Topic Archives: Whiskey

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 Southern Tier Brewing, New Beers
Posted in Orpheus Brewing, New Beers

Orpheus Brewing Stillness Feels the Air and Shudders

Orpheus - Stillness Feels the Air and Shudders

Orpheus Brewing Stillness Feels the Air and Shudders, an imperial stout debut on the brewery’s Year 7 Anniversary weekend. 

The base beer is an imperial stout, aged 2-3 years in whiskey barrels. 

The stillness feels the air and shudders. Toiling through the hulking gate from now to always now, extant riches burning so we venerate the ashes. The oppressive sound of nothing dampens drifting calculations, but broken thoughts entwine when creeping darkness has no alibi. Constructing eternity out of discount ruins, engulfed in all that’s real to me, which takes me home amidst morass to see through smoke and ash the brief infinity we built.

Orpheus Brewing Stillness Feels the Air and Shudders will be available in 12.7oz bottles on September 3rd. 

Style: Imperial Stout (Barrel Aged. Whiskey.)
Availability: 12.7oz Bottles
Debut: 9/3/21

13.2% ABV

MORE: Orpheus Year 7 Releases

Posted in Southern Tier Brewing, Headlines

Southern Tier Pumking is now a King & Cola cocktail in a can

Southern Tier King & Cola

Southern Tier Distilling, the spirits arm of Southern Tier Brewing, has launched three new RTD (Ready To Drink) cocktails offerings as summer winds down. One of them is a cocktail inspired the brewery’s popular pumpkin beer Pumking, dubbed King & Cola.

The story starts with Pumking, one of the most well-known pumpkin beers in the U.S, first released in 2007. Last fall, the distillery released Pumking Whiskey, a flavored whiskey based on the seasonal release. As RTD popularity rises, and very much inline with Southern Tier’s progression of their successful pumpkin lineup, King & Cola is making its initial debut.

The distillery calls this cocktail “crushable,” with a balance of pumpkin pie spices, and peppery cola (while the term “coke” has become colloquial, it’s trademarked by the big red Atlanta-based sugar giant.) We tried Pumking Whiskey last year, and was beyond surprised at the result. The whiskey really is  fall in a shot glass. It’s dangerously easy to drink, and one you don’t want to over do. 

RELATED: WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU SOUTHERN TIER WHISKEY, YOU MAKE PUMPKIN BOMBS

Arriving alongside King & Cola is Vodka Pink Lemonade, and Lime Agave Margarita.

Lime Margarita uses lime juice, orange flavors and Blanco Agave Spirits, which doesn’t appear on their distillery website. Pink Lemonade is your basic vodka and soda, with a touch of lemon thyme flavor, and fruit juice for color.  

Each of the new Southern Tier cocktails are 8% alcohol by volume, available in 12-ounce can/4-packs in the greater New York Area. 

Posted in Guinness, Headlines

Nick Offerman & Lagavulin unveil a Guinness cask finished whisky

Actor Nick Offerman, Lagavulin Whiskey, and Guinness are debuting a new partnership ahead of Father’s Day 2021. A combination of single malt whisky and beer – Meet Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Guinness Cask Finish.

Offerman and Lagavulin began a partnership back in 2014. Offerman, probably most famously known as Ron Swanson on the tv show Parks and Rec, was often seen drinking Lagavulin Whisky and rare steaks throughout the show. Swanson (Offerman) even visited the distillery in Scotland in Season 6.

Created with Offerman’s father Ric in mind, Lagavulin took an 11 year Islay Single Malt and aged it for 4 months in Guinness casks from the brewery’s Open Gate Brewery in Maryland. The resulting flavor is describing as  ‘sweet peat’ – combining the intense peat and charred wood notes of the Lagavulin with the roasted coffee, dark chocolate, and sweet caramel notes from the Guinness casks.

Offerman’s entire Lagavulin: My Tales of Whisky, including a new episode for this new collaboration is available on YouTube.

Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Guinness Cask Finish will be available in 750-milliliter bottles at select retailers starting in May, $79.99 each.

 

Posted in 8th Wonder Brewery, Coming Soon

8th Wonder Viet-Irish Coffee market the brewery’s 1st bottle release

8th Wonder Viet-Irish Coffee

8th Wonder Viet-Irish Coffee debuts at the Houston, Texas brewery this weekend.

This first bottle release by 8th Wonder is indeed a big one, especially since the brewery calls this beer Imperial Rocket Fuel. Viet-Irish Coffee is based on year-round Rocket Fuel, a 4.6% alcohol robust porter brewed with Greenway Coffee and milk sugar.

This imperial edition features the same locally roasted Greenway Coffee and aged in Jameson Whiskey barrels.

8th Wonder Viet-Irish Coffee will be available in 22-ounce bottles and draft when the brewery opens on Saturday, January 25th.

Style: Imperial Milk Porter (w/ Coffee. Barrel Aged. Whiskey.)
Availability: 22oz Bottles. Brewery Release.
Debut: 1/25/20

10.2% ABV

Image: 8th Wonder

Posted in Don't Miss This, Great Divide, Seasonal Return

Great Divide Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout cans expected in November

Great Divide Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout

Great Divide Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout is another one of the “old guard” in American barrel-aged imperial stouts. Additionally, it is among the most revered in the industry.

The year-round “Yeti” imperial stout spends at least 12 months aging whiskey barrels before it sees the light of day every November. The resulting beer is a big, bold 12.5% alcohol by volume beast of a stout.

The spirited aging process produces a hugely complex but mellowed Yeti, with its signature roasted flavors, hints of vanilla and oak, and a whiskeyed finish.

Other recent Yeti Imperial Stout releases include S’ mores Yeti and Mexican Chocolate Yeti.

Great Divide Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout is slated for 16-ounce cans for the first time in November 2019.

Style: Imperial Stout (Barrel-Aged. Whiskey.)
Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft. Seasonal Release.
Latest Return: November 2019

12.5% ABV