Love Good Beer

The Great Pig Roast

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | Beer, Events | No Comments

The summer has recently drawn to a close and we are now welcoming the season of autumn.  While pondering for quite some time over the best way to toast the summer goodnight and welcome in the chilly fall season, yes I actually ponder, I received a timely call from a good friend.  After talking for a while it soon became apparent that the purpose of this call had a much higher level of significance than mere idle chit-chat – he was planning a pig roast.   I can think of not better way of bidding summer farewell than feasting on a pig, slowly roasted over an open flame.

The more I thought about it, the more appropriate an early-fall pig roast became.  A roasted pig, even a young suckling pig, is far more food than a crowd of less than 50 hungry eaters can consume, and I don’t know of anyone who has a house sized appropriate to house such a gathering.  The late September air is just warm enough for a sizable crowd of 60 people to gather around a large fire without any great level of discomfort due to cold.

The end of September also means apple season is in full swing, and with an apple tree in my backyard heavily burdened with fresh apples, we made a massive apple crumble.  Roasted pork, followed by a sweet apple crumble – a match made in heaven.  Cabbage is also in season and we all know perfectly well that pork and coleslaw are very good friends.  Yes, this event was made to be.

Of course any gathering of such a significant magnitude requires beer.  Trying to go follow the seasonal and local theme that this event was creating for itself, I decided to pick up to two 19L kegs from Langley’s own Dead Frog Brewery. When I went to pick up the two kegs on a Friday afternoon, I found what I presumed to be Dead Frog’s management team sitting in the board room, drinking quality beer.  As was expected, the beer was fantastic, although a bit foamy, and was enjoyed by many

So we bid summer farewell and welcomed in the fall with delicious feast of roasted pork – a definite contender for top five moments of 2009.

Cheers,

Erik

Tags: Dead Frog Brewery, Pig Roast

Who wants a clear bottle anyway?

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Breweries | 3 Comments

Fresh Hops

Sleeman Breweries, Canada’s third largest brewer, is suing Langley, BC based, Dead Frog Brewing over their use of a clear bottle. This brings me to the question, who wants a clear bottle anyway? Clear bottles, and green bottles, are not a good choice when it comes to bottling beer.  Believe it or not, many people assume that Heineken, packaged in green bottles, is supposed to taste “skunky”. Nothing we consume should taste “skunky”, especially not beer.

Like most food, beer is affected by light (UV exposure) and oxygen.  Any regular glass bottle will eliminate the oxygen problem, but not the light problem. The hops in beer are extremely sensitive to UV light, and when exposed to most light sources a compound from the hops will make the beer taste and smell like it lost a fight with a skunk. A proper beer bottle should be brown or opaque; a brown bottle will filter out most of the UV light that causes beer to go bad.

I understand that in order to sell more beer, marketers are coming up with new creative ways to package beer to make it look sexier. But rule number one of marketing is to make sure you have a good product to sell. Good products need less marketing support and sell themselves. Packing in a clear bottle is taking a good product and turning it into a bad product – why do that?

I hope that both brewers realize the error of their ways and switch to a more appropriate bottle.

Erik

Tags: Dead Frog Brewery, Heineken, hops, Skunky Beer, Sleeman Brewery