Terrapin Beer Co. is wasting no time gearing up in 2017. They’ve got big plans for this year at both their Athens, GA brewery and their upcoming ATL Brew Lab at SunTrust Park. There’s a lot of new beer coming out this year and some old favorites will return. You can also expect to see more green initiatives and community involvement from Terrapin. Here’s a look at what’s coming this year.

Going Green, More Beer, More Markets

At their Athens brewery Terrapin has plans to install a wastewater treatment facility and expand the brewhouse from a 3 vessel system to a 5 vessel system, which will allow for more brewing of kettle sour beers – like the return of Watermelon Gose, a kaffir lime and black Hawaiian sea salt gose, and an Arnold Palmer inspired Berliner dubbed T-Time. Additional fermentation and brite tanks will be installed to increase brewing capacity. Terrapin will expand into additional markets in 2017 starting with Kentucky and Ohio next week and Mississippi on March 1st.

Terrapin also launched a new website (terrapinbeer.com) recently and they’re working on a Terrapin app that will have, “a variety of functionality.”

Festivals and Community Involvement

Terrapin donated nearly $25,000 to charitable organizations in 2016 and they plan to increase that amount this year. Once again they’ll return as sponsors of the Candler Park Music Festival, Wildwood Revival, Bonnaroo, and the Twilight Criterium where they’ll re-release Road Warrior Kölsch. They’ll also host their Anniversary Carnival on April 8th and Hop Harvest Festival and release of So Fresh and So Green, Green on October 21st.

ATL Brew Lab at SunTrust Park

Beer, baseball, BBQ… that’s about as American as it gets and freshly brewed Terrapin beer will be a big part of the new SunTrust stadium. Construction of the ATL Brew Lab is progressing nicely, with plans to open in April. Several new beers will be created at the Brew Lab, they’ll start off with 3-4 recipes and work up to 8-9 on-tap. Fox Bros. BBQ has partnered with Terrapin and will have an attached restaurant/tasting room and both will be open year-round and accessible from outside of the stadium.

Beer Releases

The biggest news… Terrapin has vowed to not brew any pumpkin beers this year. When we spoke with co-founder and Brewmaster Spike Buckowski (Beer Guys Radio | Ep. 42) he mentioned that he would be happy to see them go away, and it looks like this is the year that happens.

The first new release for 2017 is in stores now, Terrapin’s Single Origin Coffee Brown Ale. This unique offering comes in a mixed 4-pack and features the same base beer with four different coffee varieties. Terrapin collaborated with Athens coffee roaster Jittery Joe’s for these brews. The bottles feature tasting notes for each coffee and each variety shows how much difference the coffees can make in the taste profile of a beer.

In addition to the kettle sour beers mentioned above Terrapin will also release a new year-round Easy Gose in April, it’s a traditional gose brewed with “a bit” of grapefruit peel. Regular seasonal rotation will include Mosaic Red Rye IPA, Maggie’s Peach Farmhouse Ale, and Moo-Hoo chocolate milk stout. The Monster Beer Tour will be in 6-pack cans this year and feature Cumulus Lupulus Imperial IPA, a TBD collaboration brewed with Fat Heads Brewery, and their popular W-n-B coffee oatmeal imperial stout.

From their Side Project we’ll see a blueberry thyme saison in May, a kaffir lime gose in July, Dave’s Not Here hemp IPA in August, and White Chocolate Moo-Hoo in October. New for the Reserve Series this year are a chocolate hazelnut milk stout and a dark chocolate and raspberry W-n-B.

Terrapin will also continue their partnership with The Walking Dead and Blood Orange IPA will return in 6-pack cans. New to the series will be Lucille, a black strap molasses stout.

All photos courtesy Terrapin Beer Co.