While the brewery tour was great (particularly so due to main tour conductor Aaron), it was the tasting that was the main event of the evening. For each beer tasted, Seifert talked about the making and history of the beer, and there were interesting nuggets of information to be gleaned along the way.

Here’s the lineup, along with some notes:

Mirror Pond Pale Ale: The Brewery’s flagship beer, one of Seifert’s all-time favorites. There’s not a lot that needs to be said about Mirror Pond, although I found it interesting that it is apparently made with all Cascade hops—I would have thought there was a mix of several.

Green Lakes Organic Ale: The Brewery loves this beer, even though it’s more problematic to brew than other beers—due to it’s certified organic status. For instance, not only do the ingredients need to be certifiably organic (or at minimum in the case of hops, salmon safe), but they have to properly prep the equipment before brewing to remove the residue of previous (non-organic) batches—things like vacuuming out the grain conveyors.

Twilight Ale: The breakout summer seasonal—actually one of Deschutes’ most popular seasonals—the hop schedule for Twilight is most interesting. They want to get lots of hop flavor and aroma into the beer without making it bitter like an IPA (“clean” beers are what the Brewery strives for), so to get that with Twilight there is hardly any first-hopping (merely 4 pounds per 150 gallons), no second-hopping, and a ton of third hopping (finishing and aroma hops). And then more hops are added to the whirlpool (the stage where they’re separating hops from the wort).

Jubelale: This year’s version of Deschutes’ most popular seasonal, bottled and being packaged right now and planned for release in late September (around the 20th). Even though it’s early, I have to admit it’s really drinkable right now. Seifert confirmed that each year they tweak the recipe, and talked about molasses and vanilla bean (you can taste the molasses really nicely). A lot of East Kent Goldings hops goes into Jubelale, and to maintain the freshest possible hops (which have to be harvested the previous fall, remember), the Brewery splits full bales of hops into quarters and then seals them in nitrogen to preserve them as long and as fresh as possible.

Hop in the Dark CDA: Seifert talked about how this was a frustrating beer for the brewers to make, as they went through 22 test batches before finally releasing the bottled version—and it took the first 16 to even get close to what they wanted. Normally, it only takes 4 to 5 batches to dial in a recipe. The technique they finally settled on is cold-steeping all of the dark grains to extract the flavors they want without the harsher components that clash with the hops.

Black Butte XXII: This year’s Reserve Series double Black Butte Porter that was famously dumped due to chocolate problems in the bottled beer. Some 3000 cases of this beer were lost, amounting to about $250 thousand. Seifert was the lead brewer on this beer, and for this to happen he likened to “your kid flunking out of school.” The real tragedy is that it’s a fantastic beer, brewed this year not only with coffee and chocolate but with orange peel and chili peppers (pasilla negra chilies, to be exact). The only BBXXII to be found is on tap at the two Deschutes pubs.

The Dissident: Several bottles of 2008’s sour wild beer (the first wild yeast the Brewery ever used) were opened, which gave Seifert and Randles a chance to talk about this year’s version of The Dissident, which will probably be coming out in November. (Though with wild beers like this, that’s not set in stone.) Two years of age on this beer have been fantastic, the nose is full of cherry fruit notes and the ascetic tartness have mellowed. Seifert was also the lead brewer on this beer, and he humorously stated that in convincing [lead brewer] Larry Sidor and [owner] Gary Fish to brew a wild beer, he had them agree not to fire him if something bad happend (like the wild yeast infecting the rest of the brewery).

Incidentally, the 2008 edition of The Dissident is exceedingly rare to find any more, so if you come across any bottles, grab them up. I happen to have a bottle in my closet, and when this year’s version is released I’m planning a side-by-side tasting.

I promised this week that I would publish a browser-based calculator that implements Palmer’s formulas, and that’s what I’ve done: you can find the calculator here.

(I tried publishing the Javascript here on this blog, but the permission are such that it stripped not only the Javascript code I tried to paste in, but also the form fields. Hence having to post the calculator on my other blog.)

How to use it is, plug in the inputs from your “regular” recipe that you want to adjust for batch sparging:

• Your target gravity (e.g. 1.050)
• The recipe’s grain bill weight in pounds
• The batch volume (e.g. 5 gallons)
• The boil volume (e.g. 6 gallons)
• (The “Water-retention coefficient” is a magic number Palmer gives that you can fiddle with if you like)

Click “Calculate” and the outputs will be calculated. In particular, the numbers you’ll want are the new grain bill (weight) and the volume of water you’ll need for the mash.

Palmer’s How to Brew outlined “batch sparging”—also the “no sparge” method—which made it clear to me that all I really need is the mash tun, no complications needed. Batch sparging is simple: you mash the grains with the hot water, drain off the hot wort, pour a second “batch” of hot water into the grains, and drain that off. Done. No need for a second tank setup and sparge arm assembly!

One detail I overlooked: when using this batch sparging method, you have to account for your recipe differently than for the standard method of continuous sparging. In particular, you will need more grains.

Palmer mentions this but it was a detail I had overlooked at first: standard recipes assume a points per pound per gallon (ppg) extract of about 36 for all-grain brewing, whereas batch sparging yields 28 ppg. This lower number means you’ll need to add more grain to your recipe to hit your target gravity (because you’re extracting less sugars from the grain).

I figured this out the hard way, of course (if making beer to drink can really be considered “hard”!): my first batch of beer was a Porter (based on a clone recipe I found of Deschutes Black Butte Porter) and, following the standard recipe grain amount, came in low on my original gravity. Puzzled, I fiddled around with the numbers and re-read the section on batch sparging in How to Brew, and realized the mistake—28 vs. 36 ppg.

However, Palmer gives detailed calculations for batch sparging wherein you plug in the standard amount of grain the recipe calls for, add your other inputs (batch size, target gravity), and you’ll get the adjusted numbers you need for grain amount (as well as volume of water for the mash and expected gravities of the runnings).

I built this calculation into a spreadsheet and adjusted my Porter recipe according to it, and brewed it again: this time I was within .004 points of my target original gravity. I was convinced; the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

For anyone interested in batch sparging for their all-grain process, Palmer’s calculations are an essential tool to have. So much so, that I’m going to try putting together a browser-based (Javascript) version that I’ll publish next week.

First, the facts: there is now a Silipint website that gives us a good breakdown of exactly what the Silipint is and offers:

• 100% silicone, heat-resistant and insulated (range of -58°F to 675°F): it keeps cold liquids cold, and hot liquids hot
• Odor-resistant and anti-microbial
• Food-safe (according to FDA standards) and dishwasher-safe
• Holds 16 ounces (though I have not tested this directly yet), weighs 8.8 ounces empty, and shaped like a standard pint glass

Based on all of that, this sounds like the ideal container for drinking beer: it won’t break, it won’t accumulate gunk or off-flavors, it’s easy to clean, and it’s safely portable. So let’s take more of a hands-on look.

One thing immediately becomes clear, or not clear as the case may be: the Silipint is translucent at best, and (looking at the colors on the Silipint website) completely opaque at worst. For anyone who’s a stickler for the visual experience of their beer, this will be a strike against it. However, for the Silipint’s intended purpose—providing a collapsible, non-breakable, easy-traveling appliance, there’s really no quibble.

And you can see with the Bend Ale Trail Silipints, they’re neutrally-colored and will provide the best of the visuals, such as they are.

(The reason for the translucency is because the outer surface is “grip honed,” basically a rough surface to keep it from slipping from your hands. I’m not sure they would otherwise be transparently clear, though.)

Let’s take a closer look a the thickness of the material—when I first envisioned these, I was thinking in terms of the silicone cookware you can pick up in kitchen specialty stores—sturdy but “über-collapsible.” Fortunately, the Silipints are not that flimsy; flexible, yes, but they won’t collapse and spill beer all over you when you go to pick them up:

You can see the nice thick wall of the pint glass, which helps with insulation and makes for a very sturdy container. And while the Silipint is easily “crushable” and flexible, it’s not nearly as structurally unsound as I was envisioning—in fact, the base is fairly inflexible, which is good, this makes for a very sturdy vessel. On the other hand, you won’t be crumpling it up to conveniently throw in a side pocket of your backpack.

But how about holding beer?

It does the job: it easily holds 12 ounces of beer (which leads me to believe it will hold a full 16 ounces, thus qualifying as an Honest Pint) and though translucent, you can see enough to get an idea of what you’re drinking.

I wouldn’t be reviewing beers from this glass, where a big part of the experience is assessing the visual appearance of the beer, but as I mentioned that’s not what this is for anyway.

One thing I most definitely did wonder about with the Silipint was head retention: since this is a different material than most drinking vessels, would the silicone affect the formation of the head on the beer?

I am pleased to say that, other than looking perhaps a bit more rocky or “rough” than you might see in a piece of glassware, there was no significant affect on how well the head formed and lasted throughout.

As for the drinking of the beer—other than the novelty of drinking from a rubberized-feeling container, everything was as it should be: it smelled like Obsidian Stout, it tasted like Obsidian Stout, and it had that nice creamy mouthfeel of an Obsidian Stout.

Plus I think—though I didn’t measure this objectively—the Silipint did insulate the beer and keep it cooler throughout drinking it than a glass container would have. The walls of the Silipint are thick enough that it should be fairly insulated, and you could feel the cool temperature of the liquid through them—but there was none of the obvious “cold beer” effects you can feel and see on a glass container (like condensation).

Overall, I think the Silipints are what I was hoping (and expecting) them to be. We’re going to take them camping in a couple of weeks and do a thorough “field testing” of them then, but in the meantime they are great for casual beer drinking—think parties, barbecues, camping, beer festivals, and so on. You wouldn’t use these for more “serious” beer events like tastings and competitions, but that’s okay—they fit their niche nicely and do their job well.

Unless you’re planning a hardcore tasting mission encompassing all four days of the Festival, you probably won’t be sampling all 81 beers offered; or at any rate, I’ve never been able to get close. Since they post the list of beers online, you have ample opportunity to make a game plan ahead of time: work up a list of your “must try” beers. That’s exactly what I’ve done in past years, and that’s what I’m doing now—presenting you with a suggested list of beers that you should seek out first, with some notes about some of the others.

One of the most popular beers at the OBF is 21st Amendment’s Hell or High Watermelon Wheat, and if it’s one you haven’t yet tried then I suggest getting some early on, both because it’s a lighter more delicate beer that the stronger beers will overwhelm and because the line for this beer grows longer during the day.

Bend, Oregon is fairly well represented by Deschutes Brewery, Cascade Lakes Brewing, and 10 Barrel Brewing. Personally I would tend to pass these three up in favor of other beers I haven’t tried (though Deschutes’ Fresh Squeezed IPA sounds promising, it’s one I have not had), but if you want a fair taste of Bend then any or all of these would be good to sample.

Likewise I would pass over the more “mainstream” of the beers that I’ve drank numerous times in the past, or breweries that have had repeat showing at the Festival: Alaskan Brewing, Anderson Valley Brewing, Bison Brewing, Full Sail Brewing, Grand Teton Brewing, New Belgium Brewing. They are all fine breweries with great beers represented—but chances are you’ve sampled those beers before.

I always make an exception to this “mainstream rule” for Widmer, however, because they always brew up something unique and special for the Festival. This year it’s Captain Shaddock IPA, listed under the styles as a “Grapefruit IPA”—brewed with generous amounts of grapefruit peel to accentuate the grapefruity characteristics of the Northwest hops used. Definitely sounds worth trying.

And I’ll often make the “mainstream exception” for Rogue as well, as brewmaster John Maier always brews something special just for the Festival. This year it’s 21, an Old Ale done up right.

Bayern Brewing is pouring Dump Truck Extra Pale Summer Bock, a “Pale Summer Bock” that underwent a decoction mash, unusual for a commercial brewer, and surly of interest to a beer aficionado.

I’ve never tried the Leafer Madness Imperial IPA from Oregon’s Beer Valley Brewing, so I might seek this out later in the day—this 9% IPA is likely to ruin the palate for the more delicate offerings.

Boulder Beer is bringing Kinda Blue, a blueberry pale ale that sounds promising, especially if you like fruit beers (I do when they’re well-crafted). This would be an earlier-in-the-day beer, and if it gets really hot, this might be a good beer to refresh yourself with.

I’m a sucker for Farmhouse Ales, and Boulevard Brewing has their Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale on tap, so that’s pretty much a must-try. Plus Boulevard is not widely represented around here (though it’s been growing) so any chance to sample their beer is a bonus.

The Hibiscus Ginger Beer from Caldera Brewing sounds too interesting to pass up. It’s brewed special for the OBF, and I’ve had a very good version of their Ginger Beer in the bottle, so this is a one-time opportunity.

Likewise, the Summer Gose from Cascade Brewing (not to be confused with Cascade Lakes Brewing) should not be missed—how many commercial breweries are producing a German Gose style of beer? I bet you can count them on one hand.

Flying Fish Brewing is bringing their Exit 4, which is described as a “Hoppy Trippel” that you should seriously take a look at—later in the day, since it’s 9.5% alcohol!

Kona Brewing is bringing Coco Loco Big Island Brown, which is listed as a Coconut Brown Ale. I’m a big fan of beers with coconut—and if you want to compare with Maui Brewing’s CoCoNuT Porter, well, you’re in luck—that will be pouring at the Festival also. Side-by-side tasting, anyone?

I’ve heard nothing but good things about Laht Neppur Brewing out of Eastern Washington, and their Strawberry Cream Ale definitely piques my interest—I would seek this one out early.

Natian Brewery is pretty new, so it’s surprising to see them at the OBF. Their Destinatian is a “Honey Red Ale,” brewed with Oregon honey. I’d be interested in sampling this just because they’re so new.

Rock Bottom Brewery may be a “mainstream” brewer but brewmaster Van Havig is anything but mainstream—and the beer he’s bringing to the Festival, Oud Heverlee, is sure to prove this. The style is listed as a “Flemish Brabante” which is entirely new to me—the description lists dried tulips and a Belgian-style beer. Seriously, how could anyone not try this?

Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing is bringing Olallieberry Cream Ale, a Cream Ale brewed with rice and wheat added and infused with olallieberreis. Yes, it’s the first time I’ve heard of this fruit, and I’m intrigued.

Southern California darling The Bruery is showing up with their 7 Grain Saison, and since my experience with this fairly new brewery is limited I would make sure to find my way to a sample of this.

Finally, Portland’s own Upright Brewing is pouring their Reggae Junkie Gruit, the only hop-free beer at the OBF (a true Gruit). Instead, it’s spice with orange peel, peppercorns, hyssop, and lemongrass, and this is another beer any beer aficionado should be seeking out.

First, the official description:

The Oregon Brewers Festival exists to provide an opportunity to sample and learn about a variety of craft beer styles from across the country. Eighty craft breweries from all parts of the nation offer handcrafted brews to 70,000 beer lovers during the four-day event.

The festival’s focus is craft beer, but there’s more than sampling involved. The event features live music all four days, beer-related vendors, beer memorabilia displays, beer writers and publishers, homebrewing demonstrations, and an assortment of foods from a variety of regions. The Crater Lake Root Beer Garden offers complimentary handcrafted root beer for minors and designated drivers. Minors are always welcome at the festival when accompanied by a parent.

Admission is free, but of course you’ll need to purchase a tasting package consisting of the souvenir mug and tokens; there is a $10, $20, and $50 package, and additional tokens can be purchase for $1 apiece. One token will get you a taster and four tokens will fill the mug.

Tom McCall Park runs north-south along the Willamette River, and accordingly the venue itself is fairly long, stretching roughly a fifth of a mile along the park. The beer pouring is split into two sections, 40 breweries each represented on the north and south sides of the park; large outdoor tents are set up at each end, as well, and it’s a fair hike back and forth if you’re just browsing to see what beers are available—and on a hot day of beer drinking in Portland in late July, that will wear on you more than the beer.

Keeping that in mind, here are some guidelines I can give you based on my own previous years of attending:

• Get there as early as you can on Thursday and/or Friday; these will be the days where the crowds will be at a minimum and taps will not yet be blown. Later in the day, and especially on the weekend, you will believe every one of the 70,000 attendees are at the park at the exact same time as you, and you’ll be waiting in beer lines and fighting the crowd far more than actually sampling the beers. I’ve been on Saturday (after first going on Friday, of course), and it is far less fun with the thousands of extra people.
• When you purchase a tasting package, you’ll also get a Festival program that will list all of the beers in detail; if you haven’t already figured out which beers you must try from the online beer page, this will be invaluable as you can not only make that list, but you can also write notes on the program next to the beer listing itself.
• Once you’ve figured out which beers you absolutely have to try, pick a section—north or south. Figure out which beers are in that section and stick with it until you’ve hit all your “must haves,” then move on to the other side—this will save you a lot of walking. Plus, you can take more advantage of the shade provided by the tent and spend less time going back and forth in the hot sun.
• If you have a group of friends with you, stake out a table early: these fill up really fast, and if you plan to be there a long time, you will definitely want somewhere to sit to eat some food, recover from the beer sampling a bit, whatever. Getting space at a table later in the day as the crowds grow will be next to impossible.
• If you find a popular beer that you really like, go back for seconds, or even full mugs—the popular beers will blow their kegs early (even by Friday night, in some cases).
• It’s always a good idea to take a bottle of water with you—between the beer and the heat you will want hydration—but the Festival also has rinsing stations spaced periodically along the tents so patrons can rinse their mugs out between tastings. Don’t be afraid to fill up your mug and knock back some water while you’re rinsing—the water is perfectly sanitary and freely available.

Hopefully these few tips will be valuable if you’re planning your trip to the BrewFest—but I’m sure you’ll have a good time either way.

Next week, I’ll see about the next most important thing about the Festival: the beers! I’ll present my own list of must-tries and must-haves, so you can plan ahead.

Oh, and incidentally the Wine Bloggers Conference was in town the same weekend we were there—completely a coincidence, though I was able to finally meet our own Beer Wench in person: Ashley was undercover as a wine blogger for the weekend.

Takeaways:

There are some 130 wineries with 85 tasting rooms in the Walla Walla Valley, and only three breweries in the region. Wine is definitely the dominant industry, but one of their favorite sayings is that “It takes a lot of beer to make good wine.” Seems like the area might be ripe for a new wine-friendly brewery/brewpub to be established.

However, there were four regional breweries up until fairly recently: I learned that Walla Walla Brewers went out of business, leaving the Mill Creek Brewpub in Walla Walla, Laht Neppur some 20 miles northeast in Waitsburg, and Skye Book & Brew 10 miles beyond that in Dayton. So maybe the market for local breweries isn’t as robust as it seems like it could be.

Winemakers are as geeky and experimental as brewers, which is a pleasant surprise—due to the (much) longer production lifecycle of wine, my impression has always been of winemakers as much more conservative. But within those “big picture” constraints, they are playing with variables and experimenting as much as any brewer:

• At L’École No. 41 they talked about how they experimented wine a wine by making it three different ways: 1000 pounds of grapes completely destemmed, 1000 pounds with some “whole clusters” at the bottom of the crush (i.e., whole bunches uncrushed and still attached to the stems), and 1000 pounds of destemmed grapes, but with a bunch of stripped stems thrown back on top. (Everything else otherwise the same.) The result? The whole-bunch-unstemmed batch was more lush, woody, and complex than the others.
• At Rulo Winery we did a side-by-side tasting of (otherwise identical) Chardonnay aged in stainless steel tanks (the current trend), and aged in traditional oak barrels. The differences were pronounced, and I preferred (no surprise) the oak-aged version.
• Blending and barrel-aging is key to their experimentation, and seems like the area they have the most flexibility to do so.

Even though there is a scarcity of local brewers, there are at least two places in town where you can find good (bottled) beer: the Colville Street Patisserie is a dessert place with a nice selection of bottle craft and imported beers, and Salumiere Cesario (a gourmet grocery) focuses mostly on Belgian and Belgian-style bottled beers—and were selling magnums (1.5 liters) of Anchor’s 2009 Our Special Ale (their Christmas Ale) for only $18 each, which seemed like a steal. (I bought one, naturally.)

All the winemakers we talked to who also appreciate good beer recommended Laht Neppur Brewing, up in Waitsburg: one even declared them the best brewery and beers in all of Eastern Washington. We didn’t visit on this trip, but we did drive by on our way to dinner in Dayton: they are as unassuming as could be, housed in a small-ish steel walled industrial building on the east side of town. I’ll make it there on our next visit.

And, many of these winemakers know their beer—like I said, it takes a lot of beer to make good wine. They love to talk about the wine, of course, but you’ll find good beer conversations flow just as easily—just ask!

I’m planning to post a picture and review of the Silipint here, as soon as I get the chance later today. So it’s a short post right now, but keep checking back for updates.

Update: The Silipint was on back order, so I wasn’t able to procure it yet. However, I do happen to have some pictures that I will post soon, and when it comes in I’ll post the full report.

Here is the official description:

Starting on June 1st, you can use the Bend Ale Trail Map and Passport available in the latest Discovery Map of Central Oregon to discover Bend’s 7 breweries – and for extra credit, head to our neighboring brewery in Sisters to visit the 8th! Be sure to get your passport stamped at each location. When you get all 7 stamps, stop by or send your completed passport to the Visit Bend Welcome Center and receive a commemorative Bend Silipint made especially for beer drinkers on the go! And, if you do your extra credit and visit Sisters, you’ll receive a special surprise.

It should come as no surprise that I’m already participating in the Bend Ale Trail—though to be fair, my wife (who has a much more competitive “racing” streak than me) is all over it—and so far I think it’s a great promotion and a big step in the right direction for beer boosterism for Bend. Thus far, of the eight breweries on the Ale Trail map, we have four of them stamped; and as another nice touch, each brewery seems to have a custom stamp made for this purpose (a rubber stamp of their logo).

Aside from the enticement of visiting all of Bend’s breweries, Ale Trail followers who get the seven Bend brewery stamps can take their “passports” back to Visit Bend and receive the “Silipint” mentioned above—a foldable, collapsible pint “glass” made out of silicone, specially made by tazlab, a local company that makes collapsible silicone dog bowls.

Personally I think having a travel-ready, collapsible pint glass would be… well, amazing, really. Something easy to take to tastings, festivals, camping, that is non-breakable and would be a conversation starter—just what a beer blogger ordered!

Need I say more? If you needed another reason to come check out the beer in Bend, Oregon, then this is a pretty good one.

Now, it’s no secret that the award-winning Pelican Pub and Brewery is located in Pacific City, and I highlighted them in my “10 Oregon breweries you should visit” post awhile back. In addition to having the absolute best location of any brewery I’ve visited (literally on the beach), they have great beers and great food as well (which I’ve reviewed before, over on The Brew Site). And that’s not exactly a secret, either—we had a substantial wait for a patio table and they were packed (it was Memorial Day weekend, after all), and I saw plenty of people taking 22-ounce bottles of Pelican beer (which they sell on premise) down to the beach.

Enjoy some of these photos (and try not to be too envious):

With lunch I started with the taster tray, which is normally their five standard beers plus any two seasonals—but our waiter was able to finagle tasters of all four current seasonals for me (that’s nine tasters). The year-round beers are Kiwanda Cream Ale, MacPelican’s Scottish Ale, India Pelican Ale, Doryman’s Dark Ale, and Tsunami Stout, all of which are extremely solid, well-brewed beers. Their seasonals were their Heiferweizen, Surfer’s Summer Ale, Nestucca ESB, and Pelican d’Or, a Belgian-style strong golden ale (8.4% alcohol or similar).

The seasonals were solid and drinkable as well. Once I’d finished my tasters, I opted for a pint of the ESB (I considered the Pelican d’Or, but with the drive back to Lincoln City ahead of us I decided not to push it).

Now, one would think that the Pelican Pub is the only source of good beer to be found in such a small community as Pacific City.

One would be wrong.

There is a winery tasting room in town, Twist Wine Company, that we stumbled upon mostly by chance, who’s owner is the sister of… wait for it… Vinnie Cilurzo.

Yes, that Vinnie Cilurzo, of Russian River Brewing Company. What that means is, not only does this wine tasting room and lounge offer their wines to drink and sell by the bottle, but they also have Russian River beers on tap: Pliny the Elder and Damnation currently, and they sell bottles of Damnation, Temptation, Consecration, and Supplication as well.

I daresay it may well be the only place on the entire Oregon Coast that one can get Pliny the Elder on tap. And since it’s Vinnie’s sister, well… Pliny is always on tap.

They have four taps in fact: the two Russian River taps, one hosting a beer from the Pelican Pub down the street, and I don’t remember the fourth—something from Portland, I think. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a Russian River beer while we were there, so I ordered a goblet of Damnation and checked the rest of the place out (my wife enjoyed their wines and bought several bottles).

It’s a funky, comfortable tasting lounge where kids are welcome and you can bring your own food in. In fact, one corner is devoted to the kids: they have a vintage Atari 2600 game console hooked up to a TV with some two dozen game cartridges on hand, and this kept my kids busy while we were there. They also have a large collection of vinyl records—in fact, all they have in music is on vinyl. The atmosphere is very relaxed and casual and friendly; there was a decent crowd while we were there and everyone was friendly and chatty.

Twist Wine Company is a must-stop for any beer lover traveling the northern Central Oregon Coast, along with the Pelican Pub and Brewery. In fact, if you’re within even 100 miles of Pacific City, you should make the drive to visit—you won’t be sorry.