Oak Aged Pale Ale
Terrapin Beer Company

Appearance: Pours a cloudy body with 1½ inch of whitish froth. As for the color, let me just whip out my Beer Color Swatches -- alright, let's go with mars yellow.

Smell: Inviting aromas of fresh oak week, fresh pale malts, and fresh citrus. Everything just seems alive in here.

Taste: Swirls of fresh honey and toffee with a medium amount of sweetness. Small dash of vanilla sugar. Pleasantly spicy, soft oak wood character along with a small zip of rye grain. Bright citrus hops convey a medium-plus bitterness. Further flavor of oak layered with honey on the finish. Nice.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied. Medium carbonation. Soft mouthfeel.

Drinkability: I'll admit I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Generally, I'm down for some oak additions, but not always. Sometimes, it's used to perfection, while, at other times, it's over-used by an inexperienced brewer with downright disastrous results. Still other times, it's used sooo lightly in an otherwise big, bold beer, that it becomes, at best, just another subtlety and, at worse, a nondescript component. The cask of oak-aged Rye Pale delivers just the right amount of oak character for me, evolving the original beer into something far, far better, in my opinion. Good work on this one, Terrapin.

Cask at Midway Pub poured into a pint glass.

Pours a slightly hazy golden amber with a bubbly white head that shows good retention and lacing.

The aroma is very mellow with a faint hop presence up front along with some vanilla from the wood and a hints of spiciness from the rye.

Citrus hops open the taste with a strong malt backbone and a slight rye kick. The finish has much more bourbon than the aroma indicates along with the oak characteristics.

The mouthfeel is creamy with good carbonation and had a lingering whiskey presence between sips.

I'm not sure what I expected from a wood aged version of the basic rye pale, but I was not extremely impressed with his one. It was certainly interesting though.

On-tap at Tyler's in Durham.

Poured into a triangluar Strange. Hazy, amber-honey hue with a thin top of buff foam that recedes quickly to a listless fringe of bubbles. I nearly did a double-take upon smelling the aroma, as the sweet, candied apple notes threw me back to when the County Fair was the place to be. Lots of cotton candy, caramel malts, bubble gum, and a faint hint of wooden oakiness.

The taste emulated the aroma, delivering chewy notes of cotton candy, vanilla, and tons of sugary caramel. A decent hop bite balanced things out nicely, while the oak and rye melded perfectly to give the wood a delicious spiciness that heated up the back of the palate. Mouthfeel was thick and viscous, with a low carbonation level. A bit difficult to get down, but the complexity and amazing aroma more than made up for that. I hope this gets bottled.

I was pretty stoked that the Terrapin rep and the great folks at Tyler's in Durham let me hammer in the tap on this cask-conditioned masterpiece. Only got a little on me, but got plenty free beer and swag for my 'trouble' (no trouble at all, really!).

I got the first glass off the cask, and wow, was it a beauty! In its own Terrapin shaker pint, the drink is a gorgeous copper amber with a huge creamy wallop of soft ecru foam atop. The head retains defiantly and leaves fat 3-D rings of lacing at the sip lines. This baby is a looker!

The smell of the drink is malty sweet with a bit of zingy spice underneath an oaky, earthy character that makes the drink smell especially savory.

The taste of the drink is mellow and toasty, with a nice bite of spicy rye and plenty of oaky sweetness.

The feel of the drink is soft and luscious, the natural carbonation absolutely superb. Quaffable.