REVIEW: Terrapin Hopsecutioner IPA

Greetings Alehounds!

I love the holidays, and sharing good times and gastric excess with good friends and family from far and wide is one of my favorite parts.  This year, with the new baby in tow, we made Thanksgiving a whirlwind tour on four wheels, visiting my lovely wife's family in south Georgia, mine in Pennsylvania, and then back to our home in Maine.  I'll admit, that was a lot of driving, but it was a fun trip in beautiful weather, and as an added bonus I got to stop along the way and pick up some regional beers to bring back with me.  Now, with the holidays behind us, it's time for a few reviews!  Now, where did I put those tasting notes...
                                                                                                                         
Today we're reviewing Hopsecutioner India Pale Ale (IPA) from the Terrapin Brewery in Athens, GA.  One of the things I love about regional breweries is the variety of label artwork.  This one features a cartoonish critter reminiscent of a certain teenage mutant ninja variety wielding a headsman's axe--sorta jumped off the shelf at me!

For this tasting (as with many of the tastings I do) I used a Chimay goblet, which has a nice little raised emblem inside the bottom of the glass, which acts as a nucleation site for carbonation bubbles to form as the gas comes out of solution, with the result being a steady stream of bubbles coming up through the center of the liquid and releasing the beer's locked-in aroma.  If you've never tried beer out of one of these, I highly recommend it!

Appearance
In the glass, the beer was a light coppery-orange color, and a little hazy. There was about a finger's thickness worth of head, slightly off-white, which disappeared rather quickly and left a nice coat of lace on the glass and a thin foam from the constant bubbles coming up in the center. There was quite a bit of haze in the beer too.

Smell
Not strong at all. I had to really struggle to find any hops aroma at all, which surprised me given to the hops content of a typical IPA and the purpose of my special glass. Oh well. There was a lot more malt aroma than I would expect in an IPA, with bread caramel dominating and a hint of toffee.

Taste
Found the hops, sorta. Floral and grassy with a dull lingering bitterness after swallowing. Pretty sweet--pale malts and caramel with some honey in the background. The taste experience doesn't seem to match the nose very well at all, which is unfortunate since smell plays a huge part in how things taste. The sweetness does seem to hide the 7.3% ABV pretty well.

Mouthfeel
Medium body with low to medium carbonation. Creamy and comfortable, it goes down smooth without a scratch in the throat.

Overall
As a beer--not too bad. As an IPA--a little disappointing. Middle of the road at best. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover; nor, apparently, should you judge a beer by its label. Based on the name and the label art, I expected a slightly whimsical yet sharp IPA that assails the tastebuds like a big burly man with an axe, but sadly, this was not so. They could have put a lot more hops in the aroma, and sharpened the hop bite in the flavor. While the caramel sweetness does a lot to mask the alcohol, the lack of balancing hops results in a beer that reminds me more of a extra light-ish ESB than an IPA. As for the nose not matching the taste, sometimes it's fun and instructive to trick your senses this way, but I don't generally find it useful with a beer, especially when that beer fails to match the profile typical of its purported type.

I've read good things about the Terrapin Brewery, and Hopsecutioner IPA in particular, so I'm thinking perhaps the beer I tasted was past its peak of freshness when I got around to trying it, and unfortunately I didn't check for a date on the label. It's also possible that it lost some of its proper character due to being transported for several days without refrigeration, although it was mighty cold in the back of my truck by the time we got back to Maine! I've found, too, that southern-fried brews sometimes tend to be lighter on the senses than their northern counterparts, which sorta makes sense because of the warmer weather. Still, to this northerner, Hopsecutioner seemed like it would be more aptly named as a lawnmower beer.

All this being said, I will definitely try Terrapin Hopsecutioner again next time I visit my in-laws!

Tune in next time for my review of Terrapin Rye Pale Ale.

How Clear Is Your Beer?

Beer is more than just a great tasting beverage.  While many choose not to partake, beer is a large part of the American--indeed, even the human--experience.  Benjamin Franklin famously said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  The fact that a culture has grown up around the joy of making and enjoying fine beer testifies to how much beer has become part of our culture.  Enjoying beer is about far more than just the taste of the brew itself.  Beer is an experience, very much about where you have your beer, the company with whom you drink it, what you drink it out of, and how the beer looks in the glass.  And while you as a home brewer cannot control many of those factors, you can control the quality of the beer you make so it not only tastes great but is visually appealing as well.

If you pour a commercial beer from a bottle or a can, you may not be aware of how much those beer makers put into not just the taste but the affect your other senses have on the beer drinking experience.  The way the beer pours.  The aroma as you pour it.  The head of foam that wells up in your mug. How the beer looks in the glass.  These are all just as important as the beer's flavor.  The emphasis the big beer producers put on ascetics is so extreme that they even make the sound the can makes when you "pop a cold one" to be unique because they know that sound alone can prepare you to receive the taste of a great beer drinking experience.

The truth is none of that will change whether the beer itself is of high quality or is good to drink, but visual appeal matters.  One area of visual appeal that you have some control over when making your own beer at home is clarity.  Clarity simply refers to how the beer looks in the glass.  If you can see through the beer and it is a consistent beige or amber color, that is visually appealing.  But if things are floating around in the beer, even if they are perfectly harmless byproducts of the brewing process, that can diminish how inviting your beer is to enjoy and even diminish how enjoyable the beer is to drink even if the beer itself is of high quality.

A lot of the "stuff" that floats around in beer comes from the yeast that is crucial to the fermentation process, which makes beer beer.  Some yeasts are better than others about settling out of the beer during fermentation.  Another source of visible material in the beer comes from what is referred to as non-microbiological particles or NMPs which are a byproduct of the brewing process.  Again, none of these visible materials are harmful to consume nor do they reduce the value of the beer.  They just look bad and hurt the clarity of the beer which is one way beer is measured for quality.
Many of the NMPs are introduced during the initial creation of the wort which is phase one of any brewing operation.  The wort is boiled at a high temperature for a significant enough period of time to cause the proteins in the ingredients to break down and become part of the fluidity of the wort rather than remain in a substance state or a "floc" which remains visible in the finished product.  To avoid this make sure your boil sustains a temperature of 215F for 60-90 minutes to assure complete processing of the proteins.

Another important brewing step that you can do to reduce visible agents in your beer is to cool the wort very quickly.  It is, of course, advisable to cool your wort quickly anyway in order to get the yeast working as soon as possible and avoid hang time that allows bacteria and wild yeasts to contaminate your brew.  But by bringing the temperature down rapidly, the clarity is vastly enhanced as well.  When you transfer the cooled wort into your fermentation vessel, be sure to leave behind the debris that is in the bottom of the brewing kettle--in addition to spent hops, there is what is called "cold break," which has a lot of solidified proteins that lead to cloudy beer.  As a beginning home brewer, I used several methods to cool my wort--ice baths in the kitchen sink, leaving the wort in a sealed fermenter outside overnight, and even sinking the hot kettle in a snowbank for an hour or so, but by far the best method, for a minimal investment of money, is an immersion chiller.  This is a simple apparatus made of metal (usually copper) tubing coiled up so it fits into your brewing pot, and some rubber hose or tubing.  Cold water flows in one end, takes on heat transferred from the hot wort liquid, and comes out hot on the other end.  A simple wort chiller can bring five gallons of boiling wort down to yeast pitching temperature in ten to fifteen minutes.  A scaled-up version of the wort chiller is the counter flow chiller, but while highly recommended for being faster and more efficient at chilling your wort, a regular single-direction immersion chiller is certainly sufficient and gives you plenty of bang for your buck.

Finings, or additives, are another option for keeping your beer clear.  Irish moss, isinglass, gelatin, and bentonite are all products added either during the boil or after fermentation that clear your beer (or wine, in some cases!) at the microscopic level.

If you want to get really involved in clearing your brew, there's always filtration, which we'll talk about in more depth another time.

Seeking beer clarity can become a major passion of yours as a home brewer and there is a whole science to using clarifying agents such as Irish Moss to enhance beer clarity without diminishing beer quality or taste.  Learning good techniques for making your beer clear and appealing is just another step in your ongoing quest to become the best amateur beer maker possible.  And that is a quest worth pursuing!

Getting That First Batch of Beer Brewing

Beer is such a popular beverage because it has such a deep earthy flavor and because the variety of flavors, brands, colors and textures of beers is so diverse that you can explore a new brew each and every time you want a beer and never get bored.  And yet most of us pretty much settle on one taste and stick with it.  That is until we discover brew pubs. That is when our eyes are opened to the idea that we don’t have to depend on Budweiser and Miller for good beer.  It can be made right at home.

Some of the finest beers you could hope to taste are not made in the big commercial factories but in small brew pubs all around the country.  So if you have discovered some particularly flavorful home brewed beers, it isn't long before you might decide to take a stab at brewing a batch yourself.  Be careful because once you start experimenting with brewing your own beer, you may become hooked into an addictive hobby that will provide hours of fun as you tinker with your recipes, get new and better equipment and become a true beer expert in brewing your own custom blends for the best flavored beer.

But it all starts with that very first batch.  You might approach that moment when you decide to make your first batch of beer with some fear and trembling.  But keep your spirit of adventure and experimentation because, after all, if you bought good equipment, you will get the hang of it.  As the wise man said, that the journey of a hundred miles begins with the first step.  So too your journey toward becoming a master brewer starts with your first batch.

The process of brewing that first batch is pretty simple actually.  Here are the steps to go through to get your first brew underway.

-Gather the ingredients to have them on hand as you step through the brewing process.  You don’t' want to have to stop and go dig something up so have them ready to go when they are added in as the brewing process is underway.

-It all starts with water.  One gallon of good water will do.  You don't need specialty water as tap water in most areas of the country does well due to a good combination of minerals that actually makes the beer taste better.  So get a gallon of water boiling in a large pot capable of holding 2-3 gallons of water.  You need that extra space for adding ingredients.

-The first ingredient to add to the boiling water is the brewing yeast that you bought just for this purpose.  The yeast will have specific instructions but in essence you will mix the yeast with piping hot tap water and stir it in a separate pot or pan until it becomes a thick paste.

-You can prepare the yeast while the water boils and when it's ready, add the mixture to the water.

-Once the yeast is mixed in well, add the malt extract that you bought for this brewing process.  Make sure the malt is mixed in well and dissolved before moving on.

-Hops will come as pellets when you bought them from the supplier so add them when the water is boiling again and allow the entire mixture to boil for another five minutes.

-During this preparation time, get your fermenting equipment sanitized and ready to go.  As the brewing process approaches completion, fill the fermenter about three quarters full with cold water from the tap.

-The strong beer you have boiled is called the "wort" which is now ready for fermenting.  Pour the hot wort into the cold water in the fermenter.  What you are looking for is an end result of five gallons of mixture in the fermenter so if you don't find you are at that level, add more water. 

The brewing process is done and you can follow the directions for fermenting that are provided with the equipment or that you learn from other resources about the fine art of fermenting beer.  Now it's just a matter of letting nature do what it does to ferment your beer.  Enjoy the anticipation as you allow the fermenting to continue and then enjoy the flavor of your very own first batch of home brewed beer.