Last Thursday night I was at Taco Mac (yes, again). I went there, you see, for a few reasons. Thursday night is pint glass night, which means that if you buy a beer from one of the monthly featured breweries you get a free logo glass to take home with you. April of 2012 saw local brewer Terrapin featured as beer of the month; not only that, but April 26th saw a brand new Terrapin beer, Easy Rider Hopped Up Session Ale, launched.
Easy Rider is meant to be a drinkable, quaffing brew that’s flavorful and lower in alcohol (4.5% by volume. It’s made with Maris Otter and Crystal 24 Lovibond malt as well as Zathos, Bravo, Centennial, Amarillo and Galaxy hops. The hops clearly outweigh the malts here, both in varieties and on the palate. Really, this makes a lot of sense, because while hops add loads of flavor, they don’t add fermentables. So if you’re making a lower gravity session beer, why not hop it up? Boston Beer proved this way back in the nineties with their Samuel Adams Boston Lightship, a “light” beer that had lower alcohol and fewer calories than Boston Lager but still packed plenty of hop punch.
Anyway, my server showed up with my beautifully crisp looking mug of Easy Rider Hopped Up Session Ale, and accompanying Easy Rider glass in short order. The color was actually pale gold with a light foam head formation atop. I took a whiff and got two nostrils full of bright, spicy citric hops. Taking a sip, I barely had a chance to discern a bit of crisp malt before it was overwhelmed quickly and unmistakably by the hops. They were, indeed, rather citrusy with grapefruit and resin flavor and aroma. The beer finished with a gentle hop bite, nothing too aggressive but enough to make me hoppy. Errr, I mean happy.
All in all, I enjoyed this hoppy little quencher. It proved quite refreshing on a warm spring day, and was reasonably priced at $5.50 a pint. An American Extra Pale Ale, this is the summer seasonal for Terrapin, and has replaced Sunray Wheat Ale for 2012. It’s also sold in bottles, and herein lays my biggest quibble. Now, the beer was only rolled out last week so I have yet to see it in a package store. But the Terrapin website says this beer is sold in 4-Packs.
Why would you sell a session beer in 4-packs? That seems to make no sense to me. I am giving this a beer a “rebuy” status based on my draft sample, but if the beer is sold in 4-packs at the priced Terrapin commands for it’s bigger beers in 4-packs ($7.99 and up) I will change that rating to a thumbs down for rebuy purposes.
Stay tuned for further developments.
Update, April 30th 2012: I called Terrapin this morning and confirmed that this beer will be sold in four-packs for about $7-$8. This beer should be in six-packs at that price, plain and simple, This is a low alcohol session beer, and it makes no sense to me to package it this way. I have changed my rebuy rating to "thumbs down" and my overall rating to 3 as a result.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft