{"id":1491,"date":"2011-01-31T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T11:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2011-03-11T17:36:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-11T04:36:13","slug":"golden-bear-fat-toad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/01\/31\/golden-bear-fat-toad\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Bear ‘Fat Toad’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Golden<\/a>
Diary II entry #59, Golden Bear 'Fat Toad' IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moderately<\/em> ironic, granted, that the first post after the one trumpeting the new camera<\/a> and beer-related photography in general has no photo at all<\/em>, but let’s press on regardless.<\/p>\n

Golden Bear (at the top of the bottom island) looks like a very visitable place<\/a> — just to tie things to the previous post once more and to underscore my desire to make the trip, it has a slightly Creatures-esque vibe about it, what with the Big Shed and the bar-brewery flow going on — and their beers seem increasingly worthy; their \u2018Bear Trappe<\/a>\u2019\u00a0was a real stand-out of last year, for me.<\/p>\n

They evidently make a biggish pale ale called ‘Hop Toad’, and then bigged it up further (another percentage point) to turn it into ‘Fat Toad’. We blammed through a keg pretty quickly, which is usually a testament of Interestingness and Goodness. I tried it when it was first tapped, and it didn’t have a great smack of nose (as I said in the Diary, it was like someone beside you having a ‘Hopwired’), but the taste was lovely and the body was brilliantly smooth. Weirdly, the nose did improve later, so I’m not sure if some strange chemistry and physics was at play in the keg or the line, or if was just the occasional strange biology of my own nose and brain.<\/p>\n

And it’s just occurred to me that this ‘Fat Toad’ and Matilda Bay’s ‘Fat Yak’<\/a> are only separated in the Diary<\/em> by four beers. What a strange coincidence and nice reminder that beers to get themselves some weird<\/em> names, sometimes.<\/p>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Golden Bear ‘Fat Toad’ IPA 31\/1\/11 on tap @ MH 7% We didn’t manage to get the lovely Bear Trappe, but here’s a belated consolation, because it’s really rather good. An embiggened ‘Hop Toad’, it seems. Nice orangey gold with soft white bubbles, it doesn’t have a whole swag of nose — more like the guy beside you is having a Hopwired. But damn, the smoothness in the body is insane. Actually a bit reminiscent of Bear Trappe, so he’s got some clever trick. Flavour is nice, but not “huge”, though it does build nicely. Jim himself was here the other day, but I didn’t recognise him quickly enough to buy him a beer. Damn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moderately ironic, granted, that the first post after the one trumpeting the new camera and beer-related photography in general has no photo at all, but let’s press on regardless. Golden Bear (at the top of the bottom island) looks like a very visitable place — just to tie things to the previous post once more … Continue reading Golden Bear ‘Fat Toad’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,14,12],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-pale-ale"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":835,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/27\/golden-bear-bear-trappe-2010\/","url_meta":{"origin":1491,"position":0},"title":"Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010","author":"Phil","date":"September 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I suspected I'd like this; it was recommended by a few people who are usually good for such things (including Kieran, the Beer Wizard in Residence at Regional). But I was pleasantly surprised to utterly freaking love it. Golden Bear is a tiny little brewery at the top of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golden Bear 'Bear Trappe'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Golden-Bear-Bear-Trappe-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2208,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/26\/golden-bear-black-magic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1491,"position":1},"title":"Golden Bear ‘Black Magic’","author":"Phil","date":"March 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The night before writing this up, I was going through the neglected second half of Diary One and getting it all scanned. I found my first mention of Golden Bear in the entry for Beervana 2009. It's hardly auspicious; a pale ale of theirs is down as the day's only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golden Bear 'Black Magic' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Golden-Bear-Black-Magic-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":874,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/30\/tuatara-ardennes-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1491,"position":2},"title":"Tuatara ‘Ardennes’","author":"Phil","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"'Ardennes' is one of those beers that I forget about for ages, only to pleasantly surprise myself when I go back to it. In this case, I was cleaning out the fridge one night -- as I do; I've turned it from a chore into a sport and an artform,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tuatara 'Ardennes'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-2018-Tuatara-Ardennes-300x156.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1505,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/02\/12\/bear-republic-hop-rod-rye\/","url_meta":{"origin":1491,"position":3},"title":"Bear Republic ‘Hop Rod’ Rye","author":"Phil","date":"February 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This one didn't technically violate the rule against Plural Big Beers in a night, but you do ruin your good midstength start if you then\u00a0have a\u00a0flagon of golden ale, and then find yourself tempted to try something Big like this. But oh well; you still do it, you just note\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bear Republic 'Hop Rod' Rye","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bear-Republic-Hop-Rod-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":227,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2005\/05\/04\/badger-golden-champion\/","url_meta":{"origin":1491,"position":4},"title":"Badger ‘Golden Champion’","author":"Phil","date":"May 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Badger Golden Champion. 500ml, $5, 5%, 4\/5\/05, with sausages + Firefly. I'm visiting these guys and shaking the hand of the man what makes their beer. Gold, indeed. Really tasty. Warm fruitiness. Peaches, quite a bit. It's really good. 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Absurdly refreshing, and apparently a \"single malt\" beer (which is fairly cute), it's got an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Three Boys Golden Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Three-Boys-Golden-Ale-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1792,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}