It has been a long crazy road to get back to this point – brewfests again! Live, interaction, with other human beings, in public, in person. ……and I wish so badly I could go. But sadly, this year has been a giant monkeywrench unforeseen, just like last year, and I will be sadly missing out on the AC Brewfest this year.

Last year’s event was cancelled due to COVID-19 / coronavirus, as was most of everything else last year. Typically the AC Brewfest is in April (usually the first weekend), and so it was hit right at the time COVID-19 really hit America, and was postponed to August of 2020, but as the summer came and we all realized that in – person events were not a good idea, it was cancelled / postponed until now.

Last year, the event was cancelled, the year before that, Drew and I went, and the year before that, Drew, Rory, and I went. Both of those times, we did two sessions – the Friday night 8PM – 12 Midnight session, and then the Saturday session, which both times was also the earlier session. So its certainly a ‘hard on the liver weekend’. Unfortunately, this year, I am unable to go, due to events from earlier in the year, but Drew as a correspondent here of The Beer Thrillers will be going.

In the past, we stayed at Baily’s and went to the Convention Center (by walking) to go to the brewfest. This year, however, the event has been moved to an outdoor venue – the Bader Field Ballpark. Would have been interesting to see it in it’s new venue. Hopefully this will keep some social distancing and help alleviate some of the issues with COVID-19 and everything.

This was also going to be the first year that we were going to do the 5K on Saturday. They host an annual 5K as part of the brewfest, where doing the 5K gets you a little bit of extra time inside the brewfest to start your drinking early….. assuming 1) you survive the 5K, and 2) you get done in a timely manner. Let’s see how Drew does this year.

This is a two day event, with live music, events, games, podcasts, a beard and hair barber; and much more. In the past there were Wipeout like obstacle courses, mazes, hatchet throwing, food trucks, silent raves / discos, and much more.

Of course, live music is a big feature of the event. In past years they’ve had some big band names; one of which was the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones that we got to see in 2018. Last year’s event was supposed to have New Found Glory, but they did not return for this year’s event after last year’s was cancelled.

For more information, you can check out the Facebook Events page here: Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival Events Page. Jon Henderson does an amazing job running this event and puts so much effort and time into it, so its so great to see it up and running again, as this year’s events start to come back to life and breweries can get back out to doing brewfests, beer events, and tap takeovers again.

The information listed on the events page reads:

“Here are the dates for 15th Atlantic City Beer & Music Festival. Session 1 Friday, June 4th – The Early November / Knuckle Puck
Session 2 Saturday, June 5th 12pm – 4pm – Less Than Jake
Session 3 Saturday, June 5th 6pm – 10p – Face To FaceWow, what a crazy year it’s been full of unwanted postponements and cancelations. Good Time Tricycle Productions is excited to announce a fun and necessary changes to the 2021 festival initially slated for April 9th and 10th at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
The Festival team has been working closely with Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, the City of Atlantic City, Meet AC, Spectra, and the CRDA to bring you the first outdoor Atlantic City Beer & Music Festival to be held on Bader Field June 4th and 5th 2021. We are excited about the opportunity to host our festival on the 142-acre piece of property, allowing for producers to create a fun interactive celebration while also enabling the festivities to be spread out for an open-air experience. As a productions company, we are confident that we can maintain attendee safety while delivering the experience that some have come to expect from The Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival. Here are a few things you need to know (or answers to questions you may have)
• All tickets purchased for the 2020 festival will be honored for the June 2021 dates.
• Tickets on sale January 15th
• Refunds are available until March 9th. Head to your Ticketmaster account and request your refund.
• New Musical acts will be announced on March 22nd. (all headliners for 2020 are unavailable for the 2021 date)
• HOPS Trot 5k June 5th
• Ticket prices will increase to $65 plus fees on May 1st.This, like all things related to Covid is a fluid situation. We are optimistically moving forward with all the fun and shenanigans the festival holds. To be candid we are #hellbentonbeerfest! We will keep you updated as we progress. For more information on the festival, including Covid processes and procedure, please visit www.acbeerfest.com Stay awesome and be excellent to each other. 100 brewers and thousands of friends stay tuned for updates.
Tix: linktr.ee/acbeerfest or at JOE CANAL’S DISCOUNT LIQUOR – EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP locations on Fire Rd or Black Horse Pike.”

Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival Facebook

According to the events page, 4K are listed as ‘going’ and 13.2K are listed as ‘interested’ in the event. (In the twenty minutes of writing this article, its actually gone up to 4.1K listed as ‘going’ now.)

Drew is leaving today at noon-ish with Rome, possibly A. Parys and maybe a few others. Hopefully, next year I’ll be able to rejoin the fun and festivities. Drew will be sending pictures and comments and videos back, both for here on the blog, and his video game streaming page – Knights of Nostalgia – so be on the lookout for those updates. Next Saturday (June 12th) is the Renaissance Faire brewfest, which I will also be missing, but Drew will be attending, and will give us updates on as well. So be on the lookout for these articles.

So be sure to check tomorrow morning for Day 1 comments / correspondence / clips / pics of the AC Brewfest, and then Sunday for Day 2 of the event.

As always, make sure to check out our social media pages to stay up to date on everything going on with The Beer Thrillers.

Summer is here and events are starting to happen, what are some cool events you all know of? What all events are everyone going to? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Thanks for reading!

-B. Kline

Firstly, the other listicles I’ve done:
* Our Most Viewed Articles (September, 2019)
* Some Old Posts (September, 2019)

From our friends at Let Us Drink Beer Blog:

Beer Review: ETA IPA (Wild Leap Brew Co.)

Beer Reviews by J. Doncevic:

Beer Review: Colonization (Adroit Theory)

Beer Review: EBK – Gashadokuro (Ghost 782) – Adroit Theory

Beer Reviews: Envie and Envie 4XDH (Parish Brewing)

Beer Review: Ekuanot Astronaut (BAREbottle Brewing Co.)

Beer Review: Ghost In The Machine (Parish Brewing Co.)

Beer Review: Enigma (Anchorage Brewing Company)

Beer Review: Ectogasm (Drekker Brewing Co.)

After a few months of us doing the beer reviews, I added the category – styles; where you can click through to find your favorite style or if you want to check out reviews for a particular style. I haven’t gotten to go back through and add the old reviews to the new categories, but I will. In the mean-time, we currently have 26 (and growing) in the IPA Category. You can find it by clicking it here: Categories: Style: IPA.

IPA Beer Reviews by B. Kline:

Beer Review: 40th Hoppy Anniversary Ale (Sierra Nevada Brewing Company)

Beer Review: Icicle (New Trail Brewing Co)

Beer Review: Trial by Wombat (Thin Man Brewery)

Beer Review: Furious IPA (Surly Brewing)

Beer Review: Back to Reality (Three 3s Brewing Co)

Beer Review: Petes Secret Stache (Revision Brewing Company)

Beer Review: Loki – Wild IPA (Newfangled Brew Works)

Beer Review: Doppelgänger (Tree House Brewing)

Beer Review: This is The Way (Broken Goblet)

Beer Review: Julius (Tree House Brewing)

Beer Review: The Hog (Boneshire Brew Works)

Beer Review: Citraquench’l (Heist Brewery)

Beer Review: Moon of Vega (Equilibrium Brewing)

Beer Review: Paradise Lost (Southern Prohibition Brewing)

Beer Review: Fuzzy Nudge (Troegs Independent Brewing)

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

And there are plenty more too! From breweries like Boneshire Brew Works, The Millworks, Tattered Flag, South County, New Trail, Troegs Brewing, Anchorage Brewing, Rotunda Brewing, ZeroDay Brewing, Newfangled Brew Works, and so many more! With more getting added constantly.

We’ve been running this blog since late May last year. I (B. Kline) have done a few podcasts (for both beer and pop culture). I am also doing a Beer Education series right now, with a running table of contents. You can see the table of contents (so far) below:

The Beer Education Series:
* Beer Education: Series
* Beer Education: Syllabus
* Beer Education: Introduction
* Beer Education: Module One: The History of Beer Brewing
* Beer Education: Module Two: Barley and Malting
* Beer Education: Module Three: Water

Hopefully (fingers crossed) there will most likely be Module Four released and posted tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a wonderful, hoppy, and happy Easter. It wasn’t my usual, but it was an Easter spent with family. So that in and of itself made it a good day. Got to do some grilling for Easter dinner:

Nothing beats grilling and drinking a wonderful (D)IPA like Time Keeper by Fourscore Beer Co.

So from us here at The Beer Thrillers to your family, we hope you had a wonderful hoppy Easter. Please stay safe, and cheers everyone!

In the immortal words of Eminem:

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?Yo
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti
He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgettin’
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out
He’s chokin’, how, everybody’s jokin’ now
The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow!
Snap back to reality, oh there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He’s so mad, but he won’t give up that easy? No
He won’t have it, he knows his whole back’s to these ropes
It don’t matter, he’s dope, he knows that, but he’s broke
He’s…

Eminem: Lose Yourself

I can’t possibly be the only person who as soon as they read the can “Back to Reality” started hearing the lyrics to Lose Yourself in the back of their head right? Yea, I know, the can label is all about Back to the Future complete with the Deloreaon, but still…. ….I’m not the only one right? Right?

Maybe I am, maybe everyone else mentally runs with the Back to the Future imagery and goes with that. Perhaps its my generation, who grew up on Eminem, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Staind, Disturbed, Korn, etc, etc, etc, that might think of Eminem. Maybe I just have a wire loose in the old noggin. (Most likely that…. 13 concussions and all that……)

So lets snap back to the present (…or to reality…………) and talk about this fun, delicious, bright beer. Sadly, I’ve only had a handful of beers from Three 3’s Brewing, but nothing has disappointed, that’s for sure. I’ve enjoyed them all and they’ve all been fun, delicious, tasty brews. They’re another of a handful of fun breweries doing fun beer names and labels. And luckily, unlike some breweries, they actually have the beer brewing chops behind them to insure you still get a good beer rather than like some that just coast on beer name and label alone on the hopes of you buying their beer. This is The Way by Broken Goblet is a good example of a beer name, label, (can art), and backstory that will sell cans… but is also a really good beer. Sadly, for every good example like This is the Way and Back to Reality, there is an equal or larger number of beers that don’t deliver despite their cool name and can art.

But before we get into the future, or go too far into the past, let’s stay in the moment, in the present, in reality, and review this tasty delicious beer:

Three 3’s Brewing Co. is a micro brewery out of Hammonton New Jersey. On Untappd they have 130 unique beers listed with a global average rating of 3.8 (as of 2.18.20). Their description on Untappd reads: “Stop in for a pour, taste and to grab a growler to go! Follow us for tap list updates and events! Just 30 mins from A/C & Philly.”

Beer: Back to Reality
Brewery: Three 3’s Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: A bright IPA in the truest sense. Heavy additions of wheat and oats create a lush mouthfeel. We walloped this one with some of our favorite American hops (Amarillo, Mosaic and Simcoe) in the whirlpool and dry hop. Notes of ripe orange peel, fresh picked tangerine and citrus. An all-day crusher that won’t tire the palate.

I love it when a description for a beer uses a word I’ve used several times (without me even knowing its in their description). It either makes me think I’m smart (to some degree anyway) or makes me wonder (and go insane doing so) if I had read the description and the word has entered my subconscious about the beer. The word for this one is: bright. I used it a few times talking about its appearance, and it is certainly bright. It has a orange hue, bright, a bit dank and hazy, not fully filtered, but not completely unfiltered either. There is a nice white foamy head and it left nice lacing on the glass.

Aroma is a blast of hop. You can definitely pick out the citrus of the Amarillo and the defined notes of Mosaic and Simcoe hopes. The dry hopping for the beer really brings these to the forefront, particularly Amarillo’s citrus and Simcoe’s defined, unique hop aromas and notes. The hops leave you with notes of citrus, tangerine, orange (mainly peel / rind) but you also get some distinct blood orange aroma notes.

Firstly, this is a smooth beer. There is no hop bite, and its all the more citrus and citrus fruit notes, so there’s no pine, no earthy, no musky, nothing but the bright fruit flavors that go with these kind of citrus notes. Been using the term ‘bright’ for this beer quite a bit in this review, but its just so apt. From appearance to aroma to taste, it just feels bright, it feels flavorful, it feels bold, it feels open, fruity, citrusy, it feels light. This feels like walking through a Florida orange orchard or grove or farm or whatever the terminology is for orange trees and growing and farming and what not. (I’m pretty sure its orchards… like apple orchards… etc.) Great orange, tangerine, blood orange, citrus, zest, all kinds of the bright orange fruit flavors just pounce on you as you drink this down. And it is incredibly smooth and easy to drink. Its practically like drinking orange juice. Luckily the low ABV (6%) makes this not a problem at all. Sadly I only had one can to drink, because I could easily drain a four pack of this in an hour’s sitting no problem at all.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.85 (as of 2.18.20)

This was one of many beers D. Scott had picked up from Breski’s Beverages mix-a-six. They have a wonderful selection of New England IPAs, singles, and great cans and bottles from a variety of breweries you won’t be getting at your normal distributors. Well worth checking them out for that.

So I know I said I might do the Intemperance last night as a double-blog-day, but I ended up at D. Scott’s where we worked on finishing his keg of Nugget Nectar and watched RedLetterMedia and talked about upcoming podcasts.

So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar… is the podcast that my friends D. Scott, Esteban, and myself and a random assortment of other people do. They recently did a commentary track for “My Bloody Valentine (1981)“, so be sure to check that out. Me and Esteban will be finishing up the series on LOST soon, we’ve done one for Seasons 1 and 2, and will be doing two follow up ones – for seasons 3 and 4; and 5 and 6.

Speaking of podcasts, exciting news for me – B. Kline. I am going to be on two upcoming podcasts (dates and times to be determined). John Wilcox has invited me out to Exton PA to do a podcast with him about beer. John’s podcasts are called “Might Be Brews“. And Tony Russo in Maryland is going to have me as a call-on on his podcast “Beers with Strangers“. They have a nice, full complete library of podcasts you can listen to here: Beers with Strangers Podcasts. You can check out both Might Be Brews and Beers with Strangers on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Also, exciting news, Rubber Soul Brewing (soon to open here in my hometown of Hummelstown) has invited me out in the upcoming for a check-out of the facility and building. So I should be able to give an in-depth write-up soon. I’ve been wanting to write up about them opening, but been waiting to pull the trigger on it. Breweries in PA jumped me a bit by doing a write-up yesterday (2.17.20) on them. If you’ve been following our Facebook page you’ll see some pictures I’ve taken of the building when I’ve walked by it recently.

Speaking of Facebook, we’re currently at 399 followers. Can’t wait to hit 400, hopefully today! If you have friends, invite them to the page and let them know!

You can also see some of our recent posts – I Cannot Tell a Lie, Florence, Loki – Wild IPA, Brewery Visit to Mellow Mink, Doppelganger, Beer Share at Tattered Flag, and Valentine’s Day Beers.

Until next time everyone, peace, and cheers!

-B. Kline