What happens when you take a really great beer (Terrapin Rye Pale Ale ) and make it twice as good? You get Terrapin Rye2 (Squared) Pale Ale, an India Pale Ale made with rye. Now, let me start off by saying that this is a really great beer. But the name sort of puzzles me. After all, the graphic used for this brew is nice enough, with an intelligent looking turtle that sort of resembles Einstein formulating some new equation.

The thing is, if Terrapin Rye Pale Ale is taken to have one part of each ingredient, you can’t really square that beer to get double the ingredients. One squared is, well, one. So maybe Double Rye Pale Ale might be a better name. All math aside, Terrapin Rye Squared is worth seeking out, though right now this is a draft only beer limited to distribution in the southeast.

Let’s take a look at the specs for Terrapin Rye Pale Ale:

Malt: 2-row pale, Munich, Malted Rye, Biscuit Malt, Honey Malt.
Hops: Amarillo, Cascade, East Kent Goldings, Fuggle, Magnum.
IBU's: 45 O.G.: 13.5 ABV: 5.3%

And now here’s what Terrapin provides for Rye Squared:

Malt: 2-row pale, Munich, Malted Rye, Biscuit Malt, Honey Malt.
Hops: Amarillo, Cascade, East Kent Goldings, Fuggle, Magnum.
IBU's: 80 O.G.: 22.3 ABV: 8.5%

As we can see, the ingredients are the same, but by using twice as much of them, we get a gravity, an alcohol content, and a bitterness almost twice as high. Of course, some things are relative, since using twice the hops won’t necessarily give you twice the bitterness, because all that extra malt is going to balance some of them out. And of course there are other factors, such as when you add the hops and how long you boil them for.

Still, this is a much bigger beer than the original, bigger in body, flavor, and aroma.

Terrapin Rye Squared Pale Ale pours to a bright orange color with a vigorous creamy head formation and an intensely citric-hoppy nose. Fresh oranges come to mind when I got my first whiff. The palate is very rich with notes of chewy caramel and a touch of chocolate from the Munich.
Almost immediately, the rye is detectable, with a distinct spiciness that increases right into the finish. The same holds true for the hops, which add their own bitter piney-citric flavor. They explode in the finish, and leave a long and lingering bitterness on the tongue.

Do the math. This is a really interesting brew that Georgians can really call their own. But better get it while you can. Because a beer that’s twice as good as usual will only be around half as long.