What's On Tap, Athens - Trappeze Pub

Trappeze Pub in Athens, Ga. Image: Trappeze Pub.

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

It's summer. School is out of session. Probably seems like the wrong time to be hitting up bars in a college town like Athens, Ga. , home to the University of Georgia. But Trappeze Pub sees slightly smaller crowds during the summer months, making July and August the perfect time to stop by this sophisticated suds spot.

"Some bars close down for a month and a half in the summer," explains owner Eric Johnson about the fate of other neighborhood watering holes in need of student bodies to fill their spaces. "The lion's share are all about who has the best keg deal on. Even the local beer geeks said [Trappeze] would never work!"

But work it did. With 39 taps and a beer engine containing only "the best of the best" in the brew world, this pub quickly made a name for itself. After being open for only three months, in early 2008, the pub bought the coffee house next door to accommodate crowds. "Turns out there was a sizable group of folks in Athens that were just waiting for a place to do craft beer well," Johnson told us.

But don't rag on the college kids entirely. As Johnson paraphrases, "When we first opened, nearly irate [college-aged] customers would say, 'you're out of Miller Lite, you're out of beer. You're out of Bud Light, you're out of business.'" But as those new to the craft beer experience quickly found out, there's more to life than so-called yellow beer. "Our average customers have learned a tremendous amount about beer."

See... There is more to learn in school than what you read in your textbooks!

Trappeze Pub really does put its malt where its mouth is, offering up one of the best draft selections WOT has yet to feature. Here's their current beer list (at least as of Monday -- as Johnson proudly states, "we rotate our taps incredibly hard"):

• Terrapin Golden Ale
• Terrapin Rye Pale Ale
• Jever Pilsener
• Terrapin Sunray Wheat
• Victory Donnybrook Dry Irish Stout
• Victory Prima Pils
• Abita Andygator
• Blackthorn Cider
• Brooklyn Cuvee de Cardoz
• Fort Collins Rocky Mountain IPA
• Heavy Seas Red Sky at Night
• Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin Ale
• Allagash White
• New Belgium La Folie
• Spaten Mai Bock/Premium Bock
• Great Divide Saison
• Great Divide Double Wit
• Rogue Brutal Bitter (Cask Ale)
• Terrapin Wake-N-Bake Imperial Stout
• Avery The Maharaja
• Moylan's Kilt Lifter
• Redstone Black Raspberry Nectar Mead
• Rogue Double Dead Guy
• Schneider/Brooklyner Hopfen Weisse
• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine
• '08 Terrapin Imperial Pilsner
• Sierra Nevada Brown Saison
• Well's Bombardier
• Delirium Tremens
• Hofstetten Kubelbier
• Ommegang Rouge
• Stone Cali-Belgique
• Ueriege Doppelsticke
• Koningshoeven La Trappe Dubbel
• St. Bernardus Abt 12
• De Ranke Noir de Dottignies
• Oud Beersel Framboise
• Pauwel Kwak
• BFM La Torpille