Preparing for the Holiday Weekend

While mentally preparing for this long holiday weekend I stared at the collection of bomber bottles on top of my rolltop desk in my living room.  It feels like they are taking up lots of space and I just simply must decrease the number of bottles on top of my desk.  Holiday weekends are perfect for that. 

Bomber Quiz

Bombs Away

I decided to crack into the Captain Precious from Alementary.  We picked up this one when we had to stop by since after having Scarlet.  We loved celebrating her birth by toasting one of our favs from them, Figgy Pudding. 

When we posted on IG about her birth they graciously offered another bottle in celebration.  Captain Precious was another bottle we had to get on the way out the door. 

Captain Precious is a 12.5% Barleywine and the perfect way to kick off the holiday weekend and we paired it with some spicy tacos.  It has an average rating on Untapped at 3.90 and that is way too low for this quality Barleywine.  It is described on Untapped as “Marjie’s first beer!  This Barleywine is made with peanut butter and heaps of fresh blueberries and fermented with Kveik yeast for a touch of overripe tropical fruit. “The perfect mix of some peanut butter and blueberries it was delicious. (You can view our reel from Facebook about adding it to the taco meat and enjoying the delicious barleywine here – The Beer Thrillers on Facebook, Reels.)

We then finished off the night with a stout we bought way before we got pregnant, two of the Pastry Stouts from the Pastry Parkway line from Fourscore Beer Co in Gettysburg. All four pastry stouts come in with a 15% ABV. Two of the four we got were the cannoli and the s’mores Cupcake.  The other two I wish I got my hands on were Blueberry Marshmallow Muffin and Chocolate Cherry Caramel Croissant.  The Pastry Parkway was a collab with Wolf Brewering Company in Mechanicsburg, PA and Fourscore Beer Company in Gettysburg, PA.

We started with the Cannoli Pastry Stout and we decided to pair it with some chocolate peanut butter cup Turkey Hill ice cream.  It was a warm evening and I would be going for ice cream so we were lucky it was a delicious combo.  Then, as I sat down to write this, we cracked open the S’more Cupcake Pastry Stout and stole Ben’s Zebra cakes to go with it. 

I know feel accomplished getting a few things cleaned up around the house by decreasing the bomber stash.  I can’t wait for the next holiday weekend!  Happy Birthday America!

Some Explosive Good Beers

All of these – from the Figgy Pudding we had in honor of our child’s birth; to the Captain Precocious we had picked up at The Alementary (one of our favorite breweries), to the two Fourscore Beer Co and Wolf Brewing Company collabs (Pastry Parkway – Cannoli and Pastry Parkway – S’mores Cupcake) were “explosively good”. (See what I did there?)

So I have to ask you all again… how many bombers do you have sitting at home, cellaring in your basement, and waiting to be drank? (Don’t worry, despite polishing these off, we still have plenty more to go!)

Drink More Beer!

-Amy

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:

• Brewfests with Anxiety (Amy’s original weekly column start)
• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• Beer and Pretzel Review: Legends and Lore (St. Boniface Brewing Company) and Garlic Parm Pretzels (Pretzels.com)
• Peanut Butter Eggs, Easter, Beer, and YAH Brew’s Shimmy Shake (Beer Review)
• Cox Brewing Company: Back to Their Roots
• Amy’s Day Off
• It Was All A Dream (A Visit to YAH Brewing)
• Just Another Weekend (A Hike at Saint Pete’s Trail and Hares Hill Brewing)
• I’m Pretty Darn Lucky (Happy Mother’s Day)
• Ready to Kick of the Summer
• Beer Review: Beer Devil IPA (Niagara Brewing Company)
• World MS Day
• Have you ever picked a beer based on the can art?
• Happy Father’s Day
• What is Your Summer Time Go To Beer?
• Holiday Weekend and Bomber Bottles
• You can find all of Amy’s articles here: Amy’s Archive of Articles.

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.

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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

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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!

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Before jumping into the book review by Paul R. Kan, a quick note from myself (B. Kline). Like with his last book review (Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone), Paul Kan reached out to me asking to do another book review, and I happily said yes. Unfortunately since the time of his last book review, his brewery Burd’s Nest (in Carlisle, Pennsylvania) has closed. We look forward to what his future brings and we offer our condolences to his business. We appreciate his dedication and commitment to craft beer and wanting to stay active in the community. He has expressed interest in writing some semi regular blog posts here for The Beer Thrillers and we are so happy to oblige and have him on board writing with us.

Paul chose to take his picture of the book at Wolf Brewing Company – a brewery co – owned by a woman (Elaine Wolf). Wolf Brewing Company is a wonderful brewery in Mechanicsburg, with Derek and Elaine Wolf owning it. Derek is the head brewer. (See end of article for other articles about Wolf Brewing Company.)

On a somewhat related – but unrelated – but related – note, I had gotten Amy this book and she has been reading it when finding time (Scarlet keeps her a little bit busy right now) and she has been meaning to review it as well. So sometime in the near future, you should be able to find here on the blog a review by Amy as well. Will be interesting to see the contrasts between Paul and Amy’s thoughts on the book.

And now, onto the review….

Paul R. Kan’s Book Review of A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin

Jessica Fierro is the owner and head brewer of Atrevida Beer Company in Colorado Springs, CO. With its motto “Diversity. It’s what’s on tap!”, her brewery became an important center of community life in the city. The Colorado Springs Business Journal named her a “2022 Woman of Influence” and her beers have won awards for their taste and quality. But what earned her brewery national attention was the shooting at the Club Q nightclub in November 2022. Her husband Richard, an Iraq War veteran, was instrumental in subduing the gunman. The positive attention that fell on him quickly fell on his wife’s brewery as well. Soon, the brewery was racing to meet the online demand for its merchandise.

Atrevida’s sudden increased profile illustrates one of the core points of Tara Nurin’s book—men have often overshadowed women’s accomplishments in brewing. Nurin, the beer and spirits contributor to Forbes and adjunct Beer 101 professor at Washington University, plows through history up to today in a lively way to demonstrate that women have always brewed beer, but their global contributions to beer have been overlooked, ignored or sidelined. The belief that brewing has always been the domain of men has “erased women from beer’s timeline of the past two thousand years.” (p.7)

Nurin’s book reminds us that women’s role in brewing goes even further back than two thousand years ago. The first recipe for beer is from 3900 years ago; it was part of a hymn praising the Sumerian brewing goddess, Ninkasi. For Nurin, women have had an “ancestral right to brew” and men have been the late participants. In fact, many of our common words like “bridal” (referring to the “bride ale,” a traditionally made wedding beer for women by women) and “brewster” (the female equivalent for “brewer”) have their roots in the role of women in brewing. Given archaeological and anthropological evidence, beer “may have been birthed by the discoveries and collective consciousness of women who across the globe had, at varying times, reached a similar level of human development.” (55). As civilization grew, so did women’s responsibilities associated with brewing and serving beer. In Babylon, women not only ran taverns, but were critical in keeping political order. Women as tavern keepers were required to report any talk of rebellion against Hammurabi or face execution. In ancient Egypt, women brewed beer for key religious ceremonies.

Brewing was also part of mundane “kitchen work” associated with women making meals. In early American history, women routinely made beer at home or in taverns that their husbands or fathers owned. In pre – Civil War United States, some slave women who brewed were often able to purchase their freedom…at least for a time. Patsy Young lived free for 15 years in part by using the profits from brewing exceptional beer to pay for her emancipation before she was hauled back into slavery.

For those of us who live in present-day Pennsylvania, we can boast about Carol Stoudt’s trailblazing work to open craft brewing to the nation and that the four great-great-granddaughters of Yuengling’s founder currently own and operate America’s oldest continually operating brewery. However, Carol was often mistaken as an employee; male customers regularly asked her for some of “Ed’s beer” (Ed being her husband). (47). Debbie Yuengling admitted, that “people look at us and think we need to prove ourselves because we are women working in what has been thought of as a man’s business.” In PA’s beer industry, out of approximately 400 breweries, over five dozen breweries are fully-owned or partly-owned by women.

While Pennsylvania can celebrate its proportion of brewsters, it is still below the national average of over 40%. As for the percentage of fully women-owned breweries in the U.S., it shrinks to a shocking 2.9%. Nurin shows how women in craft brewing have been routinely overlooked by pointing out that the Brewers Association only started keeping stats on women – owned breweries eight years ago. When we don’t account for women in today’s brewing world, it’s easier to overlook how they’ve counted in the narrative of beer’s history.

What happened? How did the visibility of women become rare in the brewing world when they created it and ran it for centuries? Without too many spoilers, Nurin engagingly explains how witch trials, capitalism and industrialization all played their roles in pushing women out of the realm that they once dominated. Once beer was viewed as something that could be sold to more people and at a greater profit, men who controlled the levers of society swooped in and pushed women to the margins.

But other chapters in the book are reminders that women today are not forfeiting the brewing realm to men. Nurin’s chapters “These Boots are Made for Brewing;” “From the Back Office to the Boardroom;” and “Sisters are Brewing it for Themselves” tell the stories of women in craft brewing who are supporting one another through mentoring, scholarships and collaboration. These efforts are paying off. When the Pink Boots Society of female brewers began in 2007, it had just over 60 members; it now counts over 2000. There is also the fast-growing Alliance for Women in Beer which seeks to unite suppliers, distributors and retailers to create more opportunities for women in the beer industry.

Brewster Jessica Fierro named her Colorado brewery Atrevida because it’s Spanish for “bold, daring, audacious woman.” After reading Nurin’s important book, you’ll be convinced that all women in brewing have been, and are, Atrevidas.

GoodReads

You can find more information about A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse at GoodReads: A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin. It currently has a global average rating of 3.68 on GoodReads (as of 1.5.23).

The GoodReads description reads:

• North American Guild of Beer Writers Best Book 2022

Dismiss the stereotype of the bearded brewer.

It’s women, not men, who’ve brewed beer throughout most of human history. Their role as family and village brewer lasted for hundreds of thousands of years—through the earliest days of Mesopotamian civilization, the reign of Cleopatra, the witch trials of early modern Europe, and the settling of colonial America. A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse celebrates the contributions and influence of female brewers and explores the forces that have erased them from the brewing world.
 
It’s a history that’s simultaneously inspiring and demeaning. Wherever and whenever the cottage brewing industry has grown profitable, politics, religion, and capitalism have grown greedy. On a macro scale, men have repeatedly seized control and forced women out of the business. Other times, women have simply lost the minimal independence, respect, and economic power brewing brought them.
 
But there are more breweries now than at any time in American history and today women serve as founder, CEO, or head brewer at more than one thousand of them.

As women continue to work hard for equal treatment and recognition in the industry, author Tara Nurin shows readers that women have been—and are once again becoming—relevant in the brewing world.

GoodReads: A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse – A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs by Tara Nurin

Paul R. Kan

Paul R. Kan is a beer lover and a lover of stories. Which goes hand in hand. Sharing stories over beers is as old as time, and now Paul gets to help others share their stories over beer. He’s been able to do both as a beer writer and former owner of Burd’s Nest Brewing Company. He’s also a brewery taproom consultant, helping others create their own beer stories.

Other articles by Paul R. Kan on The Beer Thrillers are:

• Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone)

Wolf Brewing Company

As I mentioned earlier, I would link down here other articles about Wolf Brewing Company, a local female co – owned brewery.

• Beer Review: Wolf Prints (Imprint Beer Co.) (Collaboration)
• Beer Review: Abbra Collabra 6 Way Banana Split Milkshake IPA (Tattered Flag) (Collaboration)
• Beer Review: Boulangerie Stout – Imperial Churro (Tattered Flag) (Collaboration)
• Wolf Brewing Company Opening in Mechanicsburg PA

Beer Related Book Reviews

For other beer related book reviews, check these out (and don’t worry – more will be coming soon!):

• Book Review: For the Love of Beer (Dr. Alison E. Feeney)
• Beer and Book Event: For the Love of Beer
• What is Craft Beer?
• Book Review: Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us (Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone
• for all other book reviews: Book Reviews Archives

Thanks For Reading

As always I end every article with my ‘thanks for reading’. I (B. Kline) appreciate all of you reading all of our articles, commenting, liking, following, subscribing, it means so much to us.

I want to thank Paul R. Kan for reaching out to me and submitting this book review. He also has a fun series of articles he wants to write. I can’t wait to get them running on the blog, I think… no, I know… you’ll all love them.

In a few days our podcast with Central PA Pour will be uploaded. I will make sure to make an article and link it here on the blog so you can all watch it. Josh and I had a blast with the Central PA Pour crew; their a great bunch of guys.

And one last time, thank you all for reading. It is so very much appreciated.

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 – AFFILIATE CODE IS THEBEERTHRILLERS20 – will help you get wonderful pretzels and help us maintain and keep this blog running. Thank you!