{"id":835,"date":"2010-09-27T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-26T11:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=835"},"modified":"2011-03-02T15:18:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T02:18:10","slug":"golden-bear-bear-trappe-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/27\/golden-bear-bear-trappe-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Golden<\/a>
Golden Bear 'Bear Trappe' 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I suspected I’d like this; it was recommended by a few people who are usually good for such things (including Kieran<\/a>, the Beer Wizard in Residence at Regional<\/a>). But I was pleasantly surprised to utterly freaking love<\/em> it.<\/p>\n

Golden Bear is a tiny little brewery at the top of the South Island — an area charmingly-sprinkled with such neat little operations; it’s a popular area for people to go to drop out of the rat race and do what they love, instead — and a few such people do exactly that and start brewing. The chap from Golden Bear is Californian (the name comes from a symbol for the state), as is my friend and fellow bartender Halena, so I thought I’d split this with her after a shift (much as we’d done with a similarly-fantastic Sierra Nevada ‘Southern Harvest’). I had it all poured and photographed, and then had a minor<\/em> freak-out when I remembered that I’d lost my pen that night and that all the spares seemed to be blue. I’m very much a Creature of Habit, to the point it borders on being problematic sometimes, and I was hesitant to give in and muck up the colour scheme of Diary II<\/em> so early. (Diary I<\/em> has its share of random-pen entries, so I do manage to sort out my priorities, eventually, but they always felt… odd.)<\/p>\n

As you can see, it pours a very appealing hazy dark gold and has a pretty damn luxurious big thick white head that is easily resurrected with a little swirl when you’re further down the glass. And you definitely will be swirling it, because you’ll want absolutely all you can get of the insanely lush and fresh fruity nose — helped in part, no doubt, by the brewer’s clever inclusion of actual peaches in the mix. It is, to quote my notes, “just bloody lovely”; absurdly well balanced, delicious, and just different enough.<\/p>\n

\"Golden<\/a>
Diary II entry #15, Golden Bear 'Bear Trappe'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010 27\/9\/10 $17 @ Reg. 750ml\u00a0\u00f7 2 with Halena after a Monday shift. (The Californian connection again, after all, like with Sierra Nevada Harvest.) 7.5% Cute punny name, nice big-ass bottle with a nifty re-sealable plastic screwcap thing. Big strong Belgian tripel with actual “black-boy” peaches thrown in, rather than just waiting for the sometimes-peachy note you get. Just bloody lovely. Massive fruity + fresh nose, nice thick white head that’s easily resurrected. Neither too-sweet nor too-tart. And damn, am I glad I had a backup black pen; I was freaking out for a second, there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 South Island — an area … Continue reading Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010<\/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":[26,6,14,8],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-belgian","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-photogenic"],"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":835,"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":874,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/30\/tuatara-ardennes-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":835,"position":1},"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":2208,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/26\/golden-bear-black-magic\/","url_meta":{"origin":835,"position":2},"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":2740,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/04\/18\/maui-big-swell-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":835,"position":3},"title":"Maui ‘Big Swell’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"April 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"And then, a few days later, something rather similar -- which makes a certain amount of sense in that my Monday was spent dealing with the same nonsense that lead to the unexpected Saturday night off. But it all worked out alright, and was fun in its own peculiar way,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Maui 'Big Swell' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Maui-Big-Swell-225x300.jpg?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":835,"position":4},"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":2129,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/22\/bear-republic-big-bear-black-stout\/","url_meta":{"origin":835,"position":5},"title":"Bear Republic ‘Big Bear Black Stout’","author":"Phil","date":"March 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm at a bit of a loss with the name of this one. Something in it seems superfluous, certainly. It's those three b-words in a row. I can make it work with any two of them,1 but all three together just unexpectedly trips me up like an abandoned skateboard in\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 'Big Bear Black Stout'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bear-Republic-Big-Bear-Black-Stout-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835","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=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}