This was supposed to be a five part series. Consisting of Sap, Haze, Doppelganger, Autumn, and Julius. But then like Disney buying Star Wars…. along came another, like a new movie to add to the series, I present you number six – the final, epic, saga ending beer review – of Intemperance.

Thats probably a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. This wasn’t intended, but we’re going to go with it. I don’t mind doing Tree House beer reviews, thats for sure. I could do them all the time, I’ll gladly accept any Tree House beer donations in lieu of reviews. No problem, no questions asked. (Who can turn down delicious wonderful near perfect beers anyway right?)

This is going to be different than the previous installments though. Whereas the others were IPAs (Double / regular) or a pale ale; this is the first dark brew I’ll be reviewing from Tree House. Intemperance is a Double Milk Stout. A fitting conclusion to the series. Epic? Maybe not. Ending to a massive saga on the scale of Episode IX? Probably not. A fantastic beer? Definitely! A good beer review? Hopefully so!

Just want to give a final shout out to D. Arndt for these fantastic beers. Tree House certainly never disappoints. Thanks Dan!

Beer: Intemperance
Brewery: Tree House Brewing Co.
Style – Stout – Imperial / Double Milk
ABV: 9.9%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: Intemperance is an imperial milk stout brewed with cinnamon, vanilla cream, Christmas cookies, and a hint of chestnut. Throwing the kitchen sink of authentic holiday-themed ingredients at this beer results in a truly unique, exciting, nostalgic-tasting beverage that doesn’t take itself too seriously. As it warms you can truly pick out the flavor notes of its individual constituents. Put on some pajamas, start a fire, and let this beer take you into the night.

This is a perfect fireplace beer. Christmas Eve, all the kids presents wrapped and under the tree and finally getting to fall asleep to A Christmas Story playing on loop in the background.

Appearance is the darkest of dark black. Like the souls and hearts of….. ahh, gee, thats too dark for something so tasty, frivolous, and fun. I’ll fall back on my motor oil comparisons and Razor Ramone hair comparisons and jet fuel and other similar ones. This is too much fun drinking to go too too dark on the descriptors. There is a lovely light brown creamy head to this that just floats on the dark waters. Lacing runs down the glass as you drain this gorgeous beer.

Aroma is so much, such complexity, just so much to take in through the nose. Aroma for this is pure Christmas. Baking cookies, yule log, milk, eggnog, dark bready notes, ginger, hazelnut. Like someone made a Bath and Bodyworks candle out of Santa Clause’s cabin. Notes of cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut, ginger, molasses, chestnut, all swirl around with a roasted malt and grain bill with some nice earthy bread notes.

This is an amazingly smooth beer for a 9.9% stout. Its not annoyingly sweet or cloying. But it is dangerously smooth. The vanilla just gives it that added boost. You immediately taste like a child waking up Christmas morning after only getting one hour of sleep because you spent all night at your bedroom door waiting for Santa. This is dark and heavy, with a wonderful, full body and mouthfeel. But surprisingly you can sort of taste the high ABV but not fully feel the high ABV, and even then, its all levels of subtlety that get hidden amongst the complexities of the flavors. You get all of the flavors of Christmas cookie baking; vanilla, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, chestnut, hazelnut, and they all blend together with nothing overpowering anything else. Like a fine choreographed dance, everyone working together – every flavor working together – to build to a far bigger whole and better beer as a whole for it. There is no off putting flavors or aromas, no bad lingering aftertaste, just a great, well rounded, well created, well crafted, beautifully made and delicious beer. This could easily be a ‘final beer’ (before I go) type beer, and all would be content.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.24 (as of 2.19.20)

Blog news:

This was meant to go up last night after work as a double-blog day, but that didn’t really come about. Yesterday was pretty busy, and after stopping at the library, and dinner with the kids, and everything after work, the night kind of slipped away. (The Flyers did crush last night, so there was that too.)

But yesterday was a big networking day for the blog. With breweries reaching out for us to do scheduled tours and interviews. Podcasts reaching out to us for interviews and discussions. All around a very busy day.

We also hit number 400 on Facebook. Our four hundredth like on Facebook was Rory Dibeler. We are now up to 410 and looking forward to number 500. We are also up to 128 followers on Twitter. So if you aren’t a follower on either platform, please do so. You can also follow us on Instagram, where we are looking to further our presence in the upcoming months.

As always, be sure to like and follow us. Check out some of our older articles and beer reviews and news stories. You can read up about openings and closings, brewery reviews, beer reviews, brewery events, and even some book reviews. We appreciate all the views, likes, comments, suggestions, and feedback.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

So let me start off by apologizing that this is a bit late, I had drank this last Tuesday, and meant to write-up the review on either last Wednesday or Thursday, and its been sitting in my ‘to-write’ / ‘draft’ area of the blog for several days now. Half finished, half written. I have several blog posts in this stage currently, and since I have off starting now til Saturday morning, I’m hoping to get them written up and posted. Some of these are beer reviews, brewery reviews, beer events, and even beer news. I have the Midwest Coast Brewing post to go live as soon as they greenlight it (the head owner / brewer was getting married this past weekend, so that postponed things a slight bit).

So I apologize for the delay, but moving forward, lets get this blog up, and then we can work on them from there. I’ve also been informed by J. Doncevic that he’s going to be coming out of his long sabbatical and posting a beer review tonight. What will it be? I’m not giving away any hints, so who knows! Take your guesses now and see if you’re right!

Last Tuesday after getting out of work at 6PM, and with some time to kill before having to go to the Winner Circle Saloon and the American Grille for the fantasy basketball draft that some of my coworkers do, I found myself traveling down Rt. 22 and thinking of where to stop for a beer before going to the draft. So… I wound up at Ted’s Bar and Grille.

Ted’s Bar and Grille is located on Rt 22 (Allentown Road) and is primarily a sports bar, but its also kind of a restaurant, craft bar, wing joint, all kinds of things in one. They usually have a pretty decent selection of craft beers (and of course domestics) on tap, as well as a pretty extensive bottle / can selection. Nothing super amazing top shelf or “whaler” status, but plenty of good beers from PA, MD, NJ, NY, OH, and other larger breweries like Bell’s, Founder’s, etc. Its a nice bar with a good patio and a good selection of beer. Its located at 7300 Allentown Blvd Harrisburg, PA (Route 22 between Harrisburg and Grantville). It is a verified location on Untappd so you can check out their taplist and can / bottle selection.

So looking down their bottle and can selection, I found something that caught my eye – Salted Caramel. Always a favorite, and something I always enjoy, even from larger breweries like Genesee’s Pilot Series one I had a few years back courtesy of my sister who lived up in Rochester at the time. It came in a bomber bottle and was a bit more expensive for it, but nothing crazy so (7.50$ at the bar for a bomber bottle isn’t bad at all really). So to while away the time before the draft I ordered it and a glass and sat and relaxed and enjoyed.

Beer: Salted Caramel Imperial Moo-Hoo
Brewery: Terrapin Beer Co.
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double Milk
ABV: 8.5%
IBU: 30
Untappd Write-Up: Salted caramel milk stout

Not the most inspiring or interesting Untappd write-up, but at least there is one? Shrug. Either way, this is a completely enjoyable beer that doesn’t really need a write-up before you drink it up.

Appearance is dark black, nighttime black, Razor Ramon hair black, jet engine fuel black, no moon out midnight black, Cruella DeVille’s heart black. I think that’s enough descriptors for the darkness of the beer. Moving on to the head, it has a rich brown foamy head, with lots of interspersed and varied bubbles.

Aroma is a mixture of sweetness and some bitterness. You can smell cocoa, like cooking chocolate, as well as the caramel. You smell vanilla, but you also get notes of some bitterness, like salt perhaps or some hop characteristics or notes. I don’t quite know how to describe a bitterness smell for this, but it is present, sadly my words are lacking I suppose (or perhaps just not as good at understanding my nose as I thought I was).

This has a wonderful texture and mouthfeel. Its heavy and thick, but not cloying or clinging to your tongue. Its not problematic and it has almost kind of a grittyness to it, perhaps due to salt perhaps due to something else, not quite able to put my tongue on it (aha!), but it has a varied and interesting texture and complexion to this thats very interesting.

Taste is fantastic. Its a mixture of rich salty caramel, vanilla sweetness and sugary-ness, as well a lovely stout. Theres some hop notes of bittering at the end, and you get some bitterness from cooking chocolate (or so it seems), but the true stars of the beer – the salted caramel really stand out, and provide a fantastic flavor profile for this. This is certainly a sipper, not something to be quaffed down quickly or easily. The 8.5% slowly creeps up on you, and since its a bomber it’ll get definitely get you there by the end of the bottle.

I certainly thoroughly enjoyed this and would love to have more for cold nights or fall autumn nights around a bonfire with friends. Terrapin Beer Co. is from Maryland (as the name suggests) and so anyone in the PA/MD area should be able to locate their beers. They have a pretty impressive range of various beers and styles that are pretty good.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.91 (as of 10.16.19)

Be on the lookout for J. Doncevic’s post tonight / tomorrow, as well as a TON of blog posts from me all day Thursday and Friday. It’ll feel like a flooding after the recent drought of posts. So enjoy!

-B. Kline

It took the Phillies fifteen innings to win last night. Fifteen. Against the Marlins. And people wonder why they didn’t make the playoffs. Sigh. Ugh. At least I had this delicious gem of a beer to keep me company while watching the monotony of the game.

Earlier in the day I had received my second “porch bomb” or “beer mail” package, successfully completing my second beer trade. (I must admit, I am now hooked, its so awesome getting beers from different parts of the country that I most likely won’t be traveling to in the near future in exchange for some locals from my area.)

This trader lived in Aiken South Carolina and had access to several breweries I’ve never been to (or even heard of), and sent me a lovely package that contained beers from South Carolina (SC), North Carolina (NC), and Georgia (GA). Including beers from Edmund’s Oast, Westbrook, and Creature Comforts. So I was very hyped for this box.

As you can see there is some killer beers in that package and I can’t wait to tear into them all and review them here. Also starting Friday I began to house-sit for my parents while they are on their anniversary weekend, celebrating their 38th Anniversary. Original plan for Friday night was to go to D. Scott’s to do our podcast, but he wasn’t fully setup and ready. And I kinda then just chilled at my parents home watching their fish (indoor aquarium and outdoor ponds), watching the Phills, and enjoying a fantastically lovely stout.

Wasn’t sure where to start really on this package, but decided the Vanilla Stout while sitting and watching the Phills would be a good place (and kind of solidified my ‘not going out’ and not dropping the book off at the library like I was supposed to do). A 10% stout will do that to you.

So I started off with the stout from Wild Leap Brew Co. Wild Leap is home to La Grange, Georgia, and is listed as a micro-brewery on Untappd. Their Untappd bio reads: “Formed by friends and innovators, Wild Leap Brew Co. is dedicated to delighting customers with approachable, easy-drinking and handcrafted beverages in an atmosphere that’s always easy-going and enjoyable. You could say, when it comes to beer, we’re raising the bar.” They have 190 unique beers listed and a global rating of 4.02. So definitely not bad right there. Their top beers all for the most part are IPAs, the first being Chance IPA, followed by a series of beers they have running: Alpha Abstraction Vol. 7, Vol. 6, and Vol. 8. (I received the Vol. 8 with my beer package.) Next is a Golden Blonde Ale called “Local Gold Blonde Ale”, and then a few more from the Alpha Abstraction series – Vol. 5, Vol. 4, to be broken up by a creamsicle milkshake IPA called Truck Chaser, before their top list rounds out with another Alpha Abstraction – Vol. 3.

Beer: Vanilla Ice Cream Stout
Brewery: Wild Leap Brew Co.
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double Milk
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: 35
Untappd Write-Up: Vanilla Ice Cream Stout is a thick, sweet n’ creamy milk stout brewed with vanilla and milk sugar.

Appearance is dark black beer, with a lovely light brown creamy foamy head. Bubbles are varied, nothing bad, and just a nice dark black look. A “Razor Ramon hair color” beer.

Aroma is like an ice cream float. Very heavy vanilla, very heavy malt, you can smell the sugar, you can smell the cream, you can smell some chocolate (from the malt) though its much lighter compared to the other aromas.

Taste is very delicious. It has an oily mouthfeel that coats your tongue but slides and goes down, nothing cloying and nothing bad about this. There is some thickness but its not too much. There is a lot of creamyness to this and its delicious. Its like a vanilla float but instead of coke you got a stout, with the ice cream melted and at the bottom of the glass, it just makes you want to chug to get to it all. There is a bit of boozyness to it, which I suppose shouldn’t be too surprising since it is a 10.5% ABV, and there is a slight bitterness that comes with it, perhaps due to the malts used, perhaps due to it having a 35 IBU, perhaps from other characteristics.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.02 (as of 9.28.19)

Finally, going on 12:30 or so AM, the Phillies finish their marathon 5 hour game against the Marlins, winning at home just to get back to .500, and thanks to two walks (one intentional), and an error on the final play. Thats the Phills for ya.

J. Doncevic is already out with the Rotunda Crew for Kennett Square Brewfest (already checked in to a Chewbacca from Rotunda at 8AM, so looks like his day is going strong already). So if you’re heading out there, stop in there and say hi to him.

Also, it appears, if you are looking for this beer, it is currently listed on Tavour, so you might be able to find it that way if you want it in the Central PA area.

Cheers!

-B. Kline