This afternoon, you see, I went to Ikea. What the heck does that have to do with beer, you ask? Ikea doesn’t sell beer, after all (at least not in Atlanta anyway). Well, my friends, they do sell food (along with a lot of furniture), and food and beer always go together nicely, as we’ll see shortly. If you’re interested, I got a nice coffee table and enjoyed a plate of those wonderful Swedish Meatballs for lunch.

Anyway, the relevant point here is that I bought some of those wonderful knackerbrod rag rye crackers to take home, and as I was munching on them I got the notion that they might go extremely well with a rye beer. So, I marched on over to the beer fridge and whipped out my bomber bottle of Terrapin Side Project 19 Mosaic Single Hopped Red Rye Ale.

Terrapin Side Project 19 Mosaic was released in March of 2013 and I think I bought it in April, so it had about 9 months or so on it when I popped it. The name “Mosaic” refers to the sole variety of hops used in this brew, Mosaic. More on Mosaic from the label:

Freshly harvested from Hop Breeding Company, LLC in the Yakima Valley, the hops used in Side Project 19: "Mosaic" came freshly picked from the fields of Perrault Farms, to our brewery, and into your glass. Known as hop HBC 369 before its official naming in 2011, Mosaic is the daughter of Simcoe (YCR 14) and a Nugget-derived male. To get the best of all worlds from this new Humulus lupulus, we used 100% Mosaic throughout the brewing process to utilize all the flavor and aroma that this world-class hop has to offer.

Terrapin Side Project 19 Mosaic Single Hopped Red Rye Ale is brewed with the following malts in addition to the Mosaic hops: 2-Row Pale, Rye, Munich, Crystal 45, Crystal 65, Crystal 85, all per the Terrapin website. The beer has 60 IBUs and an alcohol content of 6.6% by volume. I paid $7.99 for my 22 ounce bottle.

Terrapin Side Project 19 Mosaic Single Hopped Red Rye Ale pours to a dark reddish color with a medium head formation and a luscious nose of stewed red malts and spicy rye. Taking a sip, the beer is lush with delightful red chewy-stewy caramel malts, grainy spicy rye, and at the last hints of tropical fruit, more spicy rye and a balancing herbal bitterness. Just a delicious malty hoppy beer that balances both wonderfully, and went great with those rye crisps from Ikea. The tropical passion fruit and pineapple in the palate come out in the hop burps too.

As I said, I chose this beer tonight because I wanted a rye beer, and this one was so delightful paired with those crackers-the rye was so similar, even, when munching crackers and sipping beer. But the tropical fruit come through so tastily, too, that Mosaic is far from one-dimensional. Where to peg this then? You could call it a rye pale ale or a roggen, but the rye is so pronounced that I want to call it the latter. Not that that really matters, but there you are.

One of the best beers from terrapin yet, let’s hope that this Side Project returns as a regular offering, as some have done in the past.

Update 3/11/2014: This month's featured brewery at Taco Mac is Terrapin, and I was a bit surprised here in March to see last year's Side Project 19, Mosaic, served up as one of the draft offerings. Surprised, mind you, but also delighted, because it means Terrapin cooked up a fresh batch and perhaps we will see this beer re-released from time to time. Fresh, the tropical pineapple and passion fruit of the Mosaics really signs in the nose and the palate, with notes of spicy rye and a wonderful bitter finish at the last. I am reinforced in my thoughts that this may be the best Side Project beer ever.



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