Hoppy birthday!: Terrapin gives birth to a new IPA

It's been a little while since the last...ahem, first update. The academic world has demanded much of me in the past couple weeks. The beer's been pouring the entire time nonetheless, so there's much to tell.

First, Classic City Craft has a Twitter page. This will allow me to include more frequent updates on-the-go. For those of you not interested in diving into the Twitter world, CCC's Twitter updates can be viewed in the sidebar of this blog (yeah, that's it right over there).

On October 28, Terrapin Beer Co. held its third Wednesday night brewery tour, and its first tour featuring a new year-round IPA called Hopsecutioner. The crowd was a bit slim, but I was told that the Wednesday night tour is beginning to grow. For those of you who have never been to Terrapin, I urge you to take a visit. The small, cozy brewery seems like everything a craft brewery should be, and the staff made the tour anything but boring, even for those not interested in the actual brewing process. The tour offered visitors some of the first tastes of Hopsecutioner IPA (the very first sips were taken at a Terrapin/Left Hand beer dinner earlier in the week). So how was it? In the midst of the other offerings on tap: Pumpkinfest, Depth Charge, Big Hoppy Monster, and all of the Terrapin regulars, Hopsecutioner earned 5 of my 8 tickets. The new year-round IPA was pulled off  the line for the tour, so it lacked all of the carbonation that will be present in the finished product. The product I sampled was good, but I hope the last bit of carbonation added before bottling will provide a little extra bite that I look for in an IPA. At around 7.0% ABV, it is on par with most other American IPAs. Overall, I found Hopsecutioner to be a clean, refreshing, and very drinkable version of an IPA, lacking such a commonly overwhelming hoppiness that I feel polarizes most people's opinions on the style. This new addition may not please traditionalists who look for an extremely hoppy, authentic IPA, but like many of Terrapin's other beers, it is well balanced yet tame enough to appeal to a wide range of beer drinkers. Hopsecutioner seems like a welcome addition to Terrapin's lineup, staying consistent with the overall tone of drinkability while filling a much needed niche in the ever-expanding collection of beers from the Athens brewery.