Terrapin Side Project Monks Revenge Double IPA

Brewed by Terrapin Beer Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Athens, Georgia USA

Appearance: Pours a golden orange with a white pin stripe. Aroma: Mango, clove, orange and perfume. Taste: Tropical fruit, spicy and bitter hops and candi sugar. Mouthfeel: Full bodied, thick but not goopy. Overall: A mind blowing creation. I couldn’t believe how awesome this was. Might be able to compare it to Green Flash Le Freak, but this one gets the nod.

Aggressive, sweet and tart. That’s what the guys at Terrapin do best. This is definitely one of the better 1-time releases they’ve done...

Kindly of Dustin at Terrapin and freshly off the production line. First idea was going to be Terrapin’s other version of Belgian Abbey style by doing an extreme bitter hoppy DIPA. None of that happened. Poured hazy golden with thick frothy white head. Aroma was just purely insane. For a DIPA it had plenty of sweetness, some hops, although they used 7 different sorts of hops and dry hopped(magnum, columbus, chinook, centinial. amarillo, cascada and simco), 6 different malts. Outstanding IBU to 99 for 9.8% abv. Aroma also had plenty of fruits with grapefruits, some citrus with amazing sweet sugary almost honey like nose and light aroma of caramel malts. Taste had ample of nice Belgian yeast touch to it. It reminded me a lot more of a strong Belgian Tripel than a DIPA. Mentioned was the use of Chimay yeast strain that really added to the Belgian-like mouthfeel. Overall palate is very sweet (Spike’s notes point to dextrose and corn sugar base), candi sugar with warming alcohol and underlying presence of caramel malts. Notes of fruits, grapefruit and citrus coupled with the yeast that make it a very well balanced beer that leans more toward the abbey style. Amazing brew, sampled in an amazing setting.

Bomber. Pours a hazy golden yellow color with a small white head, very little lacing. Aroma is a little estery with bananas and then a good amount of pine (slight resin) and citrus (grapefruit) hops. Flavor is abound with hops. There is a little bit of banana, some sweet malts, and finishes with citrus and resiny hop flavor. Mouthfeel has a tingle to it, pretty good body and a nice bitter finish. Overall a very good beer. Yet another solid Side Project from Terrapin, so far I would call this my favorite.

It’s head and lacing dissapate quick. Lite copper color. Lots of carbination. Smells of a IPA mostly. Full bodied hop bombish with spicy malt flavor. Almost like Dogfish 120. Powerful fellow.

Blind tasting at Papsø’s
Hazy golden color. Nice hoppy aroma, both with fruits and elderflowers, very nice. Quite common toffee flavor, dryish; strong bitterness, with some bitter oranges. Actually I like the aggressively warm alcohol final.

When I saw that Terrapin’s Side Project Release 5 was a Belgian DIPA, I had to pick up two bottles, and not just my usual one. The second I popped the cap, the hops hit me from an arms length while the beer was still in the bomber and I was not attempting to smell it. After poring into a Duvel Tulip, the beer looked clear, orange golden, and bubbly, but the head was tiny and remained that way. The smell from the glass was dominated by floral and citrus hops, and was true to the DIPA side of this hybrid style. The taste was mellow and hoppy and probably closer to a milder Belgian Pale Ale like Duvel than some of the other highly yeast driven beers from there. The spices showed up much more clearly after the beer warmed and the beer turned less hop centric. Decent body, but a little under carbonated for either style in my opinion. Not as bold as I was hoping, but very enjoyable anyway.

I hate to bring this up as much as I do but when I pour a beer that draws from Belgian influence and get no head I’m immediately disappointed. Fortunately, appearance is the only thing holding this one back. I get a nice dose of piney hops in the nose followed by some tropical fruit and biscuit. The flavor is definitely bitter but leans more towards the fruity yeasty goodness of a tripel than the over the top bitterness of a DIPA. Who knew that pine trees, pineapple, orange marmade, and day old biscuit could taste so good?