Terrapin Begins New Year with New Space & New Expanded Hours

January 5, 2015 – Athens, GA—

The long-awaited indoor tasting room at Terrapin Beer Co. has officially opened for public tours and tastings. This new space will supplement the large outdoor yard, making it easy for guests to find a comfortable space to enjoy their samples both inside and out. Newly expanded tour hours also give guests a more relaxed tour experience. 

Terrapin brought on local woodworking company Oneta Woodworks to create much of the décor within the new tasting space and gift shop. Located just outside Athens in Farmington, GA, Oneta Woodworks specializes in creating new uses for reclaimed millwork building materials. Oneta gives new life to old wood through both interior renovations and creating custom pieces of furniture based on each client’s vision. By using as much reclaimed materials as possible, Oneta is able to keep reusable resources out of landfills while being challenged to produce unique designs with materials on-hand. 

Just like the Terrapin name, the new space is inspired by the Grateful Dead’s Terrapin Station while maintaining a vibe all its own. Reclaimed boards from demolished local barns and warehouses line the walls of the gift shop and the tasting room stage. Steel pendant lights suspended from the exposed matte black ceiling provide an inviting illumination throughout the space. Other accents include tin paneling sourced from a local chicken house covering the front of the bar and the tour gathering room walls, more reclaimed wood made into beer menu boards with blackboard-painted panels offering up what’s on tap, and a large antique wooden fence gate with its original iron hardware found on a local farm that dates back to the 1700s. And in a step away from the utilitarian and into the playful, the bar top is fashioned from a reclaimed bowling alley lane discovered in Anderson, SC.

According to Zack Brendel, founder of Oneta Woodworks, the most challenging part of the Terrapin project was designing a one-of-a-kind space including tasting area, stage for musical acts, and a gift shop within the footprint of Terrapin’s previous office space while meeting needs for smooth people flow and crowd comfort. However, the challenge was worth it for Brendel: "My favorite part [of the Terrapin project], of course, was watching all the planning and decisions and cabinets, and materials come together at the end to create such a cool space. That moment when you see that the vision will be reality is always my favorite."

While the new space has a worn-in look using reclaimed materials, behind the scenes is nothing but the best in beer serving technology.  Beverage Control, Inc. installed a custom-engineered draft system that features 32 glycol-chilled draft lines and 304-grade stainless steel Perl sanitary faucets. Tap faucets are commonly made of chrome-plated brass and over time the chrome can wear off, exposing the beer to the brass. The upgrade to stainless steel faucets ensures that Terrapin’s taps will pour beer at its best quality for years to come. Glycol-chilled beer lines maintain the temperature of the beer as it travels from the keg to the tap; regardless of how far a tap is from the cooler, that beer will be served at the proper temperature. And with 32 taps inside alone, guests can look forward to shorter lines at the bar and the possibility of up to 16 unique beers to choose from in one space.