Stout Season

It is stout season all year long for me.  I would have tried Troeg’s new tropical stout anyway though.  This stout was brewed for the Barrel and Flow Festival in Pittsburgh and is a collaboration with the Windy Bridges Brew LLC.  Barrel and Flow Festival is a three-day festival held at the Stacks at 3 Crossings in Pittsburgh’s Strip district neighborhood.  It is noted at America’s first Black arts and craft brew festival. 

Barrel and Flow

Barrel and Flow is a three day festival in Pittsburgh, and is one of the premier events of the year. It has been voted the # 1 Brewfest by USA Today readers and fans. The Barrel and Flow Festival is aimed at helping and supporting African Americans. All of the breweries involved are either working in collaboration with an African American owned brewery – or are one themselves.

Can Art

The can art is noteworthy as well.  It sets you up for the mood of this beer.  I think my question to Social Living, as I should have asked other artists before: Did you taste this beer prior to creating the can art?  Artist credit to Social Living.  According to Social Living – “Social Living is a one-person artist-owned brand based in Pittsburgh that provides high-quality, empowering, “counter-culture” style wall art in various forms and artistic clothing with lifestyle goods. Each of the Social Living art pieces is my original design and are printed/produced by me in my studio.”

Beer Review: Tropical Stout

Beer: Tropical Stout
Breweries: Tröegs Independent Brewing
Collaboration with Windy Bridges Brew
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 5.9%
IBU: N / A
Untappd Description: Our collaboration with Pittsburgh-based @windybridgesbrew is now available! Tropical Stout starts with dark grains and flaked oats, then the island vibes kick in with Sultana and Sabro hops in the kettle. Dry-hopping with Mosaic, El Dorado and Azacca adds aromas of sweet pineapple and stone fruit. Sweet and roasty, this easy-drinking 5.9% ABV stout is destined for tomorrow’s @barrelandflow festival – a celebration of Black breweries, artists and small businesses. We’re loving the artwork by Darrin Jamal of @social.living! Find limited 16-oz. cans here at the brewery now and during the event in the 412, Pittsburghers. troegs.com/visit #Troegs #BarrelAndFlow #Pittsburgh.

According to the Windy Bridges Brew LLC Facebook “Get ready for a tropical experience in a can.” And as noted on the can they are bringing “fruity dimensions to flaked oats and roasted barley for notes of sweet coffee” And somehow these flavors spring out and mesh so well together. 

It comes in on Untapped at a 5.9% ABV with a 3.74 average rating.  It comes at you with a tropical nose but a malty taste.  This is where you start out in the malty and subtle sweet coffee flavor.  It ends with hints of pineapple and coconut.  This stout isn’t the usual stout you drink during stout season.  It is nice and light. 

We just happen to be drinking it as dinner was about finishing up cooking.  So yes, half of it disappeared before the food was plated. The menu for dinner tonight was grilled pork loin, mashed potatoes and broccoli.  It seemed to pair nicely and you could still taste all the layers of this amazing tropical stout. 

Get it Fast

This one is only sold in 16 ounce cans in the taproom and general store at Troeg’s.  I highly doubt this will last very long. (As of 8 PM tonight they were down to less than 12 cases in the general store.)

Dinner

Dinner was grilled pork loin, broccoli from the air fryer, and mashed potatoes. We used some of the Tropical Stout to marinate / grill the pork loin. The stout really helped to bring out the flavors of the pork loin, and really made the meal pop.

Thanks for reading!

Drink More Beer!

• Amy

Windy Bridges LLC

According to Untappd, Windy Bridges Brew LLC is listed as a home brewer / non – commercial brewery. They have 3 unique beers with 7 ratings as of 8.13.23. Their Untappd description reads: Homebrewing at its finest!! Follow on insta & twitter to see the progress!

You can find them on the following social media pages:

• Windy Bridges Brewing LLC – Facebook
• Windy Bridges Brewing LLC – Twitter
• Windy Bridges Brewing LLC – Instagram
• Windy Bridges Brewing LLC – Untappd

More Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Related Articles

Looking for more Troegs in your diet? Here’s some other Troegs Independent Craft Brewing related articles we’ve written:

• Troegs Brewing and Wigle Whiskey Team Up to Bring Peach Whiskey Back
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Adds 1,628 Solar Panels To Their Brewery
• Beer Review: Double Blizzard (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• The Mad Elf Gets a Face Lift – Troegs Independent Craft Brewing Changes The Mad Elf’s Look
• Beer Review: Double Nugget Nectar (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Grand Cacao (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch 417 (Orange Lemon Peel) (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Haze Charmer (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Beer Review: Scratch 400 (Pre – Prohibition Lager) (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Two Beer Review: Fresh Fest and Trail Day Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Reviews: Fest Lager, Scratch 385 – Krausened Dunkel Lager, and Scratch 386 – Tangerine Passionfruit Guava Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Craft Brewery)
• Beer Review: Fuzzy Nudge (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)
• Multiple Beer Reviews: Scratch 382 – Blackberry Lime Tart Ale, Scratch 383 – Hazy IPA (Citra, Galaxy & Simcoe), Dear Peter, and Naked Elf (Troegs Brewing Company)
• Multiple Beer Review – Brewery Flight (Troegs) – Beers – Scratch #379 – Krausened Keller Pilsner, Scratch #378 – DIPA, Scratch #377 – Oat IPA, and Scratch #376 – Passionfruit & Guava Tart Ale
• Beer Review: Scratch 375: Coco-Nator (Troegs Independent Brewing Company)
• From Philly to Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania’s Top Craft Breweries You Must Visit
• Hershey Bears Celebrate Calder Cup Championship at Troegs Brewery
• Troegs Brewing Company Adds Hopora IPA to Their Seasonal Hop Cycle Series
• Oktoberfest Lager Returns to Troegs Independent Brewing (Troegs Independent Brewing’s Oktoberfest Lager Has Returned)

For More Information on Troegs Independent Craft Brewing

• Troegs.com (Official Website)
• Double Blizzard of Hops – Troegs Official Merchandise Page
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Facebook)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Instagram)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing @ Twitter
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Untappd)

According to Untappd, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing is a regional brewery with 148 unique beers listed (despite them nearing scratch 500). They have nearly 2.3 Million ratings and as of 8.13.23 have a global average rating of 3.79. Their Untappd bio reads:

“Founded in Pennsylvania in 1997 by brothers John and Chris Trogner, Tröegs Independent Brewing is driven by a sense of adventure and curiosity. Our brewery has been built by family, friends and kindred spirits who share a love of great beer. Together, we all make Tröegs. You might know our Perpetual IPA, the best-selling IPA in Pennsylvania. Or the dark, malty and crisp Troegenator. You may have come across such iconic beers as Nugget Nectar or Mad Elf in your beer travels. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to try one or two of the hundreds of experimental Scratch Series beers we’ve brewed over the years. Whether you’re already a member of our extended family or you’re just getting to know our brewery, there’s always something new to discover with Tröegs.“

Amy’s Column Series

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

• Brewfests with Anxiety (Amy’s original weekly column start)
• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• Beer and Pretzel Review: Legends and Lore (St. Boniface Brewing Company) and Garlic Parm Pretzels (Pretzels.com)
• Peanut Butter Eggs, Easter, Beer, and YAH Brew’s Shimmy Shake (Beer Review)
• Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots
• Amy’s Day Off
• It Was All A Dream (A Visit to YAH Brewing)
• Just Another Weekend (A Hike at Saint Pete’s Trail and Hares Hill Brewing)
• I’m Pretty Darn Lucky (Happy Mother’s Day)
• Ready to Kick of the Summer
• Beer Review: Beer Devil IPA (Niagara Brewing Company)
• World MS Day
• Have you ever picked a beer based on the can art?
• Happy Father’s Day
• What is Your Summer Time Go To Beer?
• Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles
• Baby’s First Ffej
• We Can’t Always Be a Glutton Right? – Perfect Portions and Allusion Brewing Company
• Beer Review: Pocono Punch (Barley Creek Brewing Company)
• Getting Sworn In: A Sneak Preview of Sworn Brewing
• Beer Review: Tropical Stout (Troegs Independent Brewing and Windy Bridges Brewing LLC)
• You can find all of Amy’s articles here: Amy’s Archive of Articles.

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

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• MAPS OF BREWERIES

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Monday was Veteran’s Day and it was a bit of a busy day for me. At least at work it was; as usual most Monday holidays tend to be a bit busier at work. So after work I jumped right on I-81 and drove the 26 minutes to get to Tattered Flag. And to be honest, I couldn’t think of a better place to be Monday night than at Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery. A veteran owned brewery with veteran employees on Veterans Day sounded like a perfect idea to me.

As anyone who has been familiar with this blog knows, I did the 556 Stout review already, (two days ago in fact), but I will gloss over it at the end of this flight review. Needless to say it’s my favorite of this flight.

Also, anyone who has been checking in with us daily has seen that I am doing a blog post per day the entire month of November. This is day 14 and this is my 14th blog post of the month. It is also blog post #100 (if counting small posts discussing our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, and counting our two listicle posts – Old Articles and Most Popular Articles). And its amazing to see that today we also hit 100 likes on our FaceBook page with a total of 102 followers counting RSS. We also pushed up to 80 on Twitter. So today is a bit of a milestone in that sense. So I would like to take the time right now to thank everyone who has read any of the posts, commented, liked, followed, subscribed, up-voted, thumbs-upped, retweeted, or anything else. We greatly appreciate it. It means a lot to me and J. Doncevic. Thank you!

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, lets move on to this wonderful beer flight!

First up on my flight is Tattered Dreamz. This sour behemoth is a collaboration between Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co.; created for the Brewsgiving Brew Fest. This is a special collaboration brewfest where each beer you have there is a beer created by breweries in a joint collaboration effect. Tattered Flag worked with Wolf Brewing Co. at the brewfest. Other breweries that did brews together included Pilger Ruh with Snitz Creek, as well as Liquid Noise and Cold Spring, Hidden Stories, Lindgren Brewing, Cave Brewing, Rotunda Brewing, and many others. Always sounds like a killer and fun event and one I’ve been wanting to check out for a while but unfortunately due to work I haven’t yet. The winners compete for tag championship belts. Last year Tattered Flag and Wolf Brewing Co. won and this year they came in second place.

This beer is worthy of second place minimum. Its a terrific high end, high ABV, sour that will just blow you away.

Beer: Tattered Dreamz
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Collaborator: Wolf Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A Collaboration with Wolf Brewing Co. This fruit imperial sour was brewed with Apricots, Peaches, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Vanilla.

First off, its a rarity to see or find sours that cross the 8% threshold. Especially ones that are done this well. The few 8%+ ones I’ve had ended up tasting too boozy or just being a bit too all over this place. Not the case for this beautiful gem.

Appearance is a soft orange. Similar in look and coloring and appearance to that of hazy NEIPAs; it has the unfiltered opaque look with a sugary-ness left over on the glass as you drink it similar to a lot of other fruited sours and smoothie sours. The lacing on the glass s legit and well, and at initial pouring there is a thin ring of head to it. A small look of sediment but nothing too bothersome.

Aroma is kind of similar to milkshake IPAs and fruited sours. You get notes of vanilla, notes of apricot and peach. A lot of apricot aroma as you inhale deeply on it. Small traces of the cinnamon and nutmeg but almost imperceptible and subtle. Not a whole lot of nose on those flavors. The vanilla is noticeable and gives it a nice creamy smell to it that like I said gives kind of a nose of milkshake IPAs.

Taste is just phenomenal and will blow you away. This is extremely delicious. Easily drinkable and with how delicious it is, and at the high ABV that it is, this is just scary. My initial quick Untappd write up on it reads: “ Extremely delicious sour. Vanilla and apricot heavy with notes of peach. Not a whole lot of nutmeg and cinnamon but a slight spice finish. ” And this pretty much holds up; just needs some explaining. It is extremely delicious (and it is a sour, duh). You do get mostly vanilla and apricot from drinking this especially at the start. The vanilla and lactose makes it smooth, and gives it a creamy taste. Apricot takes the forefront of the flavors with some peach coming in. The cinnamon and nutmeg is very minute however. Which is probably a good thing because I’m not sure how those flavors in abundance would have affected the taste of this, and this is so damn good as it is right now, I’d think it might make it worse. The mouthfeel for this is smooth and thick, very heavy, very textual, lovely. Nice pulp left on the glass after drinking.

This is still currently on tap at Tattered Flag; not sure how much they made in addition to what they made for the Brewsgiving event, so it might not last long. I believe they did a minimal canning run for this as well. So make sure to stop in and grab a draft (or cans if they did canning / have any left). You won’t regret it!

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.17 (as of 11.14.19)

Another sour from Wolf Brewing Co we reviewed: Wolf Prints.

What a great way to kick off this flight. And moving on….

In honor of Veterans Day, three local breweries, as well as a local armory all joined forces. All three breweries are veteran owned, as well as the armory. Those breweries are: Tattered Flag, Newfangled Brew Works, and Cox Brewing Company. The armory is 717 Armory. All four joined up to brew three different beers, giving each brewery their own one as main credit, and the other two breweries being listed as collaborators on each one. Those three beers are: Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled lead), Seven.Point.Six.Two (or 7.62) (Tattered Flag lead), and 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company lead). The beers will be on tap at each of their locations, and all of them are on tap at Tattered Flag. On Veterans Day they also did a special sampling session at the 717 Armory (located on Derry Street in Rutherford, right next to Boneshire Brew Works and the BBQ food truck), where they also gave veterans a free hour on the range.

Tattered Flag’s beer is an IPA (the 7.62 IPA), the Cox Brewing Company is a stout (the 556 Stout), and Newfangled Brew Works’ beer is a Belgian (the Twin Mount .50).

Beer: Twin Mount .50
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Collaborators: Tattered Flag, Cox Brewing Company, 717 Armory
Style: Belgian Tripel
ABV: 9%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Belgian Tripel brewed as an all Veteran Collaboration with Tattered Flag, Cox Brewing Co and 717 Armory.

Belgians, Tripels, Quads, Dark Belgians, Dubbels, any and all Belgians are one of my favorite styles (when done right obviously). It always just has wonderful taste, wonderful notes, wonderful characteristics, and isn’t done that often, that it makes it such a fantastic style. And this is certainly no exception.

Appearance is similar to that of the Tattered Dreamz but translucent rather than opaque. Not hazy, filtered rather than unfiltered, no sediment or pulp or sugar on the glass. Thin ring of head that looks good and shows a nice carbonation. Good lacing on the glass as you drain it down. The coloring looks slightly more IPA-ish than a normal Belgian, but I think thats due to its sweetness. Which is unusual for a Belgian, but not unheard of, and not in a bad way.

Aroma is all about that yeast. That typical Belgian yeast brings out a forefront yeasty smell on the aroma that is typical for Belgians and is just classic. If you like the style you can note it a mile away, even without knowing what style or what kind of beer you are smelling or tasting. There is also a sweet smell to this that ties in I think with the coloring, and certainly ties in with the taste.

Taste is your usual Belgian. Very high note of the yeast strain that is common to Belgian. You get a lot of coriander and the usual Belgian spices. But this has an overarching theme of sweetness to it. An underlying taste to it that is just sweet and makes this a very smooth Belgian. I’ve had a few like this in the past and its a nice change of pace to that of regular Belgians. It adds a nice complexity to an already dense and complex beer style and just creates a bit of a different mouth feel and flavor than one you normally expect or are prepared to expect in the beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.97 (as of 11.14.19)

Another Newfangled Brew Works beer we reviewed: Pumpkin Stout or Guava Lemonade Kettle Sour.

Moving on to a regular IPA from Tattered Flag, and solely their own creation, no collaborators for this one.

I know from talking to the guys at Tattered Flag that this is a different version than last year’s. They tweaked and changed the recipe of it enough to feel confident calling it “Government Overspending 2019” rather than just continuing with “Government Overspending”. Interestingly though, I couldn’t find the original check-in for this on Untappd (No Government Overspending listed anyway on the app) and I don’t believe I had it; or if I did, I don’t recall it, and unable to look it up. So I’m not sure if they ret-conned it and retroactively changed the name of the old version, or if it got deleted, or if it never really existed like I thought it did. Not sure. But I do know from talking to the actual brewers and owners, that this is a second version of this beer. Regardless of whatever the prior version was called.

Beer: Government Overspending 2019
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: IPA – Triple New England
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Its time to overspend again. This year we used a ton of Galaxy in this years version of Government Overspending. Then we used more Galaxy Citra and Mosiac to Triple Dry hop this beer.

So right there, from the Untappd write-up you can tell its the second year of it. Just no idea what happened to the original version of this in the app.

(So… I’m not crazy… …maybe…. sorta…. …possibly…)

Anyway….. back to the beer…. appearance wise… its a golden orange, hazy, unfiltered, as per the NEIPA style. This is probably slightly more on the yellow spectrum then most NEIPAs, especially TIPA (Triple IPAs) ones. Again, as per with the rest of the beers of the flight, the carbonation was good, giving it a nice foam head, small ring of diverse bubbles, and followed by good lacing on the glass.

Aroma is straight hop. Juicy hop. Fruity citrusy hops. Galaxy is really a wonderful hop and has quickly become one of my favorites. Even before reading the write up on this, from aroma alone I could pinpoint Mosaic and Galaxy. They are such distinct, wonderful hops and provide such great aroma and taste. The triple dry hopping really brings the hop aroma to the front.

Taste is pure hop juicyness. No bitterness. This is soft, pillowy, very dank, delicious hop brew. All kinds of wonderful hop notes and citrus and juicy hop flavors play over your mouth as you drink this down. The high ABV is barely noticeable.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.02 (as of 11.14.19)

We’ve done several IPAs from Tattered Flag in the past: You Hoppin On Me? , Banana Milkshake IPA, Inexplicably Juicy, and Multiple Beer Review – Levante and Tattered Flag.

Tattered Flag’s turn to take the lead on one of the collaborations from Vet Collab day. And of course they’d make an IPA. …or maybe a sour… or… or…. But yea, Tattered Flag has become known for their IPAs (and sours) in recent years, and for good reason: they are pumping out some amazing IPAs (and sours).

Beer: Seven.Point.Six.Two (7.62) IPA
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Collaborators: Newfangled Brew Works, Cox Brewing Company (CBC), 717 Armory
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.62%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Seven.Point.Six.Two a 7.62% NEIPA made with veterans blend hops The 2019 Veterans Blend is comprised of five different Pacific Northwest-grown varieties including Simcoe®, Loral® and Ahtanum®. It will perform well in any hop forward beer, providing a well-balanced mix of tropical, citrus and herbal aromas. Proceeds go to wounded warriors family support fund. Collaboration with Cox and Newfangled brewery.

It is always heart warming, and awesome, and amazing to see when beers and breweries give some of their proceeds and money earned to charities. Especially ones in such need like Wounded Warriors. Just a great showing by Pat (owner of Tattered Flag) and the others from Newfangled, Cox Brewing, and 717 Armory, to do this. I cannot fully endorse this more.

This has more of that typical NEIPA look than even the Triple NEIPA (Government Overspending 2019) had. This has the hazy, opaque, unfiltered, glowy orange juice like look to it. And once again, nice carbonation, and nice lacing. Good theme going for the day on both of those fronts.

Aroma is very floral hoppy. A nice selection of different style of hops brings out a very well rounded aroma to this. Sometimes a wide variety of hop can provide for too much of a jumbled aroma, with competing smells of floral or herbal or citrus or pine, (same thing can happen with taste, too many bitter vs. citrus hop blends that don’t pan out well), but here this all works well, its a nice varied combination to make a layered floral hoppy bouquet. It just works.

Taste is similar to aroma, as is often the case. Its a floral hoppy cornucopia of hop flavors and tastes. I like this a bit more than Government Overspending (2019) primarily due to it having a bit of a bitterness to it, kind of uncommon for NEIPAs, but there is just a bit of a bitterness bite to this that provides it with a kick and a punch to it that is lacking from Government Overspending. I like that, and despite it, there is also a smoothness to this, probably some lactose or other smoothing agent in the beer (possibly vanilla as I get slight notes of it, which could also be lactose, or could also be a sign that this is beer #4 in a flight of 5).

This compares nicely to the recent New Trails Broken Heels I had.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.23 (as of 11.14.19)

Ok, so I reviewed this one separately, and in more depth just a few days ago. You can read that review here: 556 Stout by Cox Brewing Company (CBC).

But, I will give the bare-bones information on it here:

Beer: 556 Stout
Brewery: Cox Brewing Company (CBC)
Collaborators: Newfangled Brew Works and Tattered Flag
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 5.56%
IBU: No
Untappd Write-Up: Vet Collab Stout with Newfangled and Tattered Flag

Fast forward through a lot of the review, to just my thoughts on the taste (if you want to read more, check out the other article, its far more in-depth):

” Taste is what really drives this. It is immediately amazing. Wonderful flavor profile, wonderful mouth feel, wonderful taste, wonderful notes and characteristics, and …. wonderful any other cliche catch-all terms that you want to use. Its sweet, its malty, its caramel, its dark, its heavy, its low key and not boozy, and only a 5.56% ABV (get it… … …you know… since the name is 556… they made sure to work the OG and sugars to make it 5.56% ABV). This all combines perfectly and into one wonderful stout. A perfect cold weather stout, a perfect warm weather stout, a perfect all year round stout. But more importantly, a perfect Veteran’s Day stout. “

Some other stouts we’ve reviewed are: S’Mores LazaRIS, Walkers Station Stout, Vanilla Ice Cream Stout, Salted Caramel Moo Hoo, and Irish Table.

My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: 4.1 (as of 11.14.19; on the previous article, there wasn’t enough ratings yet to give it a global rating).

(I will point out that the 556 Stout was my absolute favorite of the flight. And if I had to rank my flight of 5, it would go like this:

1. 556 Stout
2. Tattered Dreamz
3. Seven.Point.Six.Two (7.62) IPA
4. Twin Mount .50
5. Government Overspending

Thats not to say any of the lower ordered ones were bad, just how this flight went. And considering my ratings for them, you can see that it was an amazing flight!)

Well, I’m shooting a buzzer beater with this one. Finishing this up right now its 11:40. So just barely getting this to print (or to screen) before the deadline and maintaining my blog post per day. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit smoother and I get my post up sooner. I am also going to be doing more work / editing on this in the morning. So if you read it now, and then re-read it around 9AM, there will be some edits, links added in, and other things. I’ll note them here at the ending in an “UPDATE: EDIT” section.

Thanks for reading everyone. Thanks for getting us to 100 blog posts. And thanks for getting us to 80 Twitter Followers and 102 FaceBook followers. We appreciate each and every one of you!

UPDATE / EDIT: Ok, so starting at 6AM when I woke up… well… ok… 630AM after I watched The Mandalorian’s newest episode…. I went through and linked up things to their correct places. This should look better. No content changes, just cosmetic changes. Last night I was pretty tired and feeling kinda lazy to do a lot of the HTML / inside / behind the scenes work of the blog, and just posted up the writing side of it. Now it looks more accurate. Sorry for those who read the original version and didn’t see the links. (Not a huge change made.)

Also, just to reiterate we are on the Top 100 Best Beer Blogs currently sitting at #11. We debuted at #137 and second week went to #11 and have sat there ever since. Would be great to gain some momentum and move up! Be sure to check out the site, and click back to us, not sure if it helps, but it certainly can’t hurt anyway.

We’re making a lot of big strides here at The Beer Thrillers. We just hit 100+ posts, 100+ followers on Facebook, and 80+ Twitter followers. Coming in with the new year we are looking to move over to a full blog status, adding a home brewer to our writing staff, and possibly one or two more writers to our staff. Lots and lots of content for lots and lots of people to read, so make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and do all the fun stuff so you can see all our hard work! We appreciate you checking us out, and thanks for making all of this hard work so much fun!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

So yesterday was just kind of one of those days. Long day at work. Went directly to Tattered Flag and had me a flight. Spending the night at a veteran owned brewery with several veterans who work there, on Veteran’s Day sounded like a fantastic idea. For veterans they were doing free burger or half rack of ribs as well as a beer, and they just put on tap a bunch of veteran / military themed beers brewed along with two other veteran owned breweries in the area – Cox Brewing Company and Newfangled Brew Works.

The flight I had was Tattered Dreamz (collab with Wolf Brewing Co.), Twin Mount .50, Government Overspending 2019, Seven.Point.Six.Two and then this stout – 556 Stout by Cox Brewing Co. The collaborations each got headlined by one of the breweries: Twin Mount .50 is Newfangled Brew Works first, with collab credits to Tattered Flag and Cox Brewing, Seven.Point.Six.Two is credited to Tattered Flag with collab credits to Newfangled and Cox, and the 556 Stout is credited headlined by Cox and collab credits to Newfangled and Tattered Flag.

This review will be centered around the 556 Stout. Tomorrow I will likely be doing the full flight review (and will link to this; and have this link back to that; so if you check this article out in two-three days you’ll see a link to the flight article).

I will break out a spoiler and say this was my favorite of the bunch. The whole flight was really good though, with a great Belgian, a couple wonderful IPAs, and a good high ABV sour as well. Its just that this one blew me away the most and thus why I’m giving it an individual review.

Beer: 556 Stout
Brewery: Cox Brewing Company (CBC)
Collaborators: Newfangled Brew Works and Tattered Flag
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 5.56%
IBU: No
Untappd Write-Up: Vet Collab Stout with Newfangled and Tattered Flag

For those who don’t know, and I haven’t had a chance before this to do a Cox Brewing Company (CBC) review, here is some basic background info on them:
Cox Brewing Untappd
Cox Brewing FaceBook
Cox Brewing Twitter
Cox Brewing Website

Their Untappd page lists them as having 90 unique beers, 6,505 ratings, and a global rating of 3.68. Their bio on the page reads: Cox Brewing Company (CBC) is a veteran-owned brewery located in Elizabethtown, PA in the village of Rheems.

They are a must-stop see at every Renaissance Faire brewfest and Littitz Brewfest. At the Lititz Brewfest they even sponsor to have a home brewer who they selected at the home brewer’s portion of the event to come brew for a day with them. The owners are great people and are very active in the home brewing community and are big help to many home brewers in the area.

So let’s get into this delicious beer.

Appearance is dark black like a good normal stout, with nice lacing, and a good head. The head is thin white with porous bubbles that are spaced and varied. The lacing lasts on the glass and the look stays the same under light.

Aroma is a good caramelized stout. Heavy malts, nice aromas, you get mostly the heavy malts and a caramel sweetness to it.

Taste is what really drives this. It is immediately amazing. Wonderful flavor profile, wonderful mouth feel, wonderful taste, wonderful notes and characteristics, and …. wonderful any other cliche catch-all terms that you want to use. Its sweet, its malty, its caramel, its dark, its heavy, its low key and not boozy, and only a 5.56% ABV (get it… … …you know… since the name is 556… they made sure to work the OG and sugars to make it 5.56% ABV). This all combines perfectly and into one wonderful stout. A perfect cold weather stout, a perfect warm weather stout, a perfect all year round stout. But more importantly, a perfect Veteran’s Day stout.

My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: (None yet. Unfortunately there’s only been 8 total ratings, so obviously too soon to get a global rating.)

I certainly can’t recommend this beer enough though. Make sure you find your way to Tattered Flag, Newfangled Brew Works, or Cox Brewing Company, where it will be on draft at all three of these locations. This is an amazing beer. Some even got to try it as a sampling at the 717 Armory yesterday, a very cool thing and another collaborator with the breweries on these beers and making Veteran’s Day so positive for many veterans in the area.

We here at The Beer Thrillers want to thank and salute all veterans who have served, and have given the biggest sacrifice possible, as well as to all those who still serve our country and defend its ideals and people. We thank and appreciate you for all you have done, for all you do, and for all you have given and sacrificed. Thank you.

Please make sure you venture out and support these great veteran owned breweries. They deserve it, and you deserve some great beer, so check them out.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

So after a long day at work yesterday (my monday) followed by a Halloween / remembrance party at a friend’s house I’m back at it this morning. Got to keep the streak alive and continue going 30 for 30. Can’t let you all down now. So I’m hitting the ground running with a wonderful stout I had the other day from Pretoria Fields Collective. I had received this can in a beer mail trade a few weeks ago.

Pretoria Fields Collective is a micro-brewery from Albany Georgia. You can check their Untappd page here: Pretoria Fields Collective. They have 79 unique beers with a global rating of 3.68 out of 9,257 ratings.

From the beer mail I received a nice collection of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina beers. And I’m working my way through them, and I thought since the day was cold, it’d be nice to warm up with a delicious stout.

Beer: Walkers Station Stout
Brewery: Pretoria Fields Collective
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (blank)

This was a perfect beer to enjoy on a cold, misty, ugly, Halloween Thursday afternoon waiting for the kiddos to get done from school and to inform them that no trick or treat was happening that day. (Don’t worry, we went to Pizza Boy where they absolutely had a blast – you can read about that in my St. Thomas review.)

After cracking it open and pouring her, which had a fantastic and wonderful amount of carbonation by the way, you are hit with the roasted malts. You get all kinds of notes of roasty and toasty malt action; caramel and chocolate a bit, some coffee, but you can tell you’re in for a nice bitter blended stout here just from first whiff.

Appearance is as per usual with stouts – dark black, with a very heavy dense foamy head to it. Its a creamy rich head, light brown, with lots of carbonation letting it retain for quite a while.

And taste is exactly what you expect from the appearance and aroma of this. You immediately get a deep, resonating heavy bitter, heavy roast, every toasted, malty stout. You get bitter, you get roasty, you get toasty, you get all that you expect from the dark malts and dark grains. Its got a heavy mouthfeel but not cloying or too thick, just enough to make it a good thick stout, not too thick that you are chewing it down.

My Rating: ***.75
Global Rating: 3.8 (as of 11.3.19)

Going strong so far, 3 days into November, and 3 posts done. Somewhat keeping up with my goals and challenges I’ve set for myself this month (though I missed my step-goal of 10K every day in November last night/yesterday by 1200~ {ended somewhere at 8.8K} but I did get a walk in in the morning for 2 miles, and with the party, I’m not too bummed by missing my total).

Please keep hanging in there with me and see if I can make it 30 for 30. Fingers crossed. So far I’m 3 for 3. That just means 27 more to go. I got this!

-B. Kline

(EDIT: [12.17.19]: For our good friends at Let Us Drink Beer blog, as a guest writer, I have uploaded this review for their blog as well, to go alongside their review. The review on their blog is mostly the same as this, with just a few changes. You can read my beer review here: Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Field Collective). Let Us Drink Beer also did a review on this [hence why I uploaded this review to their site], you can read theirs here: Pretoria Fields Collective – Walker Station Stout. Make sure to check them both out and show their blog some love. Thanks everyone!)

So, first off, this is interesting… decided to make this my first beer review / blog entry for November; and its not quite what I thought it was going to be. As you can see, this is a bit of a “weird” moment and I’m curious what my recall on this all is.

I met D. Scott after work on Tuesday at Newfangled Brew Works for a quick beer before picking up my girls from my parents, and he had gotten the Festbier (which they have a Festbier called ‘Fest’) and I saw they had a new “Pumpkin Stout”. So I ordered that and had a draft, and drank it down and it was delicious, and thus why I chose to make this the blog post for today… but now, checking it on Untappd to write-this up, there is no Pumpkin Stout, and what I had checked in as Pumpkin Stout has turned into Pumpkin Spice Ale, and the pictures of my beer and others don’t align – and don’t look – at all similar. So I’m wondering if it was a one-off adjunct of their regular stout and that they released an actual Pumpkin Spice Ale that I didn’t have but everyone else did apparently.

So before I get into all that, let me get into about last night / this morning. So like I said with my Fatum: Member Berry review yesterday, I was planning on doing one (last night); after Trick or Treat and everything. Well, like I also said, that was a “tentative” plan, and I did want to. But, again, like I said (can I really do three straight sentences where I say “like I said”… yes I can…) with my hectic life I wasn’t sure if I would. I really wanted to, but it just didn’t work out. So, Trick or Treat in Hummelstown was canceled and rescheduled to tonight (like nearly everywhere else) because of the massive storm that came through. So we went to Pizza Boy for their kids buffet thing, and then went to Boneshire Brew Works for their Halloween Bash – which sadly was pretty empty due to the storm – and then after all that, and having to stop at Wal-Mart for last second kid Halloween school parade neccessity we got stuck in some flash flooding and everything and didn’t get home til late, and then had to do the work for said outfit, …and well, by 11PM I was just too exhausted for this, so I turned on BoJack on Netflix and I was out in no time. (Didn’t hurt I also had the St. Thomas 11% pastry stout from Pizza Boy, and the 9.5% Smores LazaRIS stout from Boneshire).

So back to where I started this off…. I’m in a bit of a conundrum here it would seem. I’ll show the picture of the beer I have, with the knowledge that it was listed as a “Pumpkin Stout” and tasted as such, and the signage at the bar said that, and the bartender repeated what I ordered. So here’s my beer:

Now, the next two pictures are from people I know who later (one being even later the same day / night as the time I was there) ordered and their check-ins are listed as “Pumpkin Spice Ale” (just like mine was moved to):

From the pictures alone, it is clearly evident that its two different beers. I believe one (the lighter brown, that others have had) is the Pumpkin Spice Ale its listed as on Untappd, and the one I had is just a variant of the Newfangled Stout – a Pumpkin Spice variant. So I will be doing my review on the basis of it being a variant of the stout, and that it is/was/is a stout, and just a Pumpkin Spice Stout.

I will give listings and information for both the Stout from Newfangled Brew Works and the Pumpkin Spice Ale from Newfangled Brew Works. I would assume that the ABV / IBU and information would be spot on with the Stout; just that it has Pumpkin Spice flavorings, rather than being similar in ABV / IBU to the Pumpkin Spice Ale.

Beer: Stout (Pumpkin Spice)
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Stout – American
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 40
Untappd Write-Up: (None)

Beer: Pumpkin Spice Ale
Brewery: Newfangled Brew Works
Style: Festbier
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (None)

So theres a few similarities right there. Perhaps they are the same beer? Perhaps… but I dunno. I don’t see why mine would be so dark, and it definitely wasn’t lighting. And I know for a fact it tasted far more like a stout than a festbier or marzen.

Anyway, onto the review…. of…. the beer….. I think… pretty sure…. possibly…. had….

So as you can see in the picture above, its black, stealth bomber black. There is a thin small head to it with a little foam, little carbonation, little bubbles mostly interspersed. Typical appearance and look of stouts.

Aroma is very heavy pumpkin and spices. Nutmeg, cinnamon, a variety of the fall oriented spices. The pumpkin is certainly the strongest, but you do get notes of the spices heavily, and slightly roasted malt aroma as well.

Taste is upfront pumpkin, with backbone typical stout. It tastes very similar to the Newfangled Stout, but with Pumpkin and spices. You get notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and coffee all mixed in with the stronger presence of pumpkin. You get some notes of roasty malt, some notes of a bit of caramel malt, but the pumpkin and spices pretty much overflows this.

So this was certainly an interesting one to review.

I gave the Pumpkin Stout a rating of: 3.75
I had given the original Stout a rating of: 3.50

Global Stout Rating: 3.63 (as of 11.1.19)
Global Pumpkin Spice Ale Rating: 3.94 (as of 11.1.19)

I started writing this review up early this morning, but had to get the girls to school, then had to go to the DMV, and had breakfast, and stopped at Tattered Flag and had a beer, and now finally getting it up a fair bit later than I wanted, but at least its getting posted. Sorry for the confusion on this one.

But I think we got it sorted out, or at least, I hope so.

As I’ve said before, in previous, blog posts, for November, in honor of NaNoWriMo, I am hoping to write a blog post every day of the month. So stay tuned to see how long I can go; hopefully the whole month! That’ll be 30 blog entries. So lets hope I can do it!

Speaking of that, some stats on the blog, since I have the moment and it feeds in with what I was just saying:


May: 121 Views – 9 Posts
June: 1,174 Views – 14 Posts
July: 2,500 Views – 18 Posts
August: 3,993 Views – 15 Posts
September: 4,370 Views – 16 Posts
October: 5,611 Views – 18 Posts

So here’s hoping for 30+ posts in November, and hitting 6K in views.

Thanks everyone for checking us out! So be sure to click like, follow, subscribe, save, bookmark, do whatever ya gotta do, to get to see each and every post, and to see if I can go 30 days and post 30 times. Thank you all for making this such a successful and fun blog to write for!

-B. Kline