Voting Polls for Round Two

(Edited: March 8th, 9:02AM). Since this is the landing page when exiting the polls, I am posting the links here for both poll locations, so you can easily jump to the next poll to vote.

• HEELs Conference: Round Two Voting
• FACEs Conference: Round Two Voting

Round One Has Finished

Thank you everyone who has voted in round one. We got 3422 votes in one week and thus has ended round one of the tournament! We have gone from 48 breweries and competitors down to 24 breweries left.

First a word on going forward: due to how I have set-up the brackets and how its not a typical “32” or “64” or “128” tournament, that means we will now go from divisions to two conferences. (We’ll keep the wrestling theme going and still call them the HEELs and FACEs conferences.) At this point we will also re-seed the conferences. Just like before, total global average rating on Untappd will be used to seed the breweries.

But first up, some statistics from the first round:

Round One Statistics

Voting statistics:

• Total votes for round one: 3422
• Total votes for Triple H Division: 388
• Total votes for Ric Flair Division: 305
• Total votes for HEELs conference: 693
• Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in HEELs conference: 2
• Total votes for Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: 870
• Total votes for The Rock Division: 823
• Total votes for FACEs conference: 1693
• Total “upsets” (any higher seed defeating a lower seed) in FACEs conference: 7

Upsets:

HEELs Conference:

• Gearhouse Brewing Company (9) defeating Levity Brewing (4)
• Desperate Times Brewing Company (10) defeating Yellow Bridge Brewing (3)
• Chatty Monks Brewing (7) defeating Cox Brewing Company (6)

FACEs Conference:

• Three Heads Brewing (11) defeating Idiom Brewing (2)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10) defeating Breaker Brewing (3)
• Tattered Flag (9) defeating ShuBrew Brewing Company (4)
• Rough Edges Brewing (8) defeating Wolfs Ridge Brewing Company (5)
• The Church Brew Works (12) defeating Cushwa Brewing (1)
• The Isle of Que Brewing (11) defeating Jackie O’s Brewery (2)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) defeating Mellow Mink Brewing (5)

Results of Round One

HEELs Conference: Triple H Division:

• Fourscore Brewing Company (1 seed) (52 votes) defeated Black Forest Brewing (12 seed) (15 votes)
• Urban Artifact (2 seed) (41 votes) defeated The Ministry of Brewing (11 seed) (23 votes)
• Mad Chef Brewing (3 seed) (39 votes) defeated ZeroDay Brewing Company (10 seed) (25 votes)
• GearHouse Brewing Company (9 seed) (39 votes) defeated Levity Brewing (4 seed) (33 votes)
• Swiftwater Brewing Company (5 seed) (43 votes) defeated Highway Manor (8 seed) (18 votes)
• Sun King Brewery (6 seed) (33 votes) defeated Braxton Brewing Company (7 seed) (27 votes)

HEELs Conference: Ric Flair Division:

• Dewey Beer Company (1 seed) (35 votes) defeated Couch Brewery (12 seed) (16 votes)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (2 seed) (37 votes) defeated Snitz Creek Brewing Company (11 seed) (14 votes)
• Desperate Times Brewing (10 seed) (30 votes) defeated Yellow Bridge Brewing (3 seed) (19 votes)
• Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (4 seed) (48 votes) defeated Saucony Creek Brewing Company (9 seed) (9 votes)
• Twisted Bine Brewing Company (5 seed) (30 votes) defeated Land-Grant Brewing Company (8 seed) (17 votes)
• Chatty Monks Brewing (7 seed) (30 votes) defeated Cox Brewing Company (6 seed) (20 votes)

FACEs Conference: Stone Cold Steve Austin Division:

• Ever Grain Brewing Company (1 seed) (85 votes) defeated Mt. Gretna Craft Brewery (12 seed) (49 votes)
• Three Heads Brewing (11 seed) (65 votes) defeated Idiom Brewing (2 seed) (59 votes)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (10 seed) (65 votes) defeated Breaker Brewing (3 seed) (57 votes)
• Tattered Flag (9 seed) (102 votes) defeated ShuBrew Brewing (4 seed) (34 votes)
• Rough Edges Brewing (8 seed) (177 votes) defeated Wolf’s Ridge Brewing (5 seed) (40 votes)
• Boneshire Brew Works (6 seed) (70 votes) defeated Liquid Noise Brewing Company (7 seed) (67 votes)

FACEs Conference: The Rock Division:

• The Church Brew Works (12 seed) (82 votes) defeated Cushwa Brewing (1 seed) (43 votes)
• The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11 seed) (146 votes) defeated Jackie O’s Brewery (2 seed) (31 votes)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (3 seed) (106 votes) defeated Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (10 seed) (29 votes)
• Funk Brewing Company (4 seed) (95 votes) defeated Olde Bedford Brewing Company (9 seed) (34 votes)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8 seed) (79 votes) defeated Mellow Mink Brewing (5 seed) (51 votes)
• Moo-Duck Brewing Company (6 seed) (81 votes) defeated Logyard Brewing Company (7 seed) (46 votes)

Round Two

Round two now begins and will run until next Sunday night at Midnight – eastern time. (March 14th – March 15th Midnight). We now do away with the divisions and just go into conferences. So there is now two conferences of 12 breweries / competitors each. The conferences are reseeded (again using Untappd rankings) to create the new brackets for each conference.

Round Two Match-Ups

The new brackets for the conferences, and The Battle of the Breweries (2021) March Madness going forward now looks like this:

HEELs Conference:

• Fourscore Beer Company (1) (4.09) vs. GearHouse Brewing Company (12) (3.68)
• Dewey Beer Company (2) (4.08) vs. Desperate Times Brewing (11) (3.69)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (3) (3.96) vs. Chatty Monks Brewing (10) (3.71)
• Urban Artifact (4) (3.90) vs. Sun King Brewery (9) (3.71)
• Troegs Craft Independent Brewing Company (5) (3.79) vs. Swiftwater Brewing Company (8) (3.77)
• Mad Chef Brewing Company (6) (3.79) vs. Twisted Bine Brewing Company (7) (3.79)

FACEs Conference:

• Ever Grain Brewing Company (1) (3.93) vs. The Church Brew Works (12) (3.56)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (2) (3.88) vs. The Isle of Que Brewing Company (11) (3.69)
• Funk Brewing Company (3) (3.86) vs. Three Heads Brewing Company (10) (3.71)
• Moo-Duck Brewing Company (4) (3.83) vs. Rubber Soul Brewing Company (9) (3.74)
• Boneshire Brew Works (5) (3.83) vs. Molly Pitcher Brewing Company (8) (3.75)
• Rough Edges Brewing (6) (3.82) vs. Tattered Flag (7) (3.79)

Voting Begins Now

The polls will be going up shortly after this post goes live (about 8:30AM EST). Make sure to share the polls to help your favorite breweries in! And hopefully we can beat round one’s total of votes! (We need 3423 votes to break the first week’s numbers.)

Thank you all for participating in the polls!

For past results and information on the brackets, you can check out the following links:

• March Madness – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

Round One Voting Polls:

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, 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 Battle of the Breweries (2021) – VOTING LINKS

Since this is the landing page post – survey, I will keep all of the voting links here for quick reference and jumping point, and so they don’t get lost in all the muddle.

• HEELs Conference:
  * Triple H Division: Round One
  * Ric Flair Division: Round One
• FACEs Conference:
  * Stone Cold Steve Austin Division: Round One
  * The Rock Division: Round One

(Updated: 10AM – March 1st, 2021. Continue on for the original introduction to The Battle of the Breweries [2021] – March Madness tournament – article.)

Who’s ready for some March Madness? Like everyone else, in March, that means we need to fill out some brackets! And we here at The Beer Thrillers are no different!

BUT….

Instead of filling out NCAA or college basketball brackets, we are doing our own take on it – The Battle of the Breweries (2021)!

The Battle of the Breweries (2021)

So how’s this going to work? Who all is invited? What all breweries are going to be in it? How many breweries? How’s voting going to work? Who decides whose in and whose out? Whats the seeding? Why is Rick such a jerk to Morty? Why is Jurassic Bark the saddest episode of Futurama ever? Why is it also B. Kline’s favorite episode? What does that say about him? Why is the sky blue?

Ok…. enough with the questions!

The procedure for this ‘tournament’ will be similar to most other March Madness style tournaments. Similar to the ones you’ve seen Untappd and Breweries in PA have done, but with a bit of a twist. Because we here at The Beer Thrillers have a terrible time making full fledged decisions, the list of competitors will be 48 instead of the normal 32.

How did I decide what breweries will be involved? Simple. Only breweries that I have physically visited in person. The voting is based on the brewery and their beers; but to be included on this list, I personally had to have been to one of their locations.

How is seeding decided? Thats also pretty simple, the seeding is based on global average Untappd ratings. So the decision of the seeding is out of my hands. Also, bonus, you can’t get mad at me for the seeding. “Why is X above Y? Why is Z below D?” Its all decided by Untappd.

So whats the tournament structure? One total grouping of 48 breweries (in lieu of teams), divided by two conferences of 24 each, which is divided further into a total of four divisions of 12 each. So break down is simple: 4 divisions of 12 each, with two divisions per conference, of 24 teams in each, for a total of 48 competitors / teams / breweries.

How did we decide on who is in what division? Simple – random number generator. I rolled the dice (a D4 to be exact, thank you to my old nerdy DnD days, I just ‘happened’ to have one of these lying about). Rolled the dice for each brewery to locate them into a division. If one division was understaffed and another overstaffed, I re-rolled until they were evened out.

Let’s Meet Our Competitors

So who all do we have facing off in this crazy free for all of brewing expertise? Quite an assembly of breweries actually. There are a heavy abundance of local (Central PA local) breweries but there is an assortment of breweries from my various travels and across a few states. We have a few breweries from the Rochester area of New York; some breweries from Maryland, a Delaware brewery, some from Ohio, one from Indiana, and one from Kentucky as well.

Surprisingly; it actually took a while to curate the list. At even 48 entries, I still had many more to include, and even removed a few to make it a bit more diverse. I wanted to try and make this as diverse as possible (so removed a local brewery for one out of state, etc.). Possibly in the future, maybe the 2022 iteration of this, or the 2023, who knows, it’ll expand to even more breweries.

This has taken up pretty much my entire night to create the list, and to roll the dice for their divisions, and then checking their Untappd scores to get them into the correct seedings. In the case of matching Untappd scores, I did make my own decision, and that was primarily based on my thoughts of their size, notoriety, branding; so there is a few judgment calls due to a few ties, but there isn’t too many of them.

Conferences and division names…. I had to decide on what to pick. I was going to go by hop names, but I saw at last second, that the Breweries in PA have done that this year, instead of their normal divisions based on geography, it appears they decided to use hop names for their divisions, so thats out. I debated doing Jedi and Sith for the conferences and then doing different Jedi or Sith Masters for the division names…. but… instead decided to go with WWF/E names due to WrestleMania 37 approaching.

So I present you two conferences. One is based on HEELs and one is based on FACEs. The names of the breweries are listed in the order of their seedings, and will have their location and their Untappd (global average) rating behind their names.

The Heels Conference

First up, is divisions one and two of the HEELS conference. Triple H and Ric Flair.

Division One: Triple H

• Fourscore Beer Company (Gettysburg, PA) (4.09)
• Urban Artifact (Cincinnati, OH) (3.90)
• Mad Chef (East Petersburg, PA) (3.79)
• Levity Brewing (Indiana, PA) (3.77)
• Swiftwater Brewing Company (Rochester, NY) (3.77)
• Braxton Brewing Company (Covington, KY) (3.75)
• Sun King Brewery (Indianapolis, IN) (3.71)
• Highway Manor (Camp Hill, PA) (3.70)
• Gearhouse Brewing (Chambersburg, PA) (3.68)
• ZeroDay Brewing (Harrisburg, PA) (3.69)
• The Ministry of Brewing (Baltimore, MD) (3.64)
• Black Forest Brewing (Ephrata, PA) (3.62)

Division Two: Ric Flair

• Dewey Beer Company (Dewey Beach, DE) (4.08)
• Rotunda Brewing Company (Annville, PA) (3.96)
• Yellow Bridge Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.88)
• Troegs Independent Brewing (Hershey, PA) (3.79)
• Twisted Bine Brewing Company (Mount Joy, PA) (3.79)
• Cox Brewing Company (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.71)
• Chatty Monks (Reading, PA) (3.71)
• Land-Grant Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.70)
• Saucony Creek Brewing Company (Kutztown, PA) (3.70)
• Desperate Times Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.69)
• Couch Brewery (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.60)

The Faces Conference

The faces conference is made up of two divisions led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. First up, is Division Three, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Division Three: Stone Cold Steve Austin

• Ever Grain Brewing (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.93)
• Idiom Brewery (Frederick, MD) (3.90)
• Breaker Brewing (Wilkes-Barre, PA) (3.85)
• ShuBrew (Zelionople, PA) (3.85)
• Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Company (Columbus, OH) (3.84)
• Liquid Noise (Marysville, PA) (3.84)
• Boneshire Brew Works (Harrisburg, PA) (3.83)
• Rough Edges (Waynesboro, PA) (3.82)
• Tattered Flag (Middletown, PA) (3.79)
• Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown, PA) (3.74)
• Three Heads Brewing (Rochester, NY) (3.71)
• Mount Gretna Craft Brewery (Palmyra, PA) (3.58)

Division Four: The Rock

• Cushwa Brewing (Williamsport, MD) (4.11)
• Jackie O’s Brewery (Athens, OH) (4.02)
• Pizza Boy Brewing Company (Al’s of Hampden) (Enola, PA) (3.88)
• Mellow Mink (Mechanicsburg, PA) (3.84)
• Moo-Duck Brewing (Elizabethtown, PA) (3.83)
• Logyard Brewing Company (Kane, PA) (3.78)
• Molly Pitcher Brewing (Carlisle, PA) (3.75)
• Olde Bedford Brewing Company (Bedford, PA) (3.75)
• Taft’s Brewing Company (Taft’s Ale House) (Cincinnati, OH) (3.72)
• Isle of Que Brewing (Selinsgrove, PA) (3.69)
• The Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh, PA) (3.56)

Alright, that’s all 48 competitors. Tomorrow the brackets will be published and you will be allowed to vote on the first round matchups. Here’s where things get a bit screwy…. mainly because I don’t do math so good (sigh, sad subject, really, since I work at a job where I do math all day). Well, what really happened, is that I didn’t think through the breakdown. 32 breaks down easily for each round…. 48…. not so much. So…..

Week one will be divisions with 6 matches in each divisions. After that, the divisions will break for week two, and it will be by conference, with 6 matches in each conference. After this, we break apart the conferences, and do another 6 matches. This leaves us with 3 final competitors, for a triple threat for the ending.

So…. I kinda sorta walked myself into a corner…. and kinda… sorta…. walked my way out of it. Glad I chose to use wrestler themed people, so that the finale “Triple Threat” makes more sense.

*Smacks head* D’oh!

But anyway, there will be 7 days of voting for each round. With the final round taking the remainder of the month and ending on the 31st.

Voting

Each day you will be able to come to the site to make your votes in the polls. It will be set-up by IPS, so it limits you to voting just once per day per vote. You can vote as many times as you want per round, but only once per day.

Following each round, I will update the brackets and post them and make up the new polls for voting. Round one begins on March 1st, 2021 and will last until March 7th at Midnight, when it will then become the next round.

I suggest helping your breweries out and sharing the poll pages so that as many of your friends and brewery lovers can vote as well. Good luck to all of the competitors… err… breweries!

As always, please like us and follow us here and on our social media pages to stay up to date on The Beer Thrillers. We have plenty of content to check out, so be sure to stop by often to see what we have coming out. Beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, events, news, and more!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Sadly, yesterday, was my first time getting to use the curbside to-go feature from Troegs Brewing in Hershey. I had been wanting to use it nearly daily since opening, but unable to actually do it. All of the food has looked amazing, and I have heard absolutely nothing but amazing things about their pizzas; from D. Scott, J. Miller, and A. Parys, all recommending the pizzas. In fact, you can read A. Parys’ article about their excellent curbside to-go and why it makes Troegs Brewing a fantastic quarantine brewery: “What Makes a Great Quarantine Brewery?“.

I have been wanting to stop in and get all of their various scratch beers, and sadly, this has been my first scratch beer since Scratch 404. So yea, needless to say, I’ve missed out on quite a few scratch beers, something that would not have happened pre-coronavirus / COVID-19. One of my favorite things was to stop in at the Troegs Brewery and get a flight of 3-4 different scratch offerings and sample them while reading and check them off. And they have been putting out some stellar scratch offerings during this lockdown / quarantine too. Scratch 406 looked great – a sweet coffee milk stout; a style I love, and then scratches 409, 410, 411, 412, 414, 414, and 416 were all various styles of hazy IPAs and DIPAs. New England IPAs or DIPAs and all sorts. Unfortunately, they all sold out super fast on their ordering website and I never got to try any of those. (Hint hint if anyone has any still in their fridge and would be willing to part with them…. hint… hint…..). The biggest reason for their quick sell-out was that most of these were done on their new, small, innovative 15-barrell system for R&D (research and development), and having to can them up into 4-packs quickly depleted the stash, especially since crowlers, and 4pack cans have been the only way to get new (scratch) beer releases from the brewery. So, sadly, it just wasn’t meant to be. BUT, I have remedied that now, and picked up a 4 pack of Scratch 417 and a 4 pack of Scratch 415 (the two available scratches yesterday).

Their curbside to go was extremely simple, straight forward and easy. Sign onto their website, order what you want, the amount, etc, and even place the tip in their ordering cart. Wait for your notification e-mails, and you would get follow up e-mails and / or texts alerting you when the stuff was ready (super quick for just four packs). They recommended waiting thirty minutes from the time you order, and let you pick that as a pickup time, but I got e-mails within five minutes saying my stuff was ready. From there its still super simple, drive to the location, park in front of the building (in the handicap spots right outside their doors). Each spot has a number, you bring up their website at Troegs – Pickup, put where you are (what spot number), and if you are getting beer, food, or a combination. Select if you want it put into your vehicle, or just left outside. And soon a delivery guy (or gal) will come out, drop off the product, you flash them your driver’s license or ID and once you’re clear, everything is good to go.

Its super simple, and I can’t recommend it enough. To be honest, I have had zero issues from any of the places I have stopped at for beer. I have mostly gotten beer from Tattered Flag, Boneshire Brew Works, Ever Grain Brewing, and Pizza Boy during this ordeal. I have had zero issues with any of them. I also stopped at Twisted Bine yesterday (had to go back out to Ming’s place in Mount Joy to pick up my wallet since I left it in his car after Wednesday’s excursion to Ephrata). They were simple and pleasant as well. Wednesday, we were at St. Boniface and that was also quick and easy. I have also been to Four Score Beerco and that has also been easy and pleasant. So, like I’ve said, the breweries and independent distilleries (like Tattered Flag) have all been wonderful and fantastic during this ordeal. And gladly, Troegs was no exception. My friend J. Miller even said he’s been doing curbside to-go from Troegs weekly / near weekly, and they seem to have been doing a steady business when I was there.

Now starting today, June 5th, many breweries are offering outdoor seating available. At midnight Pizza Boy re-opened for outdoor seating. Today at noon, Boneshire Brew Works is opening their outdoor seating as well. I would have loved to have stopped out at midnight at Pizza Boy to see how it went, but unfortunately with already having started drinking yesterday, and watching my friends D. Scott and Esty do their Knights of Nostalgia video, it got late enough and I was tired enough that it was just not gonna happen. Definitely check that page out, as Drew (D. Scott) has been doing some great live-streams of old video games, and I’m even featured on a few, as well as other friends like R. Dibeler, Esty, etc.

Speaking of those guys, we will be doing a new podcast soon (finally, I know), which will be about time travel. So make sure to be on the lookout for that, you can catch our podcasts at: So a Mexican and a Scot Walk Into a Bar… I always make sure to talk craft beer while we also discuss whatever pop culture we are doing on that video. Always a good time.

Getting back to beer, I had originally wanted to grab the Troegs Scratch beer that supported essential workers and hospitality and hospital staff. I believe it was Scratch 413. For some reason on Untappd none of the scratches say so in their descriptions, and a Google Search didn’t turn up any definitive answers. But I did get two news articles on it: Troegs Next Scratch Beer Will Benefit Hospitality Workers and Newsbreak – Troegs Next Beer To Help Out. I had originally tried to get this to do a review, and discuss how they are helping out their community, but sadly, it was not to be. But still, I wanted to point out how they did make a beer to benefit and help out their community. So let it be known, I have said it, and stated it, and pointed it out.

Now, with all this out of the way, lets get to the actual beer review!

Beer: Scratch 417 – Orange – Lemon Peel IPA
Brewery: Troegs Independent Brewing
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: Our Scratch brewers are at it again, this time working toward a new beer for our lineup. Scratch #417 is built on a base of pilsner malt, Munich malt and oats and fermented with HotHead Kveik yeast. The honey, orange peel and lemon peel notes of the yeast are amplified by the Lotus, Simcoe and Mandarina Bavaria hops. Additions of lemon peel and orange peel complete the recipe and deliver a refreshingly soft and citrusy IPA with low bitterness. We taste: refreshing citrus, orange and lemon rind, hint of hone.

From appearance, to aroma, to taste, this is very orange. My Untappd check-in for this beer was simple, and direct, if not a bit dirty: “if hops, oranges, and lemons had a three way – this would be their baby”. (Now, once you get the image out of your head, and have a sip of this, you’ll probably agree). (…Ok, take another sip to try and get the image out of your head… oh crap, its stuck in there isn’t it? Oh well, sorry… Happy Friday!)

Lets start off with the appearance, this looks a bit hazy, but not truly fully hazy like some of those recent scratch offerings (that I didn’t get to try, but have only seen, cue crying). This is very bright and very orange. It had a wonderful light foamy head when poured from the can, and it left a little lacing, not much, but some. The bubbles on top were dispersed and random. It was not transparent or see through, and no sediment or floaters, just a bright orange beer, even glowing somewhat when the light hit it.

Once again, aroma is just like appearance, orange. Keyword – orange. Orange smell, orange appearance, orange hue, orange taste. Pretty much the word orange can just sum up this entire thing. But you do get notes of citrus forward hops, and a bit of a zest and lemon nose to this though much fainter with the orange taking precedence. If you are a fan of orange, especially citrusy orange, this is just a wonderful smelling beer.

Taste…. once again, can I lead off with saying… orange? Very heavy orange. Its also not just straight orange, but a varied and interesting orange taste. You have mandarin oranges, regular oranges, some zest to it all, and all kinds of other things kicking around at the same time. There is strong lemon on the back-end, that provides for a great zesty kick. The honey subdues things a bit and makes this soft and easy drinking. There is really zero IPA burn, no hop bitterness, just a juicy, flowing, smooth drink. Thats why this is probably closer to a NE-IPA / NE-DIPA than a regular IPA / DIPA; there is no real west coast style feel to this. Its juicy, its dank, its smooth, no bitterness, not overly sweet, just fruity and smooth and clean drinking. The 8% is super subtle and hidden (honestly didn’t even feel like I got buzzed on just one of these and I couldn’t have guessed what the ABV was until I looked it up now for the review, I would have probably said 5-6.5% if I had to have made a guess while drinking). The hops used in this are: Lotus, Simcoe, and Mandarina Bavaria; which all work wonderfully in conjunction with the other flavors (notably the orange and lemon peel). They are citrus forward hops, and fruity hops, so it really gives this just an outright zesty, citrusy, fruity taste all around with the orange (obviously) taking prominence. The Kveik yeast adds to this as well, and it all just seems to work so strongly together. Everything in conjunction with each other to sum up into a really well, tasty, delicious, and smooth beer. This would be wonderful as a regular. And it will be interesting to see with all of their recent variations of hazy IPAs and DIPAs, where they are going with these; especially with this year’s release of Haze Charmer, a hazy pale ale. Seems Troegs is finally getting on the bandwagon of hazy and juicy IPAs, pale ales, DIPAs, and possibly even TIPAs; moving themselves into the market of New England style IPAs (at last). Should be interesting to see where they go with all of these. The Scratch 413 (that I missed), is labelled as “Hazy IPA #5” on Untappd, and this being the next IPA they released, it is also juicy and New England styled and a bit hazy (albeit nothing like a true New England Hazy IPA). Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing what their future offerings have in store; especially as we start moving back to where we can enjoy beers again at the brewery. I personally can’t wait!

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.85 (as of 6.5.20; interestingly, when I first opened the Untappd page for the beer review at 9AM, it didn’t have a global rating since there wasn’t enough data, but when I refreshed it at 10:10AM, it listed the global average, so the site / app must have updated itself sometime in that time frame).

Looking for other Troegs Brewing beer reviews here on The Beer Thrillers? Check these out:
* Fuzzy Nudge
* Coco-Nator: Scratch 375
* Haze Charmer
* Scratch 400
* Scratch 394
* Scratch 395
* Mad Elf
* Scratch 396
* Fresh Fest
* Trail Day Pale Ale
* Scratch 385
* Scratch 386
* Scratch 382
* Dear Peter
* Scratch 383
* Naked Elf
* Scratch 376
* Scratch 377
* Scratch 378
* Scratch 379

You can also check out our IPA list article: Hoppy Easter – IPAs from The Beer Thrillers.

Thank you all for reading. Please make sure to hit the follow and like buttons. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (buttons below with their respective logos). Follow us and like us, share if you like the content.

Soon we’ll all be in Green Phase, and soon after that we will be out of this and out drinking and hanging out, just like ‘the old times’. I do have a bit of sad news, that I saw this while just about finishing up this article – Lititz Brewfest has announced that they are cancelling the Lititz Brewfest for 2020; which is incredibly disheartening, as its one of my absolute favorite brewfests. So, this probably doesn’t bode well for the AC Brewfest which was looking at possibly happening in August, as well as the Prototype Invitational – also scheduled for August, and the Mount Hope RenFaire Brewfest which I believe was eyeing up September. But who knows, fingers crossed. Still also holding out hope for Ffej of July 2020, (Ffej of July 18), which is scheduled for July 11th. Fingers, toes, eyes and… nose… crossed.

Cheers everyone, be careful and safe out there. Don’t get lax just because we can drink outside together (somewhat) again. In due time we will all be able to go about like before. Just hang in there!

Cheers!

-B. Kline