Dinner at the Green Pig

One of the trends that I’m starting to notice in Salt Lake is that some bars and restaurants are paying local breweries to make house beers for them.   Iggies has a couple house beers and as I discovered last night, so does the Green Pig.

The Green Pig ) is a nice sports and music bar in down town Salt Lake (31 East 400 South).  It is one of the newer bars in Salt Lake started up by the former owners of Port O’ Call – a very popular bar in Salt Lake that was the victim of Eminent Domain with the construction of the new Federal courthouse.

In the interest of full disclosure – I don’t know the owners of The Green Pig but I do have friends that are in a funk bank, The Vision, and they perform at The Green Pig frequently.

I was there last night with friends and my wife enjoying the open jam – electric blues night.  Highly recommended.  I’m hoping to be back on Friday (August 3) when The Vision will be performing again.

Last night, I sampled the chips & salsa, the hot wings, a Reuben soup, and the Green Pig Pilsner.  The chips are traditional homemade tortilla chips (much thicker than something you would typically buy in a store) and were quite tasty.  The salsa, however, was mostly chopped tomatoes.  While the tomatoes were fresh and very good, it takes more than chopped tomatoes to make a salsa fresca.  My opinion, it could have used some cilantro, onions, and peppers.

The hot wings were just how I like them - little or no breading and a little heavy on the vinegar.  Between the four of us, no hot wing escaped and I was responsible for most of the victims.

The Reuben soup is very interesting concept.  I had never even heard of such a thing before.  You know a Reuben sandwich – rye bread, sauerkraut, corned beef, Swiss cheese, and thousand island dressing – well, its all the same ingredients in soup form.

I am a big fan of Reuben sandwiches and my first thought was, “This will either be incredibly delicious or utterly revolting.”  And with a challenge like that, I couldn’t help but try it.

What can I say?  It was excellent and exactly as advertised:  a Reuben sandwich in soup form.  I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to try making this at home.  But I will definitely have to have it again.

Now to the main event:  the Green Pig Pilsner.  I’m assuming this one is contract brewed by either the Utah Brewers Cooperative (Squatters & Wasatch) or by Uinta Brewing.  My guess is Uinta because on the beer menu, it is listed next to four other Uinta beers and one non-Uinta beer.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of contract brewing, its when an individual or a business contracts with a brewery to make a beer for them either according to their recipe or their specifications.  Its not something that breweries really advertise that they do for businesses or even each other.

The Green Pig Pilsner is a little bit darker in color than what I would expect from a Pilsner.  But it had a rich, American Pilsner flavor and a little zing on the aftertaste that is a little difficult to explain.  It’s sort of a late hop or maybe a dry hop flavor that it finishes on.  I’m guessing that it has a little bit of adjunct – corn probably – in the fermentables.  So maybe its more of an American Lager style than strictly an pilsner style.  While the adjunct lightens the body, it is not overly noticeable or in any way offensive.

All in all, it is a delicious pub beer and since it seemed to pair nicely with the soup, I ordered a second.