pennsylvania Association honored Carol Stoudt with their inaugural “Presidents Award”. She was a pioneer and an inspiration for many in the industry, male or female, race or creed, she was an inspiration and a fantastic spirit for the community and industry as a whole. Her retirement is well deserved and hopefully will be blissful and peaceful. At the end of the press release she stated that she’s done her turn and its time for the next generation to take over. That regardless of the brewery’s future, the Stoudts tradition will live on. The Restaurant and Antiques Mall will remain in operation, and hopefully through investors or potential interested parties the brewery itself will be bought and remain brewing.

Sources:

• Stoudts Brewing Official Page
• Owners of Stoudts Brewing to Sell Brewery (PennLive)
• Carol Stoudt Announces Retirement (Lancaster Online)
• Stoudts Brewery (Wikipedia)

Hopefully this will be the last of these closings articles I’ll have to write for a while. This was intended to be a beer review, not a sad closing article. I do have several beer review articles to post, some of which are: Doppelganger by Tree House, Loki (by Karl Larson) of Newfangled Brew Works, This is the Way by Broken Goblet, Anagnorisis by Boneshire Brew Works, and much more.

Sorry for this article only now coming out Wednesday morning, I started it yesterday morning (Tuesday, 2.4.20) and intended to finish it after work, but didn’t get a chance to (kids, life, stopping in at Newfangled Brew Works to try Karl Larson’s first small batch for them – Loki, myriad of things, etc.), but its finished now. I am finishing up a six-day work week today (yay!), but will have off the next three days (unexpected and unplanned three day weekends in the casino industry are basically unheard of, but so very well beloved). Tomorrow I have a funeral for my great Uncle Ed, who passed away on the 1st, on his 90th birthday. Possibly Thursday (tomorrow) night I will be doing the podcast for LOST Seasons 3 and 4, if not Thursday, probably Friday night. Saturday is the big bottle share at Tattered Flag with Breweries in PA. Myself and D. Scott will be attending that. So that should be interesting.

For those new to the blog, please check out some of our recent articles. Like the Tree House series of beer reviews: Sap, Autumn, Julius, and Haze (with Doppelganger forthcoming). Or check out my beer review of Florence by Hill Farmstead. Or you can check out some of our older beer reviews like LazerSnake by Three Floyds, or Baby Genius by Bissell Brothers, or The Veil’s Black & Blue Tastee.

And as always, I’ll recommend checking out our Facebook and Twitter pages (located at the bottom on the icons), and please click to follow us either through WordPress or by signing up with your e-mail so you’ll be alerted as to our next blog’s posting.

Cheers everyone! And maybe I’ll get to see you at the bottle share. Leave a comment here for any of your fondest Stoudts memories or if you’ll be going to the bottle share so we can meet up. Prost!

-B. Kline