Vandergrift Pennsylvania - The Beer Thrillers https://thebeerthrillers.com Central PA beer enthusiasts and beer bloggers. Homebrewers, brewery workers, and all around beer lovers. Mon, 31 Jul 2023 03:21:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://i0.wp.com/thebeerthrillers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cropped-The-Beer-Thrillers-December-2022-Logo.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Vandergrift Pennsylvania - The Beer Thrillers https://thebeerthrillers.com 32 32 187558884 We Can’t Always Be a Glutton Right? – Perfect Portions and Allusion Brewing Company https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/07/30/we-cant-always-be-a-glutton-right-perfect-portions-and-allusion-brewing-company/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-cant-always-be-a-glutton-right-perfect-portions-and-allusion-brewing-company Mon, 31 Jul 2023 03:03:09 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=12110
Allusion Brewing Company – Baker Street Brown and the Cheeseburger Skillet by Perfect Portions

A Perfect Meal

We can’t be gluttons all the time, right?  One evening a little while ago I decided to pair the Cheeseburger Skillet from the Perfect Portion and the Baker Street Brown Ale from Allusion Brewing Company. I’m not pretending to be any sort of expert on pairing food with which type of beverage.  I am just gonna go with the motto of “I’ll try anything once”.  But this combo was pretty darn good! 

I’ve been trying to lose a little of this pregnancy weight and drinking beer as a hobby doesn’t really help with the loose weight part.  So, I decided to pair my beer for the evening with a healthy meal from The Perfect Portion.  When I first started going to The Perfect Portion (TPP for short) back in 2018 the cheeseburger skillet was one of the first meals that I tried.  It’s still one of my favorite meals. 

The two things I was hoping to find from a meal prep service was:  1. Flavorful meals and 2. That they didn’t leave me feeling unsatisfied.  TPP nails both of these items.  I should have known I’d be obsessed when the owner, Kristin Brunner, states right on her website “I LOVE to eat!”.  She also states on her website “Our meals are made with fresh, whole, minimally processed ingredients and range between 300 – 600 calories depending on whether you order breakfast, lunch or dinner.” 

The cheeseburger skillet reminds me of the creamy and cheesiness from the Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger skillet meal.  TPP also pairs it with Zucchini fries.  They are topped with Italian seasonings and Parmesan cheese.  I was hoping for that to pair nicely with the Baker Street Brown Ale from Allusion Brewing Company. 

A Perfect Beer

Baker Street Brown by Allusion Brewing Company (background) with the Cheeseburger Skillet (foreground) by The Perfect Portion

(Fun trivia: Baker Street is the home of Sherlock Holmes, and as you can see from the beer can label it has his address – 221B on the can. For some reason, I feel like a Brown Ale is the perfect beer for Sherlock Holmes. Watson would probably be a Witbier.)

Beer: Baker St. Brown
Brewery: Allusion Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale – English
ABV: 5%
IBU: 15
Untappd Description: Traditional Mild English Brown Ale brewed with English floor malted maris otter, English chocolate malts, and English Fuggle hops for a light drinking sessionable ale with hints of caramel and toasted bread. Sit back and enjoy one while you solve your latest mystery.
Global Untappd Rating: 3.75 (as of 7.30.23)

This tasty brown ale is described on the Allusion website as “Traditional Mild English  Brown Ale brewed with English floor malted Maris Otter malt, English chocolate malts, and English Fuggle hops for a light drinking sessionable ale with hints of caramel and toasted bread.”  For me it was definitely that maltiness that hits your taste buds first and then finishes with a sweet caramel taste.  Allusion Brewing Company has quickly ranked in my top breweries I need to revisit very soon.  Being there you felt like you were on an episode of Cheers.  Other patrons of the brewery knew each other just from visiting the same brewery.  Each time someone walked up to the brewery everyone was saying hello and greeting them by their name.  It’s the sense of community for me I keep hearing the OG Karen saying while we were all sipping some brews outside a few weeks ago.

Karen with the title belt (see our Instagram for more pictures)

I had a rough time deciding which 4 pack we were taking home after visiting Allusion to celebrate the March Tournament Win.  The fact that I have 3 more of this tasty brown ale in my fridge makes me very happy and I think I’ll go crack one open now. 

— Drink More Beer!

-Amy

Allusion Brewing Company’s title belt for winning The Battle of the Breweries 2023 Tournament

Amy’s Back

Amy with the title belt (check out our Instagram to see more pictures)

This is Amy’s first column back after two weeks. We’ve certainly had a busy few days and weeks. Real life and family stuff, trips out to Vandergrift, myself getting to go to two soccer (futbol) games at the Lincoln Field last Sunday, going out to Sworn Brewing Company and checking out their soon to be opening brewery, and much more.

So I’ll take the blame for Amy not having time to write. But she is back, and she has told me she actually has a few ideas of what she wants to write about. (She’ll also be part of the Sworn Brewing Company article alongside myself and Josh Doncevic returning to write as well.) So have no fear, Amy is back and will be continuing to write for us. Sorry for keeping her away from all of you the past two weeks and sorry to Amy for keeping her so busy.

-B. Kline

For More Information on Allusion Brewing Company

For more information about Allusion Brewing Company you can visit their very well designed website here: Allusion Brewing Company – Official Website.

The following comes from Untappd: Allusion Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. They have 57 unique beers and just over 5,200 ratings, with a global average rating of 3.84 (as of 7.30.23). Their Untappd description reads: Vandergrift’s hometown brewery, offering a consistent library of approachable beers taking the tradition of each style seriously. Craft beer is about bringing people together – come join our story.

For more information, you can find them at their social media pages here:

More of Our Articles About Allusion Brewing Company

Looking to read more about Allusion Brewing Company? Here’s the articles we’ve written about them:

Amy’s Column Series

Since getting back to writing for the blog after a short hiatus, Amy has started up a weekly column style writing for the blog. You can find these articles here:

(And please take a moment to fill out Amy’s survey on her ‘Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles‘ column.)

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.

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:

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 ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, 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.

(Thank you for reading. The opinions, thoughts, and expressions of each article posted on The Beer Thrillers represents the author of the content and only themselves. It does not express the opinions, beliefs, or ideas held by The Beer Thrillers or any company in which the author themselves work for. Each piece of written content is written by the creator(s) listed in the authorial section on each article unless otherwise noted. Their opinions, comments, and words on screen do not represent any company in which they work for and / or are affiliated with or any non – profits that they contribute to. Thank you.)

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The Battle of the Breweries (2023) Winner Is https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/04/17/the-battle-of-the-breweries-2023-winner-is/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-battle-of-the-breweries-2023-winner-is Mon, 17 Apr 2023 20:47:29 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=11079
Allusion Brewing Company is the 2023 Battle of the Breweries Champion.

The Battle of the Breweries (2023) Winner Is…

The winner of this year’s Battle of the Breweries is Allusion Brewing Company!

Allusion Brewing Company has survived the tournament of 160 breweries ranging from states of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky as well as the district of Washington.

They defeated Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery, AleCraft Brewing Company, and Mad Chef Brewing in the Finals Fatal Four Way.

They won with 58.77% of the votes. Second place had 35.14% of the votes. They totaled 2517 votes in the finals to win 2023’s Battle of the Breweries!

Quick Finals Break Down

A quick finals break down, as I will go into the full details in a follow up post most likely tomorrow or the day after.

Break down of the votes in the finals:

  • Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery (4th Place) – 111 votes (2.59%)
  • Mad Chef Brewing (3rd Place) – 150 votes (3.50%)
  • AleCraft Brewing Company (2nd Place) – 1505 votes (35.14%)
  • Allusion Brewing Company (1st Place) – 2517 Votes (58.77%)

Champions

Battle of the Brewery Winners

Allusion Brewing Company joins Isle of Que Brewing and Von C Brewing as winners of our yearly “Battle of the Breweries”. We started the tournament in 2021. This was our third year of hosting it.

For more information on the past winners:

Allusion Brewing Company

Allusion Brewing Company

If you haven’t been to Vandergrift Pennsylvania, or never heard of Allusion Brewing Company, you are certainly doing yourself a disservice. Make your way out there and check them out.

For a full article on them, you can check it out here:

You can visit Allusion Brewing Company in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania at 143 Grant Ave, Vandergrift, PA 15690, just like I did back in November 2020. They have a beautiful little tap room, with a very cool flight system. Their flights are in old book catalogue (from a near by Library that sold their Book Catalogue desk / table / system), and the tasters fit into it perfectly, and all the bartender has to do is pull them out of the card catalogue cabinet / table / desk system thing.

I had an absolute wonderful time when visiting the brewery, and cannot wait to come back out to Vandergrift to get check them out again.

The Beer Thrillers – Allusion Brewing Company

More Information About Allusion Brewing Company

For more information about Allusion Brewing Company you can visit their very well designed website here: Allusion Brewing Company – Official Website.

The following comes from Untappd: Allusion Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. They have 53 unique beers and just over 4,600 ratings, with a global average rating of 3.84 (as of 4.17.23). Their Untappd description reads: Vandergrift’s hometown brewery, offering a consistent library of approachable beers taking the tradition of each style seriously. Craft beer is about bringing people together – come join our story.

For more information, you can find them at their social media pags here:

More of Our Articles About Allusion Brewing Company

Looking to read more about Allusion Brewing Company? Here’s the articles we’ve written about them:

Past Results:

Group Stage Voting Pages

Group Stage Results Pages

Round of 16 Voting Pages

Round of 16 Results Pages

Round of 8 Voting Pages

Round of 8 Results Pages

Conference Final Four Voting Pages

Conference Final Four Results Page

Conference Finals Voting Page

Conference Finals Results Page

Thank You For Reading

Sorry for getting this posted so much later in the day. My insomnia kicked in hard last night and I didn’t sleep much or well at all last night, factor in a newborn, and you can see why I was dragging butt to start the day. Also early in the morning Amy had a doctor’s appointment so we had that, and then had a friend stop over, and between all of that, household chores, etc, etc, etc, yadda yadda yadda (and no, I didn’t yadda yadda over the best part), this is why its only going up now.

My apologies.

I was also trying to decide how I wanted to write the article and how I wanted to frame it, I think I’ll do the full recap in a different article, and will probably get that posted up tomorrow. So be on the look out for that.

I want to thank all 160 breweries that participated. It was so great seeing all of the breweries get into it over the past month (more than a month’s worth of time!). I hope everyone had a good time. I thought the tournament ran very smoothly.

I want to say congratulations to the four breweries that made it to the finals – Tattered Flag Brewery, Allusion Brewing Company, AleCraft Brewing Company, and Mad Chef Brewing. And especially to Allusion Brewing Company for winning.

Congratulations!

Honestly everyone, if you have a chance to stop out at Allusion Brewing Company in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, please do. I very highly recommend it!

I’m hoping to get back there this year. Fingers crossed.

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 ReviewsHike ReviewsBook ReviewsBrewery News, Brewery OpeningsBrewer Interviews, and Travelogues.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, 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.

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Allusion Brewing Company Wins Two Top Awards https://thebeerthrillers.com/2022/05/05/allusion-brewing-company-wins-two-top-awards/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=allusion-brewing-company-wins-two-top-awards Thu, 05 May 2022 20:30:00 +0000 https://thebeerthrillers.com/?p=9216
Allusion Brewing Company receiving their awards at the Craft Beer Conference (Photo courtesy of Allusion Brewing Company’s Facebook)

Craft Beer Conference Awards

At the annual Craft Beer Conference (in Minneapolis, Minnesota this year), held over the past few days; Allusion Brewing Company received two awards. Both in “Craft Beer Marketing”. They won their awards for “Best Tap Handle” in the US and “Best Flight Display” in the US.

These are two big awards for the small brewery out of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. Receiving any award is always a great moment for any brewery, but being recognized at the Craft Beer Conference and winning a national award (and top place) is especially huge for the small hometown brewery.

The Awards

Much like the Great American Beer Fest, the World Beer Cup, and many others – the Craft Beer Conference has their own award ceremony where they announce winners in several different categories on a whole host of things.

Their first award was for “Best Flight Display” in the US. They have a very cool flight board, which are pull out drawers from an old library’s card catalog cabinet. They use the cabinet to keep track of the flights that are out. You can see the flight below:

A flight at Allusion Brewing Company

Their second award they have won was for “Best Tap Handle” in the US. I didn’t have a good picture of their tap handles, but found a picture of their bar background from TribLive back in 2020 (October 9th, 2020) when they were opening. You can see the tap handles in the background of it:

Allusion Brewing Company’s bar (at time of opening in October, 2020) (Photo Courtesy: TribLive Article – Allusion Brewing Co. to Open Saturday in Vandergrift)

Allusion Brewing Company

Allusion Brewing Company

I got to stop out at Allusion Brewing Company in November of 2020 when I was taking my trip out to Indianapolis and back. It was early in the day so the place wasn’t full yet (actually I was the only person there at the time, they had just opened), but it was a really lovely building and brewery. The beers were great. And if you are ever in the outskirts of Pittsburgh you definitely should stop in.

For more information on my trip there, you can check out these articles:

You can find them on Google Maps here: Allusion Brewing Company.

From Untappd, they are listed as a microbrewery from Vandergrift, PA. With 40 unique beers and 2,686 ratings. Their global average rating is 3.83. Their Untappd description reads: “Vandergrift’s hometown brewery, offering a consistent library of approachable beers taking the tradition of each style seriously. Craft beer is about bringing people together – come join our story.”

Allusion Brewing Company’s Announcement

The following is their Facebook and social media announcement about winning the awards:

Allusion Brewing Company receiving their award at the Craft Beer Conference (Photo Courtesy: Allusion Brewing Company – Facebook)

When we started Allusion Brewing Company, one thing we knew from the beginning is that we would give every aspect of our business our full effort to make it the best it could be.The effort we put into bringing you great beer is matched by how much we care that you have an amazing location and guest experience to drink that beer!All the compliments we get from all of you that come into the brewery show us that our efforts are appreciated.During the Craft Beer Conference in Minneapolis, we got recognition from our professional peers in the industry.Last night we were invited to a party hosted by the Craft Beer Marketing Awards program. 600 judges gave us the highest award in the US for two craft beer marketing categories.“Best Tap Handle” in the US!“Best Flight Display” in the US!Needless to say, it was a pretty good night!Huge shout out to the companies that helped us create these pieces and ultimately win these awards! Thank you Hankscraft AJS and Creation Lab!

Allusion Brewing Company (Social Media)

For More Information

For more information on Allusion Brewing Company, you can check out the following links:

Thanks For Reading

As always, thank you everyone for reading. Its so great to see local small hometown breweries getting national recognition and we’re so glad to see them grow and get acknowledged! We love posting about Pennsylvania and other local breweries winning awards, so be on the lookout for those.

And as always, stay tuned for plenty of great articles coming your way from us here at The Beer Thrillers. Hope you had a wonderful May the Fourth yesterday, and having a good Revenge of the Fifth today, and Cinco de Mayo.

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 – FacebookFacebook GroupTwitterInstagramYouTube, 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!

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