Trapper John's Lager
Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers

 

 

650ml bottle, part of a swath of new products from this North Van brewery to recently fill Alberta bottleshop shelves. Made in 'collaboration' with Mt. Seymour - heh.

This beer pours a clear, bright medium golden yellow colour, with one finger of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly creamy chalky white head, which leaves some melting glacier tendril lace around the glass as things quickly dissolve.

It smells of lightly toasted and crackery pale malt, a strong lemon and apple rind fruitiness, ethereal white pepper spice, and gentle leafy, earthy, and grassy noble hops. The taste is gritty, grainy pale malt, wet saltine crackers, underripe apple and pear, a cooked sour lemon thing, some mild gasohol astringency, mixed ground peppercorns, and a prominent herbal, leafy, and spicy hop bitterness.

The bubbles are fairly docile in their understated frothiness, the body a solid middleweight for the style, and mostly smooth, just that increasingly strange herbal spiciness taking things down a peg or two. It finishes off-dry, the bready and crackery malt persisting well in the shadow of the lingering hops and petrol fumes.

Overall, not a bad brew, with more than a few nods to the German Pilsner version of the base style - lager, I mean. Anyways, I could see this being enjoyable enough after burning one's legs on the hill, but perhaps not the other way around - then the ghost of that other Trapper John might have to be summoned.