Two standouts in B.C.'s lower Fraser valley: Dead Frog and Four Winds

   Some time back I tracked down Dead Frog Brewing in the community of Aldergrove, B.C., just over the border from Lynden.  They had a production brewery in a business park, no tasting, just off-sales of bottled brews.  They hooked up with Walton Beverage when the Pepsi distributor decided to add some craft beers to its lineup--one of the few Canadian beers to make it over the Beerlin Wall (a/k/a 49th parallel), and I was happy to pick up an occasional bomber of their Rocket Man Pale or Classic Nut Brown Ale in Bellingham.
     Fast forward to 2018:  Dead Frog is opening a classy brewpub along with expanded production capacity in the middle of Langley, B.C.

Just off a major exit on the TransCanada Rte. 1 freeway, the pub will be much easier to reach from Vancouver.  The kitchen offers a few choices in sandwiches with salad sides, well prepared.  Tables inside and out on a patio, and gleaming wood bar and bench areas will all told hold plenty of people, and it will be a venue for bands to make music.
The beer choices are extensive.  I sampled a Brett Ale, aged two years in unspecified barrels for a tangy sour flavor, just 11 IBUs but strong at 7.3% abv.  Wonderful aroma.  Next flight was the Winter Beeracle, a dark, chocolate-orangey flavored winter ale. Kind of a spice chest aroma.

Third up was the classic nut brown, nutty enough for those of us who have Samuel Smith to thank for the introduction to this fine style.  22 IBUs and 5% abv.  Last on the line, the Moscow Mule, a tart lime and ginger flavored ale.  Just 18 IBUs to remind us there are more acid flavors than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.  Some of Dead Frog's offerings are sold in cans as well as bottles.

(Visited 09/03/18)



The graduation from a production brewery with tastings or perhaps food trucks to a regular pub is a course not all brewers choose.  But I am happy to learn that Four Winds Brewing in Delta, BC is choosing that direction. Presently, this award-collecting brewery operates a small pub on its premises in a business park; tacos for lunch and space for perhaps twenty people to eat and drink.

And more than twenty often show up.  In two years, though, Four Winds will be in a proper pub in the Southland Farms development just now going up in the Tsawwassen community snuggled up against the aforementioned 49th parallel.  And about a mile or two from my new digs in Point Roberts, Wash.
Last visit here, I had a taco with a pint of Norwegian Wood, a really fine Belgian Saison with a transporting aroma, taste both fruity and dry, and wonderful  Enigma hops and a yeast from Norway (so it isn't just a Beatles riff).
Carry on, Four Winds, until you can get that new place built!