La Trappe has apparently introduced a hoppy and unfiltered, bottled lager called "Puur"$$ supposedly they've been making it for a year now, but it was no where to be seen even in Rotterdam and Amsterdam a year ago; it's now certainly available within the Netherlands.
It's VERY refreshing and delicious and I hope to see it in Dublin.
After my positive German Kellerbier experience a few months back (Monchof Kellerbier) and now this Dutch variant, I'm convinced that lager does not have to be a 4 letter word. ("lage"? "ager"??) -Heck, I even found a great hoppy lager in Stockholm this year in "Tjock Tjinook".
I'm sure the Dutch brewers would absolutely hate me calling it a a kellerbier but they're the ones that called it "Puur", and put the focus on it only being made with water, barley, hops, and yeast (in a very Rheinheitsgebot kinda way). -In fairness I haven't had a kellerbier as hoppy as Puur before.
For the uninitiated, La Trappe is based at the Abdij Konigshoven, in Tilburg, the Netherland and is the 7th brewery on earth to receive the Trappist designation and is the only Trappist brewery outside of Belgium. They're also the host of the annual Bok Beer Festival in the Netherlands; an entire festival celebrating the Dutch take on the "bok" style. (The Dutch version seems to be a dark, strong beer and in my experience is normally a phenoly ale made with a Belgian yeast strain (although some versions are more neutral and I guess could be made with a lager strain).)
There's a 50% chance I'll end up back in the Netherlands in January or February so I'm really going to try to make it to La Trappe on that trip.
Puur is the kind of beer that would be AMAZING on tap in late spring/summer and you could easily drink pints and pints of it. Hoppy and cloudy a "craft lager" if ever there's been a beer deserving of the moniker.
Adam
P.S. "Keller bier" is a pretty difficult-to-find, generally slightly hazy and full-flavored unfiltered German lager. It's the closest thing to "cask lager" and is served with the living yeast in the beer; the 2 or 3 versions I've had have been half-way between a Helles and a North German Pils in bitterness and hoppiness. "Keller" is the German word for "basement".
