The Hershey Bears Know How to Celebrate

The Hershey Bears know how to celebrate, and celebrate they did today! Earlier today (around 2 PM) they were at the Troegs Brewery in Hershey (just down the road from where they play at the Giant Center).

Several of the players came to the brewery today and brought the Calder Cup trophy with them. The team won the championship in a thrilling overtime win on June 21st at Coachella Valley, beating the Coachella Valley Firebirds 3 to 2 and winning the Best of 7 finals 4 – 3.

What better place to celebrate such a hard earned victory than your own home town brewery? And there is none bigger or better to celebrate in Pennsylvania than Troegs Independent Craft Brewing in Hershey, PA. Located right on HersheyPark Drive, right down the road from the famous HersheyPark itself and the Giant Center where the Hershey Bears play their home games.

Calder Cup Championship

The Calder Cup Championship is not an easy endeavor to win, just like any sports championship. The AHL (minor league to the NHL) is not easy, with all the trials and tribulations that normal sports have, the minor leagues have added issues with having less budget, having their players getting called up to the pros, and all kinds of other issues that plague smaller teams than major league sports have.

The Hershey Bears certainly deserved this year’s win; winning the championship on the road in Coachella Valley in overtime, in a best of seven series, in game seven. There’s no more dramatic way than that to win it!

From Wikipedia:

The 2023 Calder Cup playoffs was the postseason tournament of the American Hockey League (AHL) to determine the winner of the Calder Cup, which is awarded to the AHL playoff champions.

The 2023 playoffs began on April 18, 2023, with the 23-team playoff format that was introduced in 2022. All teams except the bottom two teams of the Atlantic, North, and Central divisions, as well as the bottom three teams of the Pacific division qualified for the playoffs. Each division has a best-of-three series in the first round to determine the top 16 teams for the division semifinals, with various teams receiving byes based on regular season performance.^[1]

The 16 teams that remain—four from each division—will play a best-of-five series in the division semifinals, with the playoffs continuing with another best-of-five series for the division finals and a best-of-seven series for the conference finals and Calder Cup finals.

The Hershey Bears defeated the Coachella Valley Firebirds in overtime of game seven, granting Hershey their 12th Calder Cup in team history and first since 2010.

2023 Calder Cup Playoffs (Wiki)

This is the Hershey Bears 12th Calder Cup Championship. Their last win before this was in 2010. They won Calder Cup championships in 1947, 1958, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1980, 1988, 1997, 2006, 2009, 2010, and now 2023.

From Wiki:

The Hershey Bears are a professional ice hockey team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town located 14 miles east of the state capital of Harrisburg. The current Bears club has played in the American Hockey League since the 1938–39 season making it the longest continuously operating member club of the league still playing in its original city.^[1][2][3]

The Bears organization currently serves as the primary development club for the NHL’s Washington Capitals since 2005-06. Since 2002-03, the hockey club’s home games have been played at Giant Center, located less than half a mile west of Hersheypark Arena, the AHL club’s previous home from 1938 to 2002. (The arena was also the home to the EAHL Hershey Bears from 1936 to 1938.) The Bears have won 12 Calder Cups, more than any other AHL team. They won their most recent title in 2023.

Chocolate manufacturer Milton S. Hershey first established the “Hershey Hockey Club” in 1932 to manage professional hockey teams based in Hershey. Now in its ninth decade, it has operated four teams in three pro leagues, including the AHL Bears. Now called the Hershey Bears Hockey Club, it is a subsidiary of the Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company (originally called “Hershey Estates” and later “HERCO”), the entertainment and hospitality division of the Hershey Trust Company.^[1][4]

Gordie Howe, who was selected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972 and was known as “Mr. Hockey”, once remarked, “Everybody who is anybody in hockey has played in Hershey,” although he himself did not play there.^[5]

Hershey Bears (Wiki)

The Hershey Bears are possibly best known for their Teddy Bear toss every year. The Hershey Bears hockey team annually host a charity event called the Teddy bear toss. In 2018, they broke the world record for the amount of teddy bears collected, as they counted 34,798 in total. For 2019 they counted 45,650 bears. In the 2021 season, which was their 20th Teddy Bear Toss, they racked up 52,341 bears. In 2023, After the Bears lost 2–0 to the Bridgeport Islanders, the fans in attendance threw teddy bears with 5.4 seconds left. They counted 67,309 Stuffed teddy bears.

Calder Cup Playoffs

The Hershey Bears entered the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs as the number one seed from the Atlantic Division.

They faced off against the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the Calder Cup Championships.

The Coachella Valley Firebirds were the number one seed overall and got to have home ice advantage for the finals. The series was structured to be two home, three away, two home in the home team’s favor.

The series was a home sweep until the final game. Coachella Valley won their first two games at home with commanding scores of 5 – 0 in game one, and 4 – 0 in game two.

The series then came to Hershey, and the Bears took charge, winning all three games. But all very close, tight victories. Game three they won 5 – 4 in overtime, in game four they won 3 – 2, and in game five they won 1 – 0 again overtime.

The series then went back to Coachella Valley with the Bears leading 3 – 2. Immediately in the first game back home, the Firebirds won with an impressive 5 -2 to even the series at 3 a piece. At this point in the series, the Firebirds had a total score of 20 to the Bears 11.

The final game didn’t start out great for the Bears, with the score being 1 – 0 and soon 2 – 1. But the Bears tied it up and made it 2 – 2, the third period saw no goals, which left yet another game (the third of the series) to go into overtime. With under four minutes to go in the first period of overtime, the Bears find the back of the net and “tickle the twine” for the victory, and securing their 12th Calder Cup Championship!

Celebration at Troegs Brewery

Getting back to the subject of the matter, some of the Hershey Bears players decided they would spend the day with the Calder Cup Championship today at Troegs Brewery in Hershey. Celebrating with their friends, enjoying delicious craft beer our of the prestigious trophy cup.

News of them being at the brewery spread quickly in Central PA and many came out to the brewery to see them hoist the trophy up and to drink from it. They even went around letting their fans sip from it.

As Conlan Budwash, former Troegs Brewery employee, and currently part owner of Pilger Ruh Brewing said on our Facebook page: “I drove right from Pottsville just to get a pic then they offered me a sip and I couldn’t say no.”

I have to agree with Conlan on this one, you can’t say no to that. Its not everyday that you get to drink out of a major sports trophy.

Plus to get to do it while drinking incredible craft beer (in this case, Troegs Independent Craft Brewing’s Perpetual IPA) at one of the best breweries in the state, how could it get any better?

From the Troegs Brewing Facebook page:

We don’t fill outside cups here at the brewery, but we made an exception. Cheers to your 12th Calder Cup, Hershey Bears!

Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Facebook Post)

Hershey Bears Celebration at the Giant Center

Tomorrow at 3 PM the Hershey Bears are celebrating their 12th Calder Cup Championship at the Giant Center. For more information, you can check out this article: Hershey Bears to celebrate Calder Cup championship with fans on Saturday.

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

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 133 unique beers listed (despite them being up to well over 400 different scratch beers released). They have nearly 2.3 Million ratings and as of 6.23.23 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.“

Thank You For Reading

If you like this article, please check out our other many articles, including news, beer reviews, travelogues, maps, and much much more. We greatly appreciate everyone visiting the site!

Cheers.

-B. Kline

Thanks again for reading everyone. Take some time to check out the site, we greatly appreciate it. We have affiliates and sponsors with Pretzels.com and Beer Drop.com, which can save you money on their products if you are interested. Check out our articles on them. Make sure to check out our beer reviews, brewery reviews, Amy’s weekly column, book reviews, hike reviews, and so much more.

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

We are working on a massive project here at The Beer Thrillers. We are creating a map of all of the breweries across the United States. State by state we are adding maps of all of the different states with every brewery in each state. (We will eventually get to the US Territories, as well as the Canadian Provinces, and possibly more countries; as well as doing some fun maps like a map of all the breweries we’ve been to, and other fun maps.) You can find the brewery maps here:

• MAPS OF BREWERIES

We are also working on a project of creating printable and downloadable PDFs and resources to be able to check and keep track of all of the breweries you’ve been to. So stay tuned for that project once we are finished with the Brewery Maps of the US States.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. As well as our brand new Tumblr page. 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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

The Beer Thrillers on LinkTree can be found here: The Beer Thrillers LinkTree.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

This Fast Paced World

Life just never seems to slow down.  I have these grandiose plans of things to do when I’m bored.  Do I really expect that might happen in my lifetime?

One thing I do have to be thankful for is when meeting the wonderful editor/creator of this blog as he retaught me how to take time for myself and relax.  So now that we have a 5 – month – old daughter together, we still make time to do just that.  I’m sure you know what I’m about to claim is our favorite relaxation activity?  Yup, you got it, go have a beer! 

The past couple of outings we have visited some breweries they were definitely at times when both sat down with a beer and let out a big sigh.  This is what breweries do for us.  They become our 3^rd home.  That one we have those relaxation dreams and plan big.

Local Favorites

The past few weeks have consisted of some visits at some fav breweries around our area; many more favs on the list of course!  We just had our first outside beer drinking over at Troegs Independent Craft Brewing in Hershey.  There we split a flight and shared a smoked brisket sandwich with a side of hop fries.  I remember being so excited to be able to sit on the patio outside.  It’s about making sure to take that bit of relaxation, squeeze it in your day! 

We swung by Cox Brewing Company when we were in the area running errands and trying desperately not to forget a stop.  We shared the Gene Wenger’s meats and fine foods snack pack.  We were sitting in the open-door garage with the breeze blowing after the morning rain in their new/old Rheems location.  Admit it, you took a deep breath in as you read that last line.  I did too.  We took the time to share some brews, some laughs and some deep sighs before heading out of CBC.  Then we tackled the rest of that To-Do list!

(Read Amy’s column last week about Cox Brewing Company – Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots.)

Another awesome moment to sit outside was at Boneshire Brew Works in Rutherford, we enjoyed the picnic table layout in the parking lot.  We munched on our fav of their amazing pizza creations, the bacon thyme pizza. 

We each sipped on a beer and enjoyed the evening outside.  (Ben got ‘The Heights’ IPA and I got the ‘Pletzfest’ festbier.) It was a beautiful evening, and was fun to see the ‘Death Rattler’ truck pull up.

We did Pizza Boy in Enola in the half outside room they have and it was great introducing my mom to Pizza Boy too.  Yup, my mom loves the craft beer too.  We actually just took her to Pizza Boy again tonight.  We swung by there both times after a couple mile walk. (First trip we walked the Vincent DiFilippo Nature Preserve, and the second trip we walked Grandon Farm Trail starting from Creekview Park South.)

(You can read Ben’s book review about the art of stillness and relaxing here: Book Review: The Art of Stillness – Adventures in Going Nowhere (Pico Iyer).)

Ok that’s it, I need to go relax and so should you. 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Ferris Bueller

Drink More Beer!

-Amy

Thank You For Reading

If you really want to take the day off, you can check out some of our articles, like this one about Hemp and Beer:

• Hemp and Beer – Happy 4:20 Day

Or this list of Amy’s weekly column articles:

• Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots
• Peanut Butter Eggs, Easter, Beer, and Yah Brew’s Shimmy Shake (Beer Review)
• Beer and Pretzel Review: Legends and Lore (St. Boniface Brewing Company) and Garlic Parm Pretzels (Pretzels.com)
• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)

Thanks for reading everyone. Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow, to keep getting our great content. Comment and let us know what you think, give us your suggestions, ideas, or thoughts. Any questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us through the CONTACT US page.

Cheers!

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

Top 50 Breweries

Yesterday’s article took a look at the Top 50 Craft Breweries as per the Brewer’s Association’s annual list. Click the above link to see which breweries are still considered craft (as per the Brewer’s Association’s definition of craft brewing – which you can find here: Craft Brewing Definition) and are the top 50 breweries (as per production).

Today’s list takes a look at the Top Overall 50 Breweries as per the Brewer’s Association, for the year of 2023.

Top 50 Overall Breweries (2023)

The following list comes directly from the Brewer’s Association report. For more information visit them here: Brewer’s Association – Annual Report – Top 50 Breweries.

For more information visit: Brewer’s Association – Top 50 Breweries (2023).

About the Brewer’s Association

(From their page.)

The Brewers Association (BA) is the not-for-profit trade association dedicated to small and independent American brewers, their beers, and the community of brewing enthusiasts. The BA represents 5,600-plus U.S. breweries. The BA’s independent craft brewer seal is a widely adopted symbol that differentiates beers by small and independent craft brewers. The BA organizes events including the World Beer Cup^®, Great American Beer Festival^®, Craft Brewers Conference^® & BrewExpo America^®, SAVOR^™: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience, Homebrew Con^™, National Homebrew Competition and American Craft Beer Week^®. The BA publishes The New Brewer^® magazine, and Brewers Publications^® is the leading publisher of brewing literature in the U.S. Beer lovers are invited to learn more about the dynamic world of craft beer at CraftBeer.com^® and about homebrewing via the American Homebrewers Association^®. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Brewers Association is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital/familial status. The BA complies with provisions of Executive Order 13672 and the rules, regulations, and relevant orders of the Secretary of Labor.

Brewer’s Association

Related Articles

• The Battle of the Breweries (2023) Winner Is
• Top 50 Craft Brewing Companies in the United States (2023)
• What is Craft Beer?
• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Beer: A Guide to the Best Non Alcoholic Brews
• Best Non-Alcoholic Beers For 2021
• Craft Beer 101: Your Guide to the World of Small – Batch Brewing
• How to Build Your Own Homebrew: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Beer Enthusiasts
• Brewing a Traditional Lithuanian Farmhouse Beer – Keptinis
• Map of Maine Breweries
• Map of New Hampshire Breweries
• Map of Vermont Breweries

Thank You For Reading

Personal proud note – its great to see Troegs Brewing (local – five minute away brewery) do well even on the Top 50 Overall list, hanging in there at 35. They were 25 on the Craft Breweries list, and only dropped 10 spots on the Overall 50 list. Impressive.

Ok everyone, thank you for reading. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions or anything at all, don’t hesitate to comment.

Please like, subscribe, share, and follow.

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

We have partnered with an affiliateship with Beer Drop.com. You can check out that partnership and receive great discounts, coupons, and more here: Beer Drop. Going here and logging in and ordering will help you receive your discounts and coupons as well as help support our page. Thank you for helping to support The Beer Thrillers and to help us maintain the site and blog and to keep it running.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #8 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. (As of January 2023.) Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!

If you would like to reach out to us for product reviews, beer reviews, press release writing, and other media – please contact us at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com. Thank you.

Another Blizzard is Brewing

Another blizzard is brewing! Monday December 5th, 2022 – Troegs Independent Craft Brewing is releasing their seasonal fan favorite – Double Blizzard. Based off Blizzard of Hops, Double Blizzard or Double Blizzard of Hops is a ramped up fan favorite that is eagerly awaited by the Central PA beer enthusiasts.

As Troegs Independent Craft Brewing puts it:

This is Blizzard of Hops …

turned up to 11. For Double Blizzard, we used a cooler temperature for the kettle hop additions, softening the character of the Centennial, Chinook and El Dorado. On the cold side, we dry-hopped with four pounds per barrel of Chinook and Galaxy. At 8.3% ABV, we’re into semi-hazy Double IPA territory, and we like it here!

Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (Official Website – Blog) – Double Blizzard (Direct Page)

Notes on the Double Blizzard

Direct from Troegs Independent Craft Brewing the details of Double Blizzard are:

• ABV: 8.3%
• Availability: Once Per Year
• Color: Hazy Gold
• Hops: Centennial, Chinook, El Dorado, Galaxy
• Grain: Pilsner, Unmalted Wheat, White Wheat
• Yeast: House Yeast

Beer Review

I reviewed Double Blizzard last year (On December 6th, 2021). You can read the review here: Beer Review: Double Blizzard (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing).

A small excerpt from the article:

This is definitely as advertised – Blizzard of Hops cranked up to 11! Its bright, its bold, its strong, its beautiful, its dry hopped, its explosive hop aroma and flavor, its juicy and fresh. It is downright delicious. Like I said, there’s a reason why this is one of the more anticipated releases each year for Troegs Brewing. You get all of the bold flavor of the dry hopping right out the gate and it hits you pretty good and hard. Lots of hop aroma and flavor that just nails it, citrus, pineapple, some tropical notes, a little bit of lime, grapefruit to a small extent, and just a wee bit of earthy / grassy hop flavor as well. This is extremely juicy and tasty, the haziness is not a sediment hazy, but just a good New England IPA hazy. The mouth feel on this is incredible too, it drinks just right, its not watery, not thin, not too heavy or cloying, the haze has no sediment, so your not drinking any particles or anything, your drinking a smooth beer that just looks on the hazy end of the spectrum. There is no off flavors, nothing off putting in this, it is brewed well, methodically, and there is nothing off putting or upsetting with it at all. No bad aroma, no bad flavor, no bad appearance. No horrible aftertaste, no bad post beer burps or anything like that. This is just a great beer for the winter months, even though its not a stout, its still a wonderful wintry beer, filling, full, heavy, with a good ABV to it (8.3%), that leaves you feeling warmer after having drank it. And it pairs so well with a wonderful dinner after a long day at work, that it just makes you wanna cozy up in bed afterwards and fall right to sleep.

Beer Review: Double Blizzard (Troegs Independent Craft Brewing)

Make sure you read the full article, it was a fun review of a good beer.

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)

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 127 unique beers listed (despite them being up to well over 400 different scratch beers released). They have over 2.3 Million ratings and as of 12.5.22 have a global average rating of 3.9. 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.“

Thanks For Reading

As always everyone, thanks for reading. We always greatly appreciate everyone checking out the blog, our social media pages, and participating with us. We hope you enjoy reading our articles, be it the news articles, the beer reviews, the brewery reviews, the book reviews, etc.

I know the year is winding down, but we still have lots of big stuff coming out and 2023 is looking even stronger and better than 2022. So be sure to like, subscribe, follow, comment, etc. We would love to hear from you all!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. If you would like to donate to the blog you can here: Donate to The Beer Thrillers. Thank you!

You can also check out our partnership and affiliation with Pretzels.com, where ordering pretzels and using our affiliate code will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!

Then There Was Four… And Now There is Two

Another round of hard fought battles is over, and the dust is settling this fine Friday morning. Where once stood four gladiators now stands two, and the broken glass and cans of the other two lay at their feet (…or base of their bottle). We are now at our final two competitors, the finals, the end, the completion of this long and grueling, arduous competition – all to declare who is the toughest, the strongest, the most fittest of thirty two flagship beers practically chosen at random by myself.

Results

Let’s dive into the Final Four’s results:

• (4) Toppling Goliath – Pseudo Sue (with 31 votes) defeated (1) The Alchemist – Heady Topper (with 12 votes)
• (9) Von C Brewing – Walking on Clouds (with 120 votes) defeated (18) Troegs Independent Craft Brewing – Perpetual IPA (with 21 votes)

Statistics

• Toppling Goliath was the only upset victory this week – with a (4) over a (1).
• Von C Brewing was the only favorite victory this week – with a (9) over a (18).
• Von C Brewing’s Walking on Clouds had the most votes again this week with 120 votes.
• This was 99 votes over Troegs Brewing’s Perpetual IPA.

The Finals

This makes us all set for the finals now, and what a finals its looking to be!

It will pit Toppling Goliath’s Pseudo Sue vs. Von C Brewing’s Walking on Clouds. Its looking to be a true “David vs. Goliath” match up here (ahahahaha…. get the pun…. get it? ….Do you see it? Get it? …Sigh.)

The voting article will be posted shortly. All prior rules still apply for the Finals. You can vote daily, you can share the post to get as many people voting as possible, etc. The voting will end on August 4th at 11:59PM EST. (So next Thursday into Friday at Midnight it will end.)

Past Battle of the Beers Articles

How did we get to the Finals:

• The Battle of the Beers (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 8 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 8 (Results) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 4 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 4 (Results) (2022)

Wrap Up

Thank you all for checking out the results and participating in the tournament. This is our first Battle of the Beers tournament, but our third tournament overall (after having done a Battle of the Breweries (2021) and a Battle of the Breweries (2022)). These are a lot of fun to run and manage, and its great to see the participation of the fans and community. So I just want to thank everyone for coming to The Beer Thrillers blog and participating in the tournament. You guys make all this happen and without you there would be no tournaments or The Beer Thrillers in general. So we greatly appreciate all your support and everything.

Some Recent Articles of Note

• Weyerbacher Tap Room Indefinitely Closing
• Shy Bear Brewing Expanding into Altoona and Hershey Pennsylvania

Thanks For Reading

Tomorrow we will be down in Newfreedom for a memorial service for my Aunt Linda. After that, we might be going to various places, not sure. This weekend is also the Black Flag Brewing Company’s 6th Anniversary, so we might be stopping there. There is also the Schulkyll Brewfest this weekend. So might try and get there for that too. I might be going with Drew or Amy today to the Black Flag Brewery, if not today, then possibly tomorrow after the service. But as everything else, the future is fluid, so who knows. Thanks for reading!

Well, wherever we’ll end up, ya’ll will know it!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

You can now find us on our Discord Server here: The Beer Thrillers (Discord Server). We’ve also joined LinkTree to keep track of all of our social media pages, as well as hot new articles we’ve written.

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. Thank you!

It’s the Final (….four)…. Count Down

Its the final four…. count down. Four flagship beers remain. Four breweries who brewed those flagship beers remain. They hail from all parts of… well… the United States, and they have all entered into this gladiator pit (pretty much unwillingly, I kind of just picked them, threw them in there, and you guys voted on them like a bunch of Roman Emperors, determining who survives and who doesn’t). But anyway, these fine gladiators come here to duke it out, and see who goes on to our finals next week.

Yes, that means its the Final Four! And basically the semi finals of the tournament! The four breweries that remain are:

• The Alchemist (from Stowe, Vermont)
• Toppling Goliath (from Decorah, Iowa)
• Von C Brewing (from Norristown, Pennsylvania)
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing (from Hershey, Pennsylvania)

The Final Four Competitors

Its interesting to note the final four that we have. The Alchemist and Toppling Goliath are giants in the feed, well known from across the country. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing is a regional staple in the eastern area with a decently large distribution footprint – especially well known in Pennsylvania (its the second largest brewery in the state), and there is the little David in this fight – Von C Brewing out of Norristown, PA. Who have been on a hot streak, as a new brewery, wracking up wins and records all over the place. The biggest – as far as we are concerned here at The Beer Thrillers – is they won this year’s Battle of the Breweries (2022). You can see their win here: And the Winner Is….. (2022).

So this is certainly a heated up final four. Two industry giants and favorites, a brewery that is a regional giant and is celebrating their 25th anniversary, and a brewery just over a year old that keeps winning awards and medals left and right. So who becomes the true winner? We shall see! You guys will decide!

Who Did We Lose?

Who did we lose and that didn’t make it from the Elite Eight to the Final Four? (Because sadly, somebody’s bottle has to be broken.) They were:

• (14) Rotunda Brewing Company – Annville IPA
• (23) Tattered Flag – TMI PA
• (3) Lawson’s Finest Liquids – Sip of Sunshine
• (11) Rubber Soul Brewing Company – Dropout

How Did They Get Here?

How did we get here with these brewed gladiators? Check out these other pages of the tournament to find out:

• The Battle of the Beers (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 32 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 16 (Results – Recap) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 8 (Voting) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 8 (Results) (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers – Round of 4 (Voting) (2022)

Voting

The remaining schedule of voting for the tournament goes as such:

• Round of 4: July 22nd – July 28th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 2: July 29th – August 4th at 11:59PM (EST)

You can vote daily, so be sure to bookmark and come back and vote each day. Also be sure to share this post on all of your different social media platforms to get your friends and fans to vote as well.

So let’s vote:

Things Are Certainly Heating Up

And I don’t just mean the temperature – which it is that too (it has been a scorcher of a week here in Central PA). But we are down to the Final Four of the tournament, so we have just two rounds left. This week and next week’s finals heads up matchup. Who will walk away top dog / top beer / top whatever? You guys will decide!

Wrap Up

Thank you all for checking out the results and participating in the tournament. This is our first Battle of the Beers tournament, but our third tournament overall (after having done a Battle of the Breweries (2021) and a Battle of the Breweries (2022)). These are a lot of fun to run and manage, and its great to see the participation of the fans and community. So I just want to thank everyone for coming to The Beer Thrillers blog and participating in the tournament. You guys make all this happen and without you there would be no tournaments or The Beer Thrillers in general. So we greatly appreciate all your support and everything.

Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots Going On

There is always lots and lots and lots and lots going on here at The Beer Thrillers. Please check out the site, look at all the different articles by numerous writers (myself – B. Kline, Josh – J. Doncevic, Default Brewing, Karl’s great homebrewing article, Amy’s articles, etc.). With us being halfway through the year, we have a new slew of content that is out, or is coming out shortly (list articles and the such), so be on the lookout for that. Also the layout should soon be getting a change, so that will hopefully make the site look nicer. (Excuse the dust while we work.)

There is always beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, and news so always be checking back to see that. Also look for upcoming podcasts, and even YouTube videos soon. And if you check out our Facebook page, you’ll see that I occasionally do live video game streaming with our friend Drew over at Knights of Nostalgia.

Thanks For Reading

Thank you all so very much for participating in the tournament! Hope your having as much of a blast in it as we are running it here! Try and stay cool and drink some good beers on this hot day!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

The Beer Thrillers are a blog that prides itself on writing beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, news (especially local to the Central PA brewery scene), as well as covering other topics of our interests – such as hiking, literature and books, board games, and video games which we sometimes stream with our friends over at Knights of Nostalgia. We are currently listed as #7 on FeedSpot’s “Top 100 Beer Blogs” and #9 on FeedSpot’s “Top 40 Pennsylvania Blogs”. Thank you for reading our site today, please subscribe, follow, and bookmark. Please reach out to us if you are interested in working together. Thank you!

Onto the Round of 16

Week two has begun and we’re now down to 16 flagship beers and their breweries! Congratulations to the 16 breweries and their flagship beers that have moved on. We do have a results page showing who won here: The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 Results.

For the articles on the tournament so far, you can check them out here:

• The Battle of the Beers (2022)
• The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 (Voting)
• The Battle of the Beers (2022) – Round of 32 (Results)

Remaining Voting Schedule

The remaining voting schedule is:

• Round of 16: July 8th – July 14th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 8: July 15th – July 21st at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 4: July 22nd – July 28th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 2: July 29th – August 4th at 11:59PM (EST)

Please remember – you can vote once per day.

Voting

So let’s get right down to it, and get to the voting! Here is this week’s beers to vote on (The Round of 16):

You can vote once per day. The voting for this round (round of 16) will end on July 14th at 11:59PM EST. So you have just under one week to vote.

Beers and Breweries Left

Quick recap of where we’re at – the following beers and their breweries that are left are:

• The Alchemist – Heady Topper
• Boneshire Brew Works – Green Machine
• Rotunda Brewing – Annville IPA
• Pizza Boy – Murren River
• Tattered Flag – TMI PA
• Bell’s Brewery – Two Hearted Ale
• Dewey Beer Co. – Swishy Pants
• Toppling Goliath – Pseudo Sue
• Lawson’s Finest Liquids – Sip of Sunshine
• Sierra Nevada – Pale Ale
• Ommegang – Three Philosophers
• Von C Brewing – Walking on Clouds
• Rubber Soul – Dropout
• Deschutes Brewing – Fresh Squeezed
• Troegs Brewing – Perpetual IPA
• Tree House Brewing – Green

So there is still an eclectic mix left. Be sure to like and bookmark this page so you can follow along with the voting! And also be sure you to share on all of your social media pages and tag friends and breweries involved as well!

Blog Update

So, just to give everyone a bit of some news. This post is going up a little bit later than intended (got the results post done before the doctor’s appointment, but this one is going up afterwards). There’s been quite some news here for us at The Beer Thrillers. Amy and I are expecting our first daughter (together) (I have three daughters with my ex – wife). She is due in November.

Also, on Sunday my aunt passed away. So things have been in a little bit of an up and down state here at Bender Braus Brewery / The Beer Thrillers homestead / The Beer Thrillers HQ. (Working names in progress I suppose.)

But we do have lots of stuff on the lookout. We are still working on getting the podcast set up and to go live (or recorded) with that soon. We are also looking at getting a new layout for the blog, that will hopefully look a lot nicer, be smoother, and easier to use.

We also have some great new articles I am hoping that will be all dropping in the next few days – including a few brewery reviews / visits as well as getting some beer reviews done (I know its been a little bit of a while), as well as several news articles. We also have some big articles that will be dropping as well. (Also, hope you all like ‘list’ articles, because we have several with it being the halfway point of the year. I know a lot of blogs and pages are doing similar, and we’ve decided to follow suit. So, hopefully that will rank up there with some stuff you all will enjoy.)

Amy is also transitioning to her new job, so she is a bit busy, but will be getting back into the flow here at TBT – HQ (The Beer Thrillers HQ…. like I said…. name in progress.)

But thank you all for all the continued support you are showing us here at the blog and our social medias. It really means a lot. We just hit 2K followers on Facebook and we’ve been hovering right around 500 followers on Instagram. So thank you all very much for following us! We appreciate all the love and support so very very very very much!

As always, we are looking to grow, expand, and innovate here at The Beer Thrillers. These tournaments are a blast to run, and I hope everyone is enjoying them just as much as we are hosting them. We are always on the lookout for writers as well and other people who would like to become involved with The Beer Thrillers, if you are interested, you can contact us directly at thebeerthrillers@gmail.com and we will get back to you.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks For Reading

Like I do with every post and article, I enjoy ending with a “Thanks for Reading” section that has some upcoming projects, news, and what we’re doing behind the scenes, and then goes into my ‘end credits’ paragraphs. I did most of that in the above section, but just want to throw out a few other things here.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone for the support. Secondly, I want to thank everyone who has taken an interest in the tournaments we do here, and that we really hope everyone enjoys them.

Thirdly, we’re looking at a busy weekend. Today and tomorrow is the annual Ffej of July (if you know – you know). Drew, Amy, myself, and several other friends (maybe Jason, Andy Parys, maybe even Amy’s mom SueAnn), and of course lots of our other friends in the industry and craft beer community will be hanging out. We are also looking to get back out on the road soon and hit up some fun breweries and check out some new places, so please be sure to stay tuned for all that.

Ok, enough rambling, get out there and vote and share this for everyone to vote as well! Thank you all for reading and supporting us and have a great weekend!

Cheers All!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

You can check out our different directories here: Beer Reviews, Hike Reviews, Book Reviews, Brewery News, Brewery Openings, Brewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

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!

Welcome to the Opening Round

Welcome everyone to my newest idea here on the blog. Inspired by the March Madness tournament I’ve done the past two years, I’ve decided to try and do a similar single bracket tournament for “flagship beers”. We all pretty much know what flagship beers are – the beer we most associate with a brewery. Their full year release beer, the one you can find anywhere (if you can find that brewery distributed), the one everyone has most likely had from that brewery, etc, etc. So I decided I would take 32 flagship beers from 32 different breweries, and throw them into a heads up competition.

What could be more fun in the slow (for beer blogging anyway) summer months here at The Beer Thrillers?!

The Selection Process

The selection process is mostly arbitrary (welcome to the world of The Beer Thrillers). Generally, there were a few simple rules I followed:

• It had to be a beer I’ve had before
• It had to have at least a 3 star rating on Untappd
• I tried to pick some well known – nation wide distributed beers, some local breweries (local to us here at The Beer Thrillers), and a few “high end” / “high quality” / “top of the line” brewery flagships.

This is clearly not a list of beers based on any kind of science. This is purely meant for fun and just to have a good time. Please leave all feelings and egos at the door.

The Rules

The rules are quite simple, and they follow pretty much the same guideline as how I did the Battle of the Breweries. This is a 32 beer tournament bracket. Straight bracket, no reseeding after each round. The beers were ranked by their Untappd rating as of last night. In the cases where the beers had the same rating, I flipped a coin to determine which would be the higher seed.

There is no conferences, divisions, etc. – its just one simple straight 32 beer bracket.

As I stated in yesterday’s “heads up” blog post about this: The Battle of the Beers (2022) Tournament.

The rules are pretty simple, every week the tournament bracket will be posted. You go down the line up of heads up matches and pick the beers you like. You can vote once per day. Make sure to share on your social media platforms to try and help the beer / breweries you want to win.

The voting schedule is:

• Round of 32: July 1st – July 7th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 16: July 8th – July 14th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 8: July 15th – July 21st at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 4: July 22nd – July 28th at 11:59PM (EST)
• Round of 2: July 29th – August 4th at 11:59PM (EST)

Beers and Breweries Involved

Ok, before we get to the voting, since this is the first round, lets see who all is involved!

Below is a straight list of the 32 breweries with their flagship beers, with their Untappd rating, and the order they are ranked in the tournament:

1. The Alchemist – Headdy Topper (4.54)
2. Tree House – Green (4.43)
3. Lawson’s Finest Liquids – Sip of Sunshine (4.33)
4. Toppling Goliath – Pseudo Sue (4.13)
5. New Holland – Dragon’s Milk (4.06)
6. Dewey Beer – Swishy Pants (4.05)
7. Omnegang – Three Philosophers (3.95)
8. Bell’s Brewery – Two Hearted Ale (3.95)
9. Von C Brewing – Walking on Clouds (3.94)
10. Cigar City – Jai Alai (3.93)
11. Rubber Soul – Dropout (3.92)
12. Pizza Boy – Murren River (3.91)
13. Deschutes – Fresh Squeezed (3.91)
14. Rotunda Brewing – Annville IPA (3.9)
15. Hemauer Brewing – Lucky Lobster (3.89)
16. Dogfish Head – 60 Minute (3.85)
17. Boneshire Brew Works – Green Machine (3.8)
18. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing – Perpetual IPA (3.8)
19. RAR Brewing – Nanticoke Nectar (3.8)
20. Bunnyman Brewing – Pink Nightmare (3.78)
21. Victory – Golden Monkey (3.75)
22. Laguinitas – IPA (3.72)
23. Tattered Flag – TMI PA (3.71)
24. Rogue – Dead Guy Ale (3.71)
25. Founder’s – All Day IPA (3.7)
26. Zero-Day Brewing – Mango Habanero (3.69)
27. Snitz Creek Brewery – Blueberry Cream Ale (3.68)
28. Sierra Nevada – Pale Ale (3.63)
29. Moo – Duck Brewery – Hoppy Toad IPA (3.58)
30. New Belgium – Fat Tire (3.58)
31. Yuengling – Lager (3.49)
32. Newcastle – Brown Ale (3.39)

Ok, thats the list of them all. You can see there’s a wide variety of big distributed beers, local to Central PA beers, some high quality high end beers, and some easier to get, obvious lower tier beers.

Lets get to voting!

Voting

Ok, lets get to voting, and let the fun and games begin! You can vote once per day per location. Please be sure to share on social media platforms this page to let others vote in the tournament as well. This should be a lot of fun!

Good luck to the breweries and to the beers and may the best beer win!

Thanks For Reading

I always like to end each blog post saying how I’d like to thank everyone for checking out the page and for reading. You can find all of our links to the right (for now) and to check out some of our newest articles by our different writers. Amy, Josh, Karl, Andy, myself, and past writers like AJ and the guest posts, offer a large sampling of articles to read from. We also have beer reviews, brewery reviews, brewery news, local articles, travelogues, beer fest news, brew fest activities and events, hike reviews, book reviews, brewer interviews, and soon podcasts. We are working on a new layout for the page, so things may look different in the future, but the articles will still all be here.

You can even bookmark this page or the individual page you want and come back for more later!

Thank you all very very very much for reading and sharing. It really means a lot to us!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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.

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The Giant Awakens

Its that time again, everyone’s favorite time in the Central Pennsylvania area! The time when the giant from Hershey awakens. You know the one I mean, the nimblest of giants, the fastest of the giants, the swiftest of the giants…. the one and only NIMBLE GIANT by Troegs Independent Craft Brewing from Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Nimble Giant

The Nimble Giant releases today – June 14th, 2022, for its yearly run. Troegs Independent Craft Brewing’s website has the gist and information on the beer for you here: Nimble Giant Release (Troegs).

From their site:

“What makes Nimble so Giant? For us, it boils down to a simple formula: ingredients + people + process. It starts in the hop fields, with Simcoe’s notes of creamsicle and mango, Mosaic’s honeysuckle and grapefruit, and Azacca’s pineapple. Back at the brewery, our Scratch team came up with an innovative hopping technique – which we dubbed the Hop Cyclone – to circulate those hop oils from the top to the bottom of our tanks, not missing an ounce of beer. We also found the small window during fermentation to optimize our dry-hopping. In the end is the beautifully bold Nimble Giant, ripe with notes of grapefruit, pineapple and honeysuckle.”

Nimble Giant Release (Troegs)

Their release schedule follows:

• Week of June 10: Most of PA
• Week of June 17: NJ, OH, VA, DE, MD, DC, rest of PA
• Week of June 24: MA, NY, CT, NC, rest of VA, MD

You can also see a video they made and released for the beer here:

The Nimble Giant We All Love

Getting to live so close to Hershey and Troegs Brewing, has let me get to taste each of the scratch variants and then the finished product. I still remember getting hit HARD by the last scratch before its initial release, having been there after work, having two myself, and then running into my friend’s dad with a friend, and all of us buying rounds and not even realizing just how high the ABV was for its smoothness. (Needless to say the three of us got an Uber and went home that night.)

As the years go by, I think now that this is my favorite of the yearly or regular Troegs Brewing offerings. More than even Nugget Nectar and Mad Elf. Its probably their best, juiciest, smoothest, IPA; whereas say Perpetual IPA is the prototypical old school West Coast IPA. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all of their year long releases (Perpetual, Troegenator, etc.) and their seasonal releases (Perpetual Haze, Impending Descent, Mad Elf, Nugget Nectar, Naked Elf, etc.); but this is just far and away my favorite now.

Hopefully you’ll be able to get out and enjoy it too. You can use Troegs’ website (link above) for their “brew finder” and that should help you locate the closest Nimble Giant to you.

Enjoy and cheers!

Thanks For Reading

Once again, as always, thank you everyone for reading. Love seeing your comments, questions, feedback and more. You can message us directly or leave a comment on the site. Whats your favorite offering from Troegs Brewing? Whats your thoughts on Nimble Giant? Let us know!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

As always, thank you everyone for reading! Leave your likes, comments, suggestions, questions, etc, in the comments section. Or use the Feedback – Contact Us – page, and we’ll get right back to you! You can also reach out to us at our direct e-mail address: thebeerthrillers@gmail.com

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!

Five Days Away

We are five days away from the five year celebration. So its a perfect time to run it down and get hyped about it. Sadly, the VIP and the general admission tickets have been sold out (for quite some time), but for those of us able to go (myself and writer friend) it will certainly be an event not to be missed. The first brew fest of the year (for us anyway) and we can’t wait for it!

This one certainly looks like a doozy and one that will be remembered for quite some time.

Let’s take a look at the brewery’s Facebook photos as a gallery to get an idea:

What the Event Is

Firstly, as you can see – the VIP and General Admission are both sold out. You might be able to find tickets second hand online, but be very cautious of scammers. Cushwa has posted on their photos page that they have caught some people selling fake or scammed up tickets.

The VIP session is 75$ and lasts from 12 – 5, (giving the attendee an extra hour), as well as a second glass and a specialty bottle. The bottle alone really makes the extra 25$ worth value right there, but add in the perks of an extra hour of drinking, plus a second glass, and its definitely worth it.

The general admission is from 1 – 5, comes with a commemorative taster glass (like most brewfests do), and allows unlimited sampling. For both sessions there is over 50 breweries, which we will get to in just a bit.

There is also DD (designated driver / aka ‘non drinking buddy’) access to the event as well for just 5$.

Who All is Invited

So, this is one hell of a list of breweries that is coming and serving up liquid gold for everyone. With many stand – outs.

The full list of breweries include:

• Adroit Theory
• Amani Brothers
• Aslin Brewing
• Barrel Culture
• Bearded Iris
• Black Flag Brewing
• Bluejacket Brewing
• Branch and Blade
• Burnish Beer Co
• Charles Towne Fermentory
• Commonwealth Brewing
• Crooked Crab
• Crooked Run Fermentation
• Dancing Gnome
• Definitive Brewing
• Deciduous Brewing
• Dewey Beer Co
• Divine Barrel
• Ever Grain Brewing Co
• Finback Brewing
• Fourscore Beer Co
• Good Word
• Graft
• Heavy Reel
• Heist Brewing
• Homaide Brewing
• Imprint Beer Co
• Inu Island
• Kings
• Mortallis
• Mountains Walking
• Ocelot Brewing
• Odd by Nature
• Oozlefinch
• Other Half Brewing
• Prototype Brewing
• RAR Brewing
• Resident Culture
• Sapwood Cellars
• Schilling
• Sojourn
• Southern Grist
• Suffolk Punch
• Thin Man Brewing
• Triple Crossing
• Troegs Independent Craft Brewing
• Untold
• Vitamin Sea
• Wet City
• Widowmaker
• Beer Zombies
• The Maryland Mob

Woooooooheeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Thats a line up! Some stand out favorites and interests are definitely Adroit Theory, Barrel Culture, Bearded Iris, Deciduous, Dewey Beer Co, Finback, Fourscore, Good Word, Mortallis, Ocelot, Oozlefinch, Other Half, RAR, Southern Grist, Triple Crossing, and Vitamin Sea.

But you certainly can’t go wrong with any from that list! Its a nice combination of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania breweries, as well as some other heavy hitters thrown into the mix.

Food

The food options are:

• Food For Thought
• The Highroller Lobster Co.
• Rad Pies

So there is some variety and enough food choices to be had for the four or five hour sessions. (If you see me veering for the lobster in a drunken haze, just kick me away so I don’t trigger my shellfish allergies. Thanks!)

Anything Else Fun?

There will also be a DJ on hand – DJ Bizzy, and just recently announced Thicc Bois Glass will also be on hand selling some dope hand blown glassware. They’ve worked with Tattered Flag and a few other breweries in the past to make some really fantastic glassware.

Pumped

Are you pumped? Are you going? I’m pumped. I have finally gotten my days changed at work – and now have off Friday and Saturday (rather than Thursday and Friday); only took me 10 years of working at the casino, to finally get up to having off a weekend day. I also put in a special request and got the Sunday off for travel home.

With the can release for Burley Oak the day before (Friday – Jan. 21st), we are looking to make this quite a trip. Coming down from the Hummelstown area to get to Burley Oak, and then make our way over towards Cushwa (a bit over three hours across Maryland, after driving three hours to Burley Oak), we will be stopping and hitting some fabulous breweries on the way. Then spending the night in the Williamsport area, before stopping by Antietam and maybe Monocacy Battlefields (again), and a few more breweries before making our way back home up into Pennsylvania.

Be sure to check out our travelogues and travel stories here on the blog for many of our wacky adventures through the Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia states that we’ve had the recent months. Also, be sure to check out the following Cushwa articles:

• Brewery Review: Cushwa Brewing Company (original building)
• Beer Review: Peace Among Worlds (Cushwa Brewing Company)

Thanks For Reading

Will you be attending? Know anyone who is? Thoughts on the brewfest or the line up of breweries? Let us know in the comments or on our various social media platforms! Can’t wait to hear from you!

(Also, be sure to stay tuned for a special ‘cold’ beer review tomorrow, and another Star Wars beer review on Wednesday, which will likewise be a ‘cold’ beer review.)

Cheers!

-B. Kline

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!