Two paws up for Yellow Dog Brewing Company

Yellow Dog Brewing Company opened its doors in Port Moody in July and gained local fame quickly, becoming a community hot spot.

Initially, Yellow Dog had four beers on its menu – the Play Dead IPA, Chase My Tail Pale Ale, Take a Walk Wit and the prized Shake a Paw Smoked Porter. The Shake a Paw Smoked Porter was recently awarded a gold medal at the B.C. Beer Awards in the Browns and Porter division. Yellow Dog has since added new beers, which are offered as often as they are brewed. The latest menu features the original four beers plus the Old Dog Altbier and the Belgian Pale Ale.

Yellow Dog is unique in many ways. The company was named after owners Mike and Melinda Coghill’s yellow lab, Chase. The brewery welcomes dogs and even encourages them to visit the outdoor seating at the back of the brewery while their owners enjoy a cold beer. This contributes to their popularity in their Port Moody dog-loving neighbourhood, and strategic location near the Rocky Point Park and dog park. It also separates them from other up-and-coming breweries in the district on Murray Street that don’t offer such access for animals.

Yellow Dog is aware of the importance of social media, so it runs Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts in order to keep the community updated. The brewery usually has food truck vendors on the weekends, since it doesn’t have its own kitchen permit. The Facebook page is constantly updated on which trucks will be visiting, and when they’re coming.

Another way to appreciate the variety is to understand a bit about how beer is made. Barley, water, yeast and hops are the ingredients and every style of beer uses different amounts of each.

The barley is used to extract the sugar for the beer, the yeast makes it ferment, which helps creates alcoholic content, and the hops are what give a beer a kick. An IPA, like the Play Dead IPA, would be described as hoppy because it contains a lot of hops. This flavor is slightly bitter.

(IPAs – India pale ale – originally got the name from the period when Britain was colonizing India. English soldiers would ship beer from home to India, but when it arrived it was bitter and flavorful because of all the hops added to preserve it for the journey.)

Ales, like the Chase My Tail Pale Ale, take less time to brew than lagers and their “top-fermenting process” is drawn out in warmer temperatures as well. Lagers require more time and much cooler temperatures. A beer like the Shake My Paw Porter will take much longer to brew, because the alcohol content is higher, so that means it must ferment for longer.