{"id":2208,"date":"2011-03-26T00:01:45","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T11:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2011-04-13T00:12:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T12:12:24","slug":"golden-bear-black-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/26\/golden-bear-black-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Bear ‘Black Magic’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Golden<\/a>
Golden Bear 'Black Magic' IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The night before writing this up, I was going through the neglected second half of Diary One<\/em> 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 dud — its one-word annotation is simple: “Pleh”. Not exactly<\/em> a promising start, but one swiftly remedied as their subsequent mentions have either been moderately<\/a> or glowingly<\/a> positive.<\/p>\n

And for this ‘Black Magic’, we’ll be somewhere in between “moderate” and “glowing”, I think. The name turns your mind to the recent Unnameable Trend, but the beer very-definitely isn’t black; it’s certainly very dark, but it’s a rich brown through which you can actually shine a light. The not-quite-black<\/em> shows up in the flavour, too — there isn’t the roasted toastiness of a porter or stout, or ‘Black IPA’, come to that. What you have instead, especially as the hops start to pile bitterness onto the back of the palate, is a smoked Toffee Pop.1<\/sup> It really is delightfully peculiar.<\/p>\n

I was out for a wander and a beer or two since my non-nocturnal friends, with whom I’d been having dinner for Robyn’s birthday, had all retired for the night. As I noted in the Diary<\/em>, I’d taken along a bottle of Dogfish Head ‘Midas Touch’<\/a>; several of the people at the dinner were also at a beer tasting I hosted a while back where I had massively talked it up. Though never a “beer person”, Robyn’s always willingly tried whatever George and I have (increasingly desperately) thought she might maybe-maybe enjoy. It’s been a long time coming<\/a>, but she did rather like it. Which just goes to show you that all is not lost; no one is unreachable. Beer’s just that<\/em> diverse, I guess — though you might have to reach for an obscure-and-expensive bottle of an imported recreation-of-an-ancient-brew to get there.<\/p>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Golden Bear ‘Black Magic’ IPA 2[6]\/3\/11 on tap @ HZ 6.4% $10 After dinner for Robyn’s birthday, at which we re-tr[i]ed Midas Touch; delish. And Roo liked it! At last! Anyway, this, weirdly, isn’t<\/span> Black IPA. It’s brown. Very dark brown, but definitely not<\/span> black. Malt comes through very toffee \/ choc \/ caramel — smoked Toffee Pops, given that late bitterness, maybe. That does build nicely, too. Quite a peculiar thing.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Golden<\/a>
Golden Bear 'Black Magic' IPA, tap badge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Golden<\/a>
Diary II entry #81, Golden Bear 'Black Magic' IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n

1: Note for aliens from other jurisdictions: I mean the biscuit<\/a>, not the Damien Rice song, which I hadn’t heard of until it occurred to me to write a clarifying footnote. It (again the biscuit, not the song) is a delicious little thing — a small crunchy puck of lightly malty goodness, covered in a relatively-gooey caramel (nicely variable with temperature, so a from-the-fridge one is massively different from a hot-day-picnic one), and then entirely encased in a thin shell of chocolate.<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 dud — its one-word annotation … Continue reading Golden Bear ‘Black Magic’<\/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-2208","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":1491,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/01\/31\/golden-bear-fat-toad\/","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":0},"title":"Golden Bear ‘Fat Toad’","author":"Phil","date":"January 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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 'Fat Toad' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-2059-Golden-Bear-Fat-Toad-300x263.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":2208,"position":1},"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":600,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/11\/25\/three-boys-golden-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":2},"title":"Three Boys Golden Ale","author":"Phil","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Pure summer gorgeousness. A very pale straw, and slightly hazy here since the small amount of sediment was a wee bit agitated-in. As Scott (the Bar Manager) puts it \"it's fruity, it's flirty, it's fantastic\". 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":[]},{"id":835,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/27\/golden-bear-bear-trappe-2010\/","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":3},"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":906,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/10\/beer-101-tasting-session\/","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":4},"title":"Beer 101 Tasting Session","author":"Phil","date":"October 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"George (the gifter of the original Diary) organised a little tasting session at his house for a few friends of ours, with me playing the Informative Nerd. I'll be the first to admit that I made them all run a bit of a marathon, but we hit most 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":"Beer 101 tasting session empties","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-101-1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":442,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/10\/02\/little-creatures-bright-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":2208,"position":5},"title":"Little Creatures ‘Bright Ale’","author":"Phil","date":"October 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The golden ale little brother to the very-much-loved Creatures Pale, 'Bright' isn't as socks-off-knocking as the classic Critter, but is bloody lovely. Reminiscent of fellow Australian legend Cooper's 'Sparkling', it's lively, fruity, and (like I said; there's no better word for it) lovely. Really, I'm only surprised that it (apparently)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Little Creatures 'Bright Ale'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-Bright-Ale-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208","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=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}