Terrapin Brewing Company, RecreationAle Pale Ale

For all you Terrapin fans out there, here is the latest and greatest.... RecreationAle. This is the first Terrapin beer to be put into cans. The concept is that this is a beer you can bring camping, biking, hiking or any other outdoor sport. I was able to enjoy this after a long day of running around with the kids (kind of like a sport). It was very satisfying and refreshing but not devoid of flavor.

The brewers at Terrapin made an impressive Pale Ale here. They used Bravo, Centennial, Zythos and Amarillo hops with an addition of Galaxy hops for the dry hopping. It came out at 4.7% abv which is a nice "daytime" beer. The malts used to brew this beer give it a nice medium bodied mouthfeel without being heavy.

I was really impressed by this beer. As a canned craft beer advocate, it is great to see awesome breweries like Terrapin branch out and make a flavorful canned beer. The hops were nice and fragrant with a slight piney and light resiny quality. This is not an IPA, but it still packs a nice hop bitterness to make it a very flavorful Pale Ale.


Personal Rating: 9 / 10
Style Rating: 8 / 10

Wanna try it now? Order it online at: 
https://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=899539000090

Terrapin Brewing Maggie's Peach Farmhouse Ale

A new addition to Terrapins' Seasonal lineup arrived at our door yesterday and was calling our name with the warm weather that hit us this week! As Terrapin says "This refreshing summer offering  has all the flavor and aroma of a freshly picked peaches (to the tune of 1,000 pounds per 100 barrel batch!) combined with the complexity of a well executed farmhouse ale.  Some of you may remember Maggie’s older sister, Side Project Volume 7, one of Spike’s first first foray into  farmhouse ales. This newest version is just as lovely, should age just as well and has the uniquely GA flavor of fresh summer peaches!"

When you open this brew, the first thing that hits your nose is the aroma of fresh peaches and light sweet spice. It also has hints of citrus, mild hops and a touch of malt. This beer smells like a fresh peach, but can the taste live up to the aroma. I poured it into a glass and it has a nice light golden color. It looks incredibly refreshing but looks can be deceiving. The taste is a nice farmhouse style ale. It has a nice light citrus base with just enough sweet peach flavor to be refreshing without making it one of those "sweet" fruit beers. This is a great Summer beer, light, refreshing and eminently drinkable. A must try on one of the upcoming hot Summer days we will be having. At 5.3% ABV, it is not to heavy nor to light. Enjoy! 


Personal Rating: 9.7 /10
Style Rating: 9.7 /10

Wanna try it now? Order it online at: http://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=899539000717

Terrapin Hopzilla Double IPA

Here's a Double IPA from Terrapin that is doing a stint on the "Monster Beer Tour" circuit.  This is a new addition to their lineup. This previously was Side Project #12 by Terrapin and was so popular it made a comeback to this seasonal spot in the lineup. We just got our hands the new batch and were very excited to crack a few open and see how they compare to the other DIPAs (double ipa) out there.
First off, I would love to say that my beer purchases are not affected by packaging, but alas I can not do that. Terrapin has some of the best beer labels on the market today and I always find my self gravitating towards their beers because of that. This label is no exception with a huge Godzilla-esque Terrapin crushing buildings on the front of the beer. An apt picture for such a "monster" of a beer!
This DIPA pours an haze free amber color with a nice small head of foam. The aroma is blowing up with huge amounts of Centennial, Chinook and Bravo hops (a nice West Coast style blend). So far this beer holds up to its name. The first sip is supremely satisfying with a rich balance of hoppy and malty flavor that finishes with a good lingering hop bitterness. Definitely not a session beer due to its high alcohol content and rich Marris Otter malt backbone but it is very smooth. This one is dry hopped with Citra and it adds a nice dimension of citrus bitters on the finish.  Overall, a great double IPA that I will be buying on the regular despite its $13.49 price point.  


Personal Rating: 9.5 /10
Style Rating: 9.5 /10

Wanna try it now? Order it online at: https://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=899539000441

Terrapin Beer Company | Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Back to back Terrapin Beer Co. offerings tonight as we do another winter seasonal,  Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout this one being part of the Monster Beer Tour.  The tour consists of four Imperial versions of various styles for each season.  Tons of hops, lots of flavor, and high alcohol content is the norm for these truly huge beers.  This is definitely my favorite out of the four.  Although there is one that I haven't tried, Hopzilla Imperial IPA, which will be joining the tour for 2012.  I'll be looking forward to that one...hopefully we will get it.

Wake-n-Bake was poured from a 12oz bottle into a Sam Adams Perfect Pint Glass.  It's black as night and a good inch of brown creamy head recedes quickly down to a thin layer.  More retention here than I saw from the Moo-Hoo.  That plume of effervescence is once again rising up to the top in the center of my glass.  As I swirl the beer there is a good amount of creamy lacing that sticks to the side rather than ooze down like it did with the Moo-Hoo.  

Wow, the aroma here is pretty much all dark roast coffee.  Alcohol is just slightly detectible as it is masked from the coffee smell.  They suggest jokingly that this would make a great beer to have with breakfast.  After smelling it I'm not sure that was actually a joke.  W-n-B is brewed with Jittery Joe's Coffee, a local Athens, Georgia gourmet Coffee company.  Wow, the intense coffee aromas make me wish Jittery Joe's was available in Jersey...guess I'll just have to settle for Wawa. 

As the first sip is taken, it is overwhelmingly coffee.  The coffee is almost so robust it could be compared to espresso with some alcohol taste.  Even though you can taste the alcohol,(this brew is 8.1%), it is hidden quite well by the intense coffee flavors.  On the back end you can taste the roasted malts and a slight dark chocolate taste as they complement the coffee taste quite well. This is a rich full bodied stout.  Very creamy and luscious as is goes down.  Great after taste as well.  An almost perfect representation of an Imperial Coffee Stout.  Don't miss this one as it will go fast!  Personal 9.0/10 and style 9.5/10.

Terrapin Beer Company | Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout

Terrapin Beer Company out of Athens, Georgia brings us a winter seasonal treat that for many of us is truly a favorite.  Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout is another sweet stout offering.  What sets this one apart from other brews such as Riverhorse Milk Stout and Southern Tier Double Milk Stout is that Moo-Hoo, as the name suggests, is brewed with chocolate nibs.  (Get it?  Moo-Hoo...Yoo-Hoo?)  Terrapin uses Olive and Sinclare gourmet chocolate nibs and shells along with lactose sugars to achieve a truly tasty treat.

Before we get into the beer review, just a quick word on Terrapin.  If you are a fan of Terrapin products you may have noticed for quite a while that the line has been pretty much non-existent in our area for quite some time.  Terrapin has been going through some financial issues that have actually led to part-ownership rights being sold to, cough cough, Miller-Coors brewing company.  A division of the mega brewer named Tenth and Blake Beer Co. has purchased less than 25% ownership of Terrapin.  This sounds bad but actually it will be quite beneficial to the growth of Terrapin.  Under the guidelines they will remain an independent brewery and will be bailed out of an all-encompassing debt that has kept them from brewing many of their specialty beers as well as over-all distribution.  A vast majority of Terrapin's production in recent months has only made it to the localized region around the brewery.  Now that they have been bailed out they will be able to expand their production capacity and hopefully their beers will be more readily available in our area.

 Ok, lets get started...Moo-Hoo (Poured into a Sam Adams perfect pint glass from a 12oz bottle), as you would expect from any quality stout pours a jet black color with half finger brownish head that quickly disappeared with a decent hazing left behind.  Nothing too special here but there is a small plume of bubbles still rising up in the center of my glass after about ten minutes...this is a good sign.  Good creamy lacing creeps down the sides of the glass.

The aromas rising trough the middle of my glass are of strong coffee and dark cocoa.  There is no alcohol content listed on the bottle, but it is slightly detectible in the smell.  Chocolatey roasted malts are also at the forefront here.  Just an over-all very pleasant aroma.

The taste is of sweet dark chocolate and robust coffee.  The lactose sugars and cocoa nibs blend together well with one offsetting the other to provide a balanced taste...not too sweet yet not too bitter either.  This works quite well.  The alcohol is detectible but not over-powering.  The roasted malts are there but are somewhat hidden behind the cocoa and the sugar.  Decent carbonation remains even though the head has completely disappeared by now.  With the mouth feel being on the lighter side, this is an easy-drinker compared to many other stouts.  This is a great stout that I always look forward to this time of year...and now that Terrapin has expansion plans I wont have to worry about not ever seeing it again.  Pick this one up before it's gone for another year.  Personal 8.5/10 and style 8/10.