Pennsyltucky: The Lager That Wants You to Think It’s Vintage Cool
Triceratops Brewing Company
In the ever-escalating arms race of craft beer creativity, where breweries are battling to outdo each other with the weirdest, most absurd concoctions, Triceratops Brewing Company decided to take a different route. Enter Pennsyltucky, a Traditional Vienna Style Lager that doesn’t want to be quirky or boundary-pushing. No, this beer just wants to be... simple. But, of course, in the world of craft beer, even being simple has to come with a side of self-aware irony.
Let's be honest—when you see Pennsyltucky on the tap list, your first thought is, “Oh great, another brewery digging into the past to serve up something ‘traditional’ in the hopes that it’ll seem retro enough to be cool.” And here we are, with a Vienna Style Lager that wants to convince us it's not basic. But deep down, we know it’s just that awkward cousin who still calls texting “sending a message through the computer.”
They slap the word “traditional” on it like it’s a badge of honor, but let’s call it what it is: the brewery ran out of weird ideas and decided to phone it in with a classic. Sure, it’s “smooth,” “malty,” and “sessionable”—all those comforting buzzwords that promise you’ll get through two pints without anything too memorable happening. Which, let’s be honest, is kind of what you’re after when you’re three craft beers deep and tired of trying to decipher tasting notes like “pineapple-scented moonbeam.”
When you sip Pennsyltucky, it’s like slipping into your dad’s old work boots. There’s nothing fancy, nothing flashy, but hey, it gets the job done. It’s malty in that “I might have had this beer a hundred times, but it’s not going to betray me” kind of way. The slight caramel sweetness comes in just enough to remind you that you’re drinking a lager, not an IPA trying to taste like a fruit salad.
It’s not that Pennsyltucky is bad. It’s the kind of beer you grab when you’re tired of trying to be interesting. It’s the beer equivalent of giving up on your carefully curated Spotify playlist and just hitting “shuffle” on the ‘80s rock hits station.
If you’re looking to pair Pennsyltucky with food, why stop at beer pretzels and bratwurst? It’s clearly begging for something equally “traditional,” like a cold cut sandwich or maybe just a bag of chips. Or better yet, pair it with some mild disappointment—like the feeling you get when you realize you’ve been drinking the same beer for an hour and still can’t think of anything interesting to say about it.
The name alone deserves its own deep dive. Pennsyltucky—it’s like the brewery didn’t even try to hide the fact that this beer comes from the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s a subtle nod to the fact that this beer doesn’t care about your fancy beer snobbery. Maybe it’s a reminder that you don’t need a beer brewed with exotic spices and ingredients sourced from a cave in the Himalayas. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s saying, “You’re drinking this in a bar off a highway exit, and that’s okay.”
So here’s to Pennsyltucky, the beer that dares to embrace its mediocrity in a world full of sour hazy double IPAs and coconut-infused imperial stouts. It’s the beer equivalent of blue jeans: unexciting but reliable, something you can reach for when you’ve grown tired of trying too hard to be different.
Raise a glass, take a sip, and enjoy the comforting realization that sometimes, not every beer needs to be a conversation starter. Sometimes, it just needs to be beer. Cheers, you beautiful lager drinkers.
