Terrapin Beer Company

Posted in Headlines, New Beers, Terrapin Beer Company

Terrapin Double Red is barrel-aged collaboration heaven

Terrapin Double Barrrel Red Ale

It almost sounds like fiction now, but there was a time in beer when the mere mention of barrel aging would elicit a Pavlovian response. You released it, they would come. Somewhere we lost that.

 I’m not sure if it was just a flooded market or style-hype shift. The days of barrel-aged perfection faded for diabetic pastry stouts and chunky lactose haze bombs. In all honesty, I thought those days were gone until I stumbled upon this one. 

Terrapin Beer Company has always just done whatever they want to do, stayed true to the mountain biking, travel, solar-powered, live music hippie culture, and just be. Two decades of growth trajectory show it. 

Let’s talk about this beer. It’s no secret that Terrapin entered the Miller Coors portfolio years ago, and besides extra capital, it brought new opportunities for collaboration- in this case specifically – Coors Whiskey Company. 

David Coors’ interest in whiskey started in college (naturally). He recalls sitting in his father’s (Pete Coors) Suburban on the way to the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado, and David declared “We should make whiskey!” Without even looking at David, Pete said “We are good at one thing and one thing only, and that’s making beer,” David recalls. 

That conversation nagged David for nearly 20 years. In 2019, Coors Brewing Company made the business decision to venture beyond the beer aisle. The time was right to make bourbon, but the question was the approach. He didn’t want to just source juice and slap a label on it. By the time the pandemic hit, Coors had started blending and fell in love with a single malt blended with a bourbon flavor profile that not a lot of people had been releasing. 

“We are good at one thing and one thing only, and that’s making beer”

“I was enamored by the flavor profile that came out of it. I was bringing all these different blends to family dinner on Sundays and finally found a blend we settled on and took it to market in 2021,” David says. 

Coors Whiskey had recently been doing a barrel-aged imperial porter for AC Golden, piquing a bigger interest in making other barrel-aged beers. They reached out to their various brewery partners. Terrapin immediately jumped in. Brewmaster and co-founder Spike Buckowski and President Dustin Watts loved the whiskey blends. They started by dismissing the idea of putting an imperial stout in the barrel, thinking that’s already been done too much. Rye malt is far and away Spike’s favorite to brew with and dotes heavily on retired Terrapin Big Hoppy Monster (Imperial Rye Ale). Spike used that grain bill to guide the creation of Double Barrel Red Ale

“The one eye-opening thing was the effect freshly dumped whiskey barrels have on the final flavor. It was so bold on flavor, and big on booze, pushing the final alcohol by volume to 12.7%. I really wanted the red ale to come out of the barrel mimicking the flavors of the 5 Trails blend,” Spike says.

“Having the beer locked and loaded by the time these barrels hit the ground was a challenge for us,” Dustin says. David Coors’ team emptied the barrels and shipped them to Georgia in less than 48 hours. We wanted to be ready to fill,” he adds.

The collaborative result is a liquid flashback to the heyday of barrel-aged beer beauties that we’ve stayed up far too late drinking. Besides conjuring warm fuzzy Big Hoppy Monster flashbacks, Double Barrel marries the best parts of blended whiskey and smooth barrel-aged beer. Terrapin has done a lot of barrel-aged beers in the past but this one stands apart from the others. This wasn’t just “brew a beer and find a barrel,” it was an intentional creation and it shows. It’s a barrel-aged art form we’ve missed. 

After the beer was emptied from the barrels, they were shipped back to Coors Whiskey Company who is aging a blend in the barrels, for an ale-finished whiskey coming in late 2024.

Terrapin Double Barrel Red Ale is available in limited 16-ounce cans and draft.

Style: Imperial Red Ale (Barrel Aged. Whiskey)
Hops: Centennial, CTZ, Warrior
Malts: 2-row malt, CaraMalt, Light Crystal, Malted Rye, Amber Malt, Extra light Crystal, Malted Wheat, Flaked Corn

Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft. Limited Release.

12.7% ABV

Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, New Beers

Terrapin Oktoberfest

Terrapin Oktoberfest

Terrapin Oktoberfest

Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, New Beers
Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, New Beers

Terrapin Morning Haze

Terrapin Morning Haze

Terrapin Morning Haze

Packed with a vast amount of juicy hops and balanced by a soft pillowy mouthfeel, our Morning Haze Imperial IPA is as pleasing as your favorite sunrise.

Style: Imperial Hazy IPA
Hops: Amarillo, Sequoia, Setiva, Zamba, Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy
Malts: 2-Row, Vienna, Flaked Oats, Malted Wheat

Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft. Limited Release. 

Debut: July 2022

8.8% ABV

Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, Seasonal Return

Terrapin Watermelon Gose returns ahead of warmer weather

Terrapin Watermelon Gose cans

Terrapin Watermelon Gose, one of the brewery’s most popular seasonals, is back on shelves ahead of the coming spring.

Watermelon Gose is the brewery’s first packaged gose style, a tart beer traditionally brewed with sea salt and coriander. In a break from tradition, the brewery adds fresh watermelon. If you put salt on your watermelon slices, you’ll really love this one.

Terrapin Watermelon Gose is available across the brewery’s entire footprint again starting in late February 2022.

Style: Gose (w/ Coriander. Salt. Watermelon.)
Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft.
Latest Return: Late February 2022

4.5% ABV 

PIC: Beer Street Journal

Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, New Beers

Terrapin 615 Live Lager

Terrapin 615 Live

Terrapin 615 Live Lager

Posted in Terrapin Beer Company, Don't Miss This, Seasonal Return

Terrapin Wake-n-Bake seasonal turns 17

Terrapin Wake-n-Bake can

Terrapin Wake-n-Bake, aka W-n-B, is making a seasonal return to the Athens, Georgia based brewery’s seasonal lineup. 

2021 marks the 17th release of Terrapin Wake-n-Bake, an oatmeal stout brewed with a special blend of coffee from Athens local Jittery Joes Coffee.

Black as night, this coffee stout is thick, rich and full of real coffee flavor. Brewed with a special blend of beans from all over the world developed and roasted specifically for Terrapin by our friends at Jittery Joe’s Coffee right here in Athens, GA.

In 2014, Terrapin invested in a canning line, and started transitioning their entire lineup from bottles to cans. W-n-B was one of the first seasonals to make the change back in 2016. If you like a bold stout with coffee and hints of creamy chocolate, this seasonal favorite does not disappoint. 

Terrapin Wake-n-Bake is available in 12 ounce cans and draft across the brewery’s distribution network in November 2021. 

Style: Imperial Oatmeal Stout (w/ Coffee)
Hops: Nugget

Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft.
Can Debut: November, 2016
Latest Return: November 2021.

9.4% ABV

PIC: Beer Street Journal