Terrapin/ Persimmon Hollow Collaboration: Holler Hopper

This is the suitcase I packed for my last trip of 2014. Where was I headed?

That’s right. It was my turn to do a collaboration brew!

On the last Monday of 2014 I had the privilege of joining Andy Sistrunk and Robbie Carrelli at Persimmon Hollow in Deland FL. Man was it fun!

Ironically I began my brewing career in early 1995 so this collaboration which will be released in early 2015 was a great opportunity for me to get back to my brewing roots and celebrate my 20 year anniversary in this crazy business. It’s weird being an old-timer.

Terrapin/ Persimmon Hollow Collaboration Day!

So what is the connection between Terrapin and Persimmon Hollow?

It all started a couple of years ago when Andy and Robbie were serving their homebrew at the Deland Beer Fest. Kate Lloyd, our cask supervisor who was working the fest for Terrapin, tried their beer and told the two they should consider opening their own brewery.

Fast forward a year to February 2014 when I attend the fest. Andy tells me the story of how Terrapin’s encouragement was the impetus they needed to get Persimmon Hollow going. We spent some time chatting and really hit it off.

Barley time!

After hanging out together for the weekend, we decided we should do a collaboration someday. And coming up with a beer that we can premiere at the 2015 Deland Beer Fest and Volusia Beer Week seemed to make the most sense.

The collaboration beer is called “Holler Hopper”. The idea is that Persimmon Hollow is making a lot of Belgian style beers while Terrapin is known for the use of hops and for IPA’s so Andy and I decided to combine the two.

Wort going into the kettle.

We brewed a Belgian Golden Ale but threw a ton of American hops into the mix. It’s been a long time since I have played around with all the new hops so Spike helped out with the recipe. The end result will be a higher alcohol, high IBU Belgian Golden Ale.

The release for this beer will be during Volusia Beer Week.  We will likely have Kate do a special cask of the beer and do a joint tap takeover. Stay tuned for more details.

Just a very small portion of the amount of hops we added to this beer!