Party with a Pig!

Klamath Basin has begun packaging their tasty beer in 2.25 gallon Party Pigs (equal to 24 12oz bottles), and Belmont Station is proud to be one of the first places in PDX to stock them. They're starting with their Crater Lake Golden Ale and 8 Second Ale, and they promised us they'd begin putting out the IPA and Stout as soon as they get label approval.

Some of you may remember the Oregon Trail pigs that we carried briefly last year. They were great, but they had the disadvantage of being treated like regular "returnable" kegs, complete with large deposits. The other big drawback was the lack of a local distributor for Oregon Trail, which meant long lead times on special orders and frequent "out of stock" issues.

Klamath Basin has solved those two sticking points by using a "non-returnable" style of pig and distributing them through a local distributor, so if we run out it should only be for a couple days.

How's it work? Simple. The brewery fills the recyclable PET container with beer and a small CO2 bladder that expands to fill the empty space and help push the beer. All you have to do is put it in the fridge, tear off the perforated spot at the bottom (so you can get a glass under it) and press the tap to dispense beer on demand. The box claims "Beer stays FRESH for one month after first use", but I can say from experience that these things hold up for at least 6-8 weeks.

The list of benefits is long; the beer stays fresh, you don't have to worry about returning a bunch of stinky bottles, you can pour as much or as little as you want (great for late at night when you want a little more), and it takes up less space in your fridge than the equivalent number of bottles.

It should be noted that even though they're "non-returnable" the brewers would like to encourage people to return them whenever possible. We'll be happy to take back the empties and send them home to be sanitized and refilled. Each one that gets returned will help keep costs down in the long run, and it'll save more plastic from going to the landfill.

The first shipment should be in stock tomorrow, just in time for those mid-size holiday parties where a "real keg" would be overkill.