Some days the blog posts were easy. Other days not so much. Some days I had the blog post done at 7:30 or 8AM… other days I’m struggling to get the blog post done, and wrapping it up at 11:58PM.

I never truly felt like I had burnt myself out…. until I came to doing this recap blog post. Thats why its now December 7th and its getting posted; when this was meant to be posted on December 1st. And I still don’t think I’m ‘burnt out’. I think its a case of ‘start-up issues’. The hardest part about any blog post is starting the blog post. Like writing anything, the hardest part is the beginning, is putting ink to paper, or to type those first few words. So, as the time stretched from December 1st… to December 2nd…. to December 3rd…. I hesitated and procrastinated more and more, and this post went further and further by the wayside. So for that, and for the fact that the blog as a whole hasn’t had a single post in December, and no new blog post in a week, I apologize. For those of you who were looking forward to this recap posting of my “November NaNoWriMo Challenge”, I apologize. And yes, I know I’m not REALLY doing a NaNoWriMo, and I know I’m not using the term correctly.

But this is the recap post, and it is finally going live. I apologize for its tardiness, but hopefully you will enjoy it all the same.

I met all three of my self-set hard challenges for November, and fell short of a soft-challenge for myself. My hard challenges were: 1) One new blog post per day, 2) One new unique beer per day, and 3) One 1-mile or more walk per day. These challenges I completed. (Figured the 1-mile or more walk would counter-balance the fact I was drinking every day.) The soft challenge I failed was hitting my 10K steps per day. And I only failed that one day…. ironically the second day of the month. I only got 8.8K steps that day, mainly due to a friend gathering and party and having gone to it right after work.

But you all don’t really care about the challenges, and just want to see the recap right?! So here’s whats going with that. I’m going to make a list here of the dates (November 1st, November 2nd, November 3rd, etc.) as headings, and then underneath it, list the different blog posts we posted that day (mine, J. Doncevic’s reviews, AJ’s Default Brewing post, and the guest writing blog post by Let Us Drink Beer). I will also list what new unique beer I had each of those days (or in the cases of some days, ‘unique beers’). So lets to it!

NOVEMBER 1st:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Pumpkin Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Pumpkin Spice Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Catchin’ Feels (Tattered Flag)

NOVEMBER 2nd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: St. Thomas (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Rose Cider (Wyndridge Farm)
• Blood Orange Cranberry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Strawberry (Delp Brother’s Home Brewing) (Friend’s Homebrew at the party)

NOVEMBER 3rd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Walker Station Stout (Pretoria Fields Collective)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Watermelon (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 4th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Sogni D’oro, Wastin’ Daylight, Market Research, Peach Novelty, Oktobock, Lucky Cat Lien (ZeroDay Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)
• Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)
• King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 5th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: King Sue (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Black Cherry (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 6th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Wicked Apple (Redd’s Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 7th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: S’Mores LazaRIS (Boneshire Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 8th:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory (J. Doncevic)
• Beer Review: There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 9th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer Company)

Unique Beers:

• Schwarzbier (The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery)

NOVEMBER 10th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Broken Heels (New Trail Brewing Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 11th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Adjective Animal (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Colonization (Ghost 779) – Adroit Theory

Unique Beers:

• Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag)
• Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Government Overspending (2019) (Tattered Flag)
• Seven. Point. Six. Two. (Tattered Flag)
• 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company – CBC)

NOVEMBER 12th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )

Unique Beers:

• Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 13th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Boat Drinks: Pina Colada Berliner (Crosstown Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alcatraz Sour Apple (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 14th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Tattered Dreamz (Tattered Flag), Twin Mount .50 (Newfangled Brew Works), Government Spending 2019 (Tattered Flag), Seven.Point.Six.Two (Tattered Flag), 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

NOVEMBER 15th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Alpha Abstraction Vol. 8 (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Unique Beers:

• Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 16th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Double IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Birra di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 17th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Lager (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Syndicate City Sour Peach (Johny Bootlegger Beverage Company)

NOVEMBER 18th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Birra Di Levante (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 19th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Unique Beer:

• Great American Apple Pie (Stout Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 20th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Reviews: Mechanicsberry, Bargain Black IPA, Embers Remain, Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Mechanicsberry (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Bargain Black IPA (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Embers Remain (Appalachian Brewing Company)
• Ragged Edge Espresso Stout (Appalachian Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 21st:

Blog Posts:

• Default Brewing

Unique Beers:

• Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)
• Nitro Stout (Newfangled Brew Works)

NOVEMBER 22nd:

Blog posts:

• Beer Review: Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Darwin’s Forehead Salted Brown Porter (Fonta Flora Brewery)
• NVP (Nitro Series) (Breckenridge Brewery)

NOVEMBER 23rd:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Newfangled Pils (Newfangled Brew Works)

Unique Beers:

• Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 24th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Gotta Get Up to Get Down (WISEACRE Brewing Company)
• Cheers from Default Brewing!

Unique Beers:

• Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 25th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Crowd Control (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

NOVEMBER 26th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery(

NOVEMBER 27th:

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery)

Unique Beers:

• Scratch 394 – Mango Tangerine Lime Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 395 – Pineapple Passionfruit Guava Cherry Tart Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Scratch 396 – Dry-Hopped Pale Ale (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Mad Elf 2019 Vintage (technically not a ‘new’ beer, but my first of this year’s vintage) (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Coco-Nator (non-scratch version) (Troegs Independent Brewing)

NOVEMBER 28th: (Thanksgiving)

Blog Posts:

• Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Unique Beers:

• Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

NOVEMBER 29th:

Blog Posts:

• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)

Unique Beers:

• Not My Style, Might Rate Anyway (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)
• Visions of Yesterday (Pizza Boy Brewing Co.)

NOVEMBER 30th:

Blog Posts:

• Official BBQ & Burgers: Pizza Boy Secondary Location
• Five Must See Breweries When Visiting Atlanta (Let Us Drink Beer)

Unique Beers:

• Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Gose (Westbrook Brewing Co.)

Whew, what an exhausting month November was. I think part of the reason it took me so long to get the energy to do this recap post, was knowing the amount of formatting involved and the photos…. and now that the challenge is over, a malaise kind of settled over me. Like my job was completed. I started this post this morning before work, and had to finish it now after an extra hour or so of work on it this evening. I still want to put in some statistics of the month, for the blog, and for myself, and will most likely come in and do the edit for that later tonight or tomorrow. I will also add the tags and categories. But for now, I just want to get this live and up on the internet. Its 7PM and this is long overdo.

I would like to thank my contributors and co-authors on this blog for making this month (and all the time in general) go so well, and for providing so much help, fun and entertaining blog posts to read, and for helping so much with the blog! Thank you J. Doncevic, AJ Brechbiel (Default Brewing), and Let us Drink Beer Blog. My blog post for Let us Drink Beer’s blog will go live tomorrow and I will provide a link here for that in the statistics edit I will do. In the meantime you can read their post about their upcoming additions to their blog here: Let us Drink Beer: Exciting Additions Coming Soon!

Cheers and I hope you all enjoyed all of our blog posts in November. Heres to the rest of 2019, and then on to the future, 2020, and the next decade!

-B. Kline

EDIT:

Some statistics from the month here at The Beer Thrillers:

Blog posts:

• 34

Unique authors:

• 4
• B. Kline, J. Doncevic, AJ – Default Brewing, and Let Us Drink Beer

Visitors and Views:

• 2,767 Unique Visitors
• 6,293 Total Views

Twitter Followers:

• 95
• (Goal was 100, just missed it)

FaceBook Followers:

• 130

Most Vewied Posts:

• Beer Review: 556 Stout (Cox Brewing Company [CBC] )
• Multiple Beer Review: Scratch 394, Scratch 395, Scratch 396, and Mad Elf (Troegs Independent Brewing)
• Beer Review: Tickle Parts – Passionfruit (Levante Brewing Company)

Breweries reviewed/beers of their’s reviewed:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Cox Brewing Company
• Adroit Theory
• Troegs Independent Brewing
• Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
• Levante Brewing
• WISEACRE Brewing
• Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
• Southern Prohibition Brewing
• Heist Brewery
• Toppling Goliath Brewing
• Dewey Beer Co.
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Appalachian Brewing Company
• Crosstown Brewing
• Fonta Flora Brewing
• Westbrook Brewng Co.
• Equilibrium Brewery
• Pretoria Fields Collective
• Wild Leap Brew Co.
• New Trail Brewing

Styles:

• IPA
• Double IPA
• Black IPA
• Brown Porter
• Stout
• Pilsner
• Lager
• New England IPA
• Belgian Dubbel
• Sour – Fruited
• Sour – Other
• Fruited Beer
• Gose
• Sour
• Belgian Strong Dark Ale
• Pale Ale

Some personal stats for me:

Unique Beers:

• 50

Total Beers:

• 68

Breweries Visited:

• Boneshire Brew Works
• Tattered Flag
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewery
• ZeroDay Brewing
• The Millworks
• Official BBQ and Burgers – Pizza Boy’s Secondary Location
• Newfangled Brew Works
• Appalachian Brewing Company

New Restaurants/Bars:

• The Gin Mill
• Official BBQ and Burgers

Again, thank you all for reading. This post has now been updated with tags and categories. Please leave a like, a comment, and please follow us!

Thank you everyone!

Cheers!!

-B. Kline

Ok, final review from my time at the Gin Mill in Lebanon. And still working on my 30 for 30, Day # 9. Yesterday’s I kinda uploaded with little fanfare, through it up at 1PM, didn’t do much of the marketing behind it, and right after it dropped, J. Doncevic’s dropped. Mine uploaded at 12:56 and his uploaded at exactly 1:00. I didn’t quite mean to line it up that way, it just kind of did, and I didn’t mean to not do much fanfare. But for some reason it was a struggle to write yesterday’s. I think I was in one of those ‘funk’ ‘mood’ things. So therefore it felt like pulling teeth to get that review out. Yesterday was just a weird day overall I suppose. But it is out, and you can check it out here: There’s Nuttin’ Butter Than a Nice Pair of Cam Pants Review. And if you missed it, you can check out J. Doncevic’s review from yesterday here: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory. It is getting lots of views and people loved his review, so be sure to check it out!

So back to the review on hand…. last monday after work I stopped at the Gin Mill in Lebanon PA. I had two Toppling Goliath beers: King Sue and Intergalactic Warrior. This was the third beer I had that night before heading home. And all three beers were top notch fantastic beers. This was about as perfect as a sour can get, and the other two were about as perfect as a DIPA and a IPA can get. It was a good night.

If you ever go to Rehobeth Beach or Dewey Beach or Lewes Beach you need to find time to stop at Dewey Beer Company. Its a small restaurant and brewery, that is kind of easy to miss. It sits on Rt. 1 but it looks kinda -shack like – which doesn’t sound like the best descriptor for its location, but its somewhat accurate. In the last year or so they’ve been killing it with both their sour game an their IPAs. Their sours are getting constant good reviews (they are typically called Secret Machine – X) and often muled back to places by someone who traveled down. They also show up at a lot of beer shares and beer trades. So be on the lookout for them if you are interested in some good sour beers. You can check out their Untappd page here: Dewey Beer Company on Untappd.

Beer: Secret Machine – Key Lime & Tangerine
Brewery: Dewey Beer Company
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: A sour combination of hybrid citrus fruits resulted in a spritzy and tangy Secret Machine.

This is a beautiful light yellow, effervescent, sparkling, bright glowing yellow. It looks like most lighter fruited sours. Where the berry sours typically have a purplish or bluish hue, the sours that rely on lime, or orange or peach or tangerine or lemon have a bright yellow going to orange look. (Mango IPAs and sours usually have a bright orange look, and ones with guava typically have a pinkish hue.) There is a small ring of a head, fine but there, not really necessary for a good sour but nice to see.

Aroma is very sharp tartness, very heavy lime, and a fair amount of the tangerine. It makes for a nice sour tart blast to your nostrils. The smell is enticing and the beer is so beautiful that it calls to you right away to drink it.

And you will be so glad you did. This is a delicious beer. It is tart with a fair amount of puckering, but not too tart to be off putting or too sour. There is a very strong key lime and citrus flavor to this, the tangerine then comes in and provides a nice fruity burst to the beer. The two compliment each other perfectly, the lime and the tangerine make an excellent combination. Providing both tartness and fruitful flavor the two work in great unison to provide one heck of a fantastic beer. Sour but fruited, citrusy but interesting, tart but juicy, lemony and lime but also with various other notes and flavors; this is just an extremely well rounded beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 11.9.19)

Last night I met my friend D. Scott who I do the podcasts for (WTF Did I Just Watch) (and soon to be video game one) and we went to The Manor along Rt. 39 where I had AuZealand by Boneshire Brew Works followed by New Trails: Broken Heels. I’ve had AuZealand several times and did a review for it previously. But the New Trails was a new beer (and my new beer for the day, still maintaining at least 1 new beer per day, and 1 new blog post per day). So that will likely be the next review up. So look for that tomorrow.

Until then everyone, keep drinking, keep tipping, and drive safe!

-B. Kline

Finally…. finally… must I say it again? Finally! I got to try this amazing and delicious beer. And it is completely all the hype that there is about it, and it lives up to it and then some. This is just an incredible beer that drank down so fast, I probably could have ordered four or five before realizing it (or realizing where I was, or the ABV, or cost), because this was that easy of a drink to quaff down and the booze on this is so subtle and barely perceptible – until it hits you square across the face after your done drinking it!

I’ve been wanting to check out the Gin Mill in Lebanon for a while, and been receiving Untappd notifications about them as a verified venue, and getting Facebook alerts on them and stuff, and seeing that they get a pretty good lineup going, I finally made the drive after work to get there. It was very worth it. Foreign Objects, LIC Beer Project, Dewey Beach Beer, Toppling Goliath, with Rotunda Brewing, Pipeworks, and more Dewey on their on-deck, I would definitely say they know craft beer and know quality beer. They had a range of stouts / porters with two on Nitro, some middle of the road IPAs / lower quality craft beers, as well as the heavy hitter hops and sours. The place is part dive bar, part good food restaurant, and they were well busy on a Monday night at 730-845 when I left. I got three beers while there – King Sue (Toppling Goliath), Intergalactic Warrior (Toppling Goliath), and Key Lime & Tangerine (Dewey Beer); and all three were fantastic. So lets start with the first one – King Sue and break her down.

Beer: King Sue
Brewery: Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – Double / New England
ABV: 7.8%
IBU: 100
Untappd Write-Up: This lusciously hazy double IPA gains its hints of mango, orange, and pineapple from the use of the delicious Citra hop.

While that looks like a crazy amount of IBU; it hides it all, there is practically no bitterness to this, just a slight dryness. Its all juice, its all delicious, and it is definitely “luscious”.

Excuse the pictures a bit, their dark, and the bar area of the Gin Mill was dark, so not wanting to be a disturbance or the weirdo at the bar I chose not to use the flash, and so the pictures came out a bit dark, but I still think they show how beautiful this beer is. And it is certainly a beautiful beer. The color of orange juice, with a haze and an opaqueness with no sediment. It has a great head with lots of foam, lots of carbonation, that is overflowing the draft pour.

The aroma is fantastic as well, very hoppy, very juicy hoppy, you get bright powerful notes of the fruity hops, mango, orange, citrus, pineapple, it all hits you and it hits you powerfully. Even in a full bar with lots of other beers, foods, people around, I got the whiff of the fruity hops as soon as my bartender sat it down in front of me. Its like a sucker punch from a fruit cocktail with hops right at your nose.

…and then you get to the taste. You wouldn’t even know this was a beer, or alcohol. Its straight juice. Like GOOD juice. Like Sunny D when you were a kid and you came inside from playing with your Tonka Trucks on a dirt pile. This is immediately wonderful. There is no bad things to even say about this. You get all the citrus notes, you get multiple fruity hop notes, you get orange, mango, pineapple, citrus, you get hop, you get juice, all in a fantastic wonderful dance in your mouth. There is a slight dryness to it, but with how juicy it is, its basically cancelled out. Even saying it sounds oxymoronic, but it is there, its probably from the 100 IBU or the yeast strain. But there is this slight dryness at the same time as its so juicy. This goes down so smoothly, so easily. Nothing cloying, nothing too heavy, just the right mouthfeel. You don’t taste or feel the 7.8% ABV until its finished and you go to order your next. I could see a four pack or six pack of this being very problematic on a hot summer day when I’m supposed to be getting chores done. (…in so far as this would mean zero chores would be getting done.)

I cannot recommend this enough. In fact, all three beers I had last night at the Gin Mill; King Sue, Intergalactic Warrior, and Key Lime & Tangerine; were all fantastic. All highly recommended. I’ve had four different beers from Toppling Goliath so far and cannot say enough good things about them. (King Sue and Intergalactic Warrior last night, and Pseudo Sue before as well as a hop variant of Pseudo Sue from Tavour.)

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.42 (as of 11.5.19)

November is rolling on, and I’m keeping pace so far. Getting a mile walk/run per day. Having (at least) one new beer each day. And getting one new blog post per day. So five days in and so far five days good. Only thing I didn’t keep up was on the 2nd I only 8.8K steps rather than my goal of 10K steps per day (but I think the first made up for it with 21K steps). So here’s to the next 25 days going as smoothly as the first 5!

Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline