Gordo's Doppelbock
Trolley 5 Restaurant & Brewery

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store, who couldn't exactly get this one right - it's actually 'Gordo's Doppelbock', in reference to Gord Demaniuk, the head brewer at Fernie Brewing who passed on after a battle with cancer last year. Also, a collaboration with Grizzly Paw, FWIW.

This beer pours a clear, dark red-brick brown colour, with two fingers of puffy, rocky, and fizzy tan head, which leaves some dissolving snow bank lace around the glass as it lazily dissipates.

It smells of lightly toasted and grainy pale malt, a hint of biscuity toffee, some middling black orchard fruity notes, a further faint ashiness, and some plain earthy, leafy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, an additional cereal graininess, some raisin and plum dark fruitiness, hints of wayward son yeast, and more understated leafy, weedy, and mildly perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite active in its palate-challenging frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess evolving as things warm up a tad around here. It finishes off-dry, with a trending towards the latter, as the hops start to show their heretofore unrecognized mettle.

Overall, this comes across as a fairly well-rendered version of the style, the malt large and in charge, with the elevated ABV hardly noticeable in the least. A worthy and commendable cause for two Albertan craft breweries to take up, as an ode to a deep interior (MST, yo!) pioneering BC brewer.