Finally getting back into the saddle with a beer review. The first since – my Multiple Beer Review of my flight of beers from Troegs – Scratches 394, 395, 396, and Mad Elf. And my first blog post since the November Recap. (The guest blog contribution from Let Us Drink Beer blog – Five Breweries to Visit in Atlanta was the most recent blog post here.) So its good to get back into the rhythm of writing and posting, and blogging, and all of this fun jazz.

Last week, (exactly one week ago), after handling all the activities of being an adult (and a parent) I stopped at Official BBQ and picked up two six packs – one six pack of Ice Dreamz and one mix-a-six (Michael Meyer’s Lemon IPA, Shabby Sheik IPA, 2x Sunny Side Up, Hop Vision: Amarillo, and LegenDairy Pumpkin.) During the podcast at D. Scott’s, where we did a podcast about The Mandalorian with Alex and Andrew, we followed this up with a podcast on The Irishman with Esteban. Both of those podcasts are now available to listen, and you can here:

• The Mandalorian
• The Irishman

So make sure you check those out, download or even listen directly on the site linked there. Both were great fun to make. In the Mandalorian episode we discuss the beers we’re trying a bit. Alex had the Michael Meyer’s Lemon IPA, Drew had the Sunny Side Up, I had the Ice Dreamz (at first; then the Shabby Sheik, then the Hop Vision: Amarillo and LegenDairy Pumpkin during the Irishman podcast), Andrew had brought his own from Troegs – he started with a Blizzard of Hops, before having a Hopback, a Perpetual, and I believe a Troegenator. All wonderful beers. The Mandalorian is wonderfully nerdy about Star Wars, so if your into that, definitely check it out. (Spoilers for the Mandalorian but not for Rise of Skywalker). The Irishman podcast gets pretty heavy into mob and mafia / mafioso and gang stuff, and we spoil other Scorsese movies as well (namely Goodfellas, Casino, Departed, Wolf of Wall Street). Both have some cursing, and could be considered ‘R’ rated probably due to that. But please give them a listen, their about an hour and a half. (I’ll relink them at the bottom of this blog, with a bit more details on both.)

So getting back to the blog, its about time I wrote a beer review right? December has been a bit of a slow month here on The Beer Thrillers and I apologize for that. Hopefully this will snap me out of the slump and right the ship a bit, and we get a lot more productivity and blog posts out of December. Fingers, toes, and other things crossed.

Beer: Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (blank)

Untappd lists three variants made by Pizza Boy Brewing for Ice Dreamz – Ice Dreamz: Raspberry, Ice Dreamz: Blueberry, Blackberry, and Lime (which sounds amazing and I really want to try), and Ice Dreamz: Cranberry, Cherries, and Tangerines.

I haven’t tried the other two variants (yet). But this tasted absolutely delicious. And the others at the podcast – Alex, Andrew, and Drew, all devoured the can I gave them. (Can and all even! Damn monsters.) They all loved the beer just as much as I did, and it was certainly the beer highlight of the night (though Sunny Side Up is always up there as well, as thats just an amazing stout.)

All three variants are listed as Sour – Fruited and 5% ABV on Untappd. So their most likely the same recipe and made the same, with just the different adjuncts (Raspberry singled, then blueberries, blackberries, and limes for the second; and for the third and the one I got to tried – cherries, cranberries, and tangerines).

The picture makes this beer look a little bit darker than it is, but it has a very nice cranberry color to it. A slightly dark red with pink hints. It has the sour look and texture to it, and there is a thin head with nice bubbles. It left a nice lacing on the glass, and no sugary residue or sediment really involved, but an obvious sour look and complexion to the beer.

Aroma is very strong and powerful. From cracking the tab on this one you are assaulted with the various fruit aromas. The cranberry is the standout. It jumps out and is very pungent, powerful, and strong, and nothing in the bad way. You get the notes of cherry and tangerine after that. Probably with tangerine being the least strong (less strong? not as strong?). You can distinguish them with a good clear nose, but just in order of strength it would be cranberry (by a fair margin) then cherry then tangerine.

This is a very smooth, non-textual, sweet sour. The lactose smooths things out, and with it not being a pulpy mess or a sugary smoothie like sour, your not left with that gritty sour texture or clumping that goes on in some other beers. This drinks smooth and sweet to sour. As with the aroma, you get the cranberry very much upfront and strong, like drinking tart cranberry juice, followed with a bit of cherry – luckily not too much, and not the medicinal cherry cough syrup flavor either – and then you get a bit of a blast of citrus kick to end it with the tangerine. It makes for a very nice and well rounded beer with the flavors changing as you sip down and as it all works it way through the beer and down to your gut. Its much more sweet and then tart than a true heavy sour. Its puckering to a small degree but nothing crazy. It tastes a lot like cranberry juice in that aspect. The lactose certainly smooths out the edges of the tartness and makes this a very pleasant beer. And with the 5% you could easily down quite a few while hanging with buddies…. perhaps doing a podcast? Perhaps discussing the finer points of The Mandalorian or Star Wars lore or culture? Who knows what you’ll discuss while drinking it… but I know what we discussed while pounding these bad boys out!

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.04 (as of 12.12.19)

Let me say a final note on this beer – that the can art is pretty cool too, a nice ‘hippy’ / ‘trippy’ cool piece of artwork:

This variant of the Ice Dreamz is currently on draft at both Al’s of Hampden Pizza Boy location and the Official BBQ and Burgers location. They also have a few sixpacks left at the Official BBQ place, for 18$ a six-pack, a fantastic value.

And for those of you sticking around about the podcasts, here’s more information.

The official channel is called “So a Mexican and a Scot walk into a bar…” (Esteban and Drew Scott started the channel, so you can see where the name came from.) You can find their official channel on BuzzSprout here: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk into a Bar….

I have done three podcasts with them now. I did the Breaking Bad and El Camino (broken up into two parts – Part 1 and Part 2), as well as The Mandalorian, and The Irishman. Theres a few different sections to the podcast and categories that they are doing. For the movies and shows they will be mainly under the heading “WTF Did I Just Watch” and for the more esoteric and nerdy things, that might stray away more from just a show or a book or a movie, its going to be under “Esoteric Antics”. The Mandalorian episode was the first under that heading, or category, or show, or series title, or whatever you want to call it. You can find their podcasts to download on BuzzSprout, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, and you can download straight from the site linked here. You can also listen directly to the podcasts on the site as well (though you will need to keep your internet on the whole time.)

Esoteric Antics : The Mandalorian – 1:28:43 – Staring Drew, Ben, Alex, Andrew
WTF Did I Just Watch : The Irishman – 1:45:53 – Staring Drew, Esteban, Ben

My older podcasts I did with them:

WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino / Breaking Bad (Pt. 1) – 1:09:28 – Staring Drew, Estey, Ben
WTF Did I Just Watch: El Camino / Breaking Bad (Pt. 2) – 1:13:22 – Starring Drew, Estey, Ben

Their other podcast topics have included Halloween, Trick or Treat, The Joker, and Stephen King, and have included various other guest hosts like Dan and Andrew.

Thank you everyone for reading and checking out the podcasts. Once a site or FaceBook or Twitter page is set up for the podcasts, I’ll be sure to link them here for you all to see as well and hopefully follow so you’ll be kept up-to-date on the happenings there as well.

Cheers!

-B. Kline

First off, let me say happy Drinksgiving for tonight, and hope you have a very blessed, happy, and fun filled Thanksgiving tomorrow. Moving on from there…. this might be a bit of a short beer review tonight, and a smaller blog post….. I might have started my Drinksgiving early – hitting Troegs right after work and having a flight there; which included Mad Elf and Mad Elf Grand Cru. As well as their scratch beers, and I picked up the Coco-Nator that we had previously reviewed and discussed when Troegs first presented the beer as a can released scratch variant of Troggenator.

So after all those, and now just having eaten a big meal, I find myself writing this blog post up. So it will be quick, succinct, and to the point.

So as a quick preamble, I had gotten this in a beer mail for trading some of the local breweries. Along with the Southern Prohibition, Edmund’s Oast, Westbrook, Fonta Flora, Parish, and Pretoria Collective; this was another southern brewery I got to try out thanks to beer trading. I love doing the local for local trades; I get to try small breweries I’ve never even heard of, and I get to ship some locals of my own – in these past scenarios: Troegs, Boneshire, and Tattered Flag – giving these local breweries some wider recognition and letting others try out breweries they’ve never heard of as well. Its a total win – win for everyone.

Beer: Citraquench’l
Brewery: Heist Brewery
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: 70
Untappd Write-Up: 100% Citra hops, NE Style IPA

For those of you unfamiliar, Citra hops are a bright, juicy, hop explosion every time they are used, especially, particularly, definitely, when used in New England style IPAs. Citra hops are pretty much instantly recognizable in any drink, and are just so full of flavor and juicy goodness you can easily spot it, even amongst a heavy hop lineup.

Appearance is bright yellow to orange, orange juice like in color and texture and sediment is heavy. Nice head that stays and a good lacing.

Aroma is pure citra hops. Powerful, heavy, juicy, fruit hop explosion as soon as it hits you, as soon as you crack the can open, the hop aroma is super powerful, knocking you back as you pour it into your glass. As it flows into the glass it really opens up and the aroma wafts out and just envelopes the area.

Taste is once again: pure Citra hops. Just through and through. As I think this should all be obvious by now, given the can art, the description, what we know of the beer going in, and what I’ve said so far in the review – this is pure Citra hop goodness. This is all kinds of fruit explosions in hop form, you get peach, pineapple, lots and lots of mango, some citrus, some melon rinds, but overall its just a fruity concoction hitting you all at once. As a whole this beer is just a pure hop (fruity hop) bomb, very hazy, very juicy, very dank, little bitterness despite its 70 IBU, and not really much of a hit with alcohol at only 7.1%.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.27 (as of 11.27.19)

I’m off to finish and polish off this Mad Elf Grand Cru bottle and hit the bed. Watching The Irishman by Scorsese on Netflix. Peace all and Happy Thanksgiving and Drinksgiving and see you here tomorrow!

-B. Kline