When Terrapin debuts its latest big brew, Terrapin India Brown Ale, on April 1 at the Classic City Beer Festival in Athens, it will be a special occasion like no other in the history of the Athens-based craft beer company.

Not only will IBA commemorate the five-year anniversary of Terrapin, it will also serve as a symbol of another milestone. This month, Terrapin partners John Cochran and Brian "Spike" Buckowski signed a lease on a 45,000-square-foot space in Athens, about a mile from the center of town and the University of Georgia campus, where they will soon build their first brewery.

BOB TOWNSEND/Special (ENLARGE)

John Cochran and Brian Buckowski will be marking TerrapinÕs five-year anniversary.

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"It's going to be a big year for us," says Cochran, noting that Terrapin sales were up 35 percent in 2006.

"We're definitely excited and ready to go," Buckowski says. "But we know we've still got a long road ahead of us. Signing the deal and getting the building is just the start. I can't wait until we can invite people out and give tours and produce whatever we want there."

Terrapin tapped its very first beer, Terrapin Rye Pale Ale, at the Classic City festival in April 2002. Six months later, Terrapin Rye won the gold medal for best American-style pale ale at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

"It was funny," Buckowski remembers. "We sent our beer to Denver, but we couldn't afford to go."

"It was amazing," Cochran says. "Suddenly we had people from all over the country wanting to know where to find Terrapin Rye, and I had to tell them that it was only on tap at a few bars in Athens."

Like all Terrapin beers, the award-winning rye recipe was created by Buckowski, but at that time, the beer was brewed under contract by Frederick Brewing Co. in Maryland. Last year, the Frederick facility was sold to Flying Dog Brewing of Denver. But most of Terrapin's beers are still brewed there, with the exception of draft Terrapin Rye and a few other special brews, like the India Brown Ale, that Buckowski has been producing at the Zuma brewery in Atlanta.

While contract brewing is a good way for a small, entrepreneurial beer company like Terrapin to build its business without investing much capital, the practice nonetheless continues to carry a stigma in some craft brew quarters. Over the past five years, Cochran and Buckowski say, they've often had to answer the complaint that the beer their company sells isn't actually brewed in Athens.

"We've dealt with that from day one," Buckowski says.

"But we've never tried to hide the fact that we were a contract brewery," Cochran says. "And the people in Athens have been especially supportive from the beginning because they've known that we were coming. It's always been, 'When are you coming? When is it happening?' Not, 'Oh, you guys aren't from here.' ''

The new Terrapin Athens brewery, which Cochran and Buckowski say they hope to have up and running by late July, mostly will be built with equipment from Zuma. That equipment, including the brew house and fermentation tanks, originally belonged to Atlanta's Sweetwater Brewing Co. (And after it's all trucked over to Athens, Zuma's beers will likely be brewed under contract, possibly by an out-of-state company.)

Terrapin sells two beers — Rye Pale Ale and Golden Ale — year-round. Buckowski says Terrapin India Brown Ale, which initially will be available on draft only and in very limited quantities, could become the company's third year-round beer.

Terrapin also has four high-gravity, limited-edition brews that rotate seasonally as part of its Monster Beer Tour. Look for the spring offering, Rye Squared, this week, followed by All American Imperial Pilsner this summer, Big Hoppy Monster in the fall and Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout next winter.

Bob Townsend is editor of Southern Brew News, a bimonthly beer publication distributed throughout the Southeast.