Recently, my wife and I spent a night in Pacific City on the Oregon Coast. No real reason other than to get away, for only the second overnight trip in two years; we’ve continued to mostly isolate and stay extremely cautious and careful during the pandemic, but even so, we needed a break. We were able to secure a room at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda, the beachfront hotel across the street from the even-more beachfront Pelican Pub & Brewery, so off we went.

The goal was pretty simple: enjoy the beach, get takeout that we could eat in the hotel, and drink beer and wine while listening to the ocean. And mostly avoid people; the COVID-19 pandemic is still present and hasn’t gone anywhere, despite the lifting of mandates and all the in-person events that are starting back up this year. We were able to do that on this trip.*

It was also something of a working vacation for me as well, as I had an article due for The Bulletin that weekend; so I lugged along the laptop and was able to get some writing done.

We also picked up a pretty good beer haul, so without further ado, here are pictures, beers, and various thoughts and notes that spun out of this trip.

We started in Lincoln City with some stops in mind before heading north to Pacific City. Food and drink were on the agenda; the first stop was My Petite Sweet, a specialty bakery with a mind-blowing selection of treats and goodies that you really shouldn’t miss. We splurged and picked up cupcakes, a giant piece of cookie dough cheesecake, a massive decadent chocolate/sandwich cookie/marshmallow fluff cake(ish) dessert, and some breakfast pastry. We enjoyed these through the rest of the week. No pictures, but the chocolate decadence thing would pair amazingly well with any imperial stout. Highly recommended!

We also found perhaps the best Mexican food we’ve ever had at Enrique’s Taqueria, no joke. The chicken tacos and al pastor burrito were amazing, which we took to go and ate overlooking the beach. It was so good we stopped the next day on our way back for more.

Then of course, Lincoln City is home to McMenamins Lighthouse Brewpub, where we stopped to fill some growlers and grab a bottle of wine. I filled a growler with Lighthouse Lager, a growlette (32-ounce glass growler) with The Perfect Storm Barleywine, and grabbed a bottle of White Rabbit, the company’s white wine blend. I’ve got notes on the beers below.

Finally… Pacific City!

Pacific City is one of my favorite spots on the Oregon Coast, probably not least because of the location of Pelican Brewing’s beachside pub, but also because it has a terrific beach and often better weather than other parts of the (north) coast. Before checking in at the Inn, we stopped at Twist Wine Company and picked up a bottle of Syrah. Twist makes its wine in McMinnville while its tasting room is at the coast; there is also a good beer selection.

We’ve stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda before and enjoy it; it’s part of the same corporate group that owns the Pelican, so of course there are complimentary bottles of Pelican beer in the room when you check in.

Amazingly (for the coast!) it was a beautiful, sunny, clear sky day, so we spent some time walking the beach. We gave a wide berth to the (many) people also enjoying the beautiful day, including surfers. There are long stretches of the Oregon Coast which can seem perpetually drizzly, rocky, rough, but the beach in Pacific City is not one of them.

I picked up a couple of crowlers from the pub, Dry Run Vista Lager and Alt We Need Is One An Otter, and for dinner we ordered takeout from the pub as well. I opened the crowler of Dry Run for dinner and the evening, and yes, I took some notes because that’s what I do.

My notes: 5% ABV, 40 IBUs. Mostly clear with a light unfiltered haze, bright gold, looks good even in a hotel tumbler. Aromas are fruity, with berry, gooseberry, maybe pear, some citrus, nectarine, a hint of tobacco. Clean and subtle overall. The flavor has a nice spiciness, a bit of a combo of tobacco and rye, with a moderate bitterness that counters a dry crackery malt. It’s really nice and pairs well with the pub’s fish and chips. Overall, interesting and a good showcase for the new Vista hop.

My wife liked the White Rabbit wine, which she hadn’t drank in close to 20 years; it was fruity, clean, and refreshing, a good accompaniment to the sunny day and mellow evening.

The next day was a leisurely morning with breakfast in the room (delivered by Stimulus Coffee & Bakery, attached to the Inn), before driving down the coast to return to Bend via Newport. Oregon has a lot to offer the traveler looking for beautiful scenery, but for my money, nothing beats the Oregon Coast.

On the way, we stopped briefly at Beachcrest Brewing in Gleneden Beach where I filled another growler with Sweater Weather Winter Ale, and picked up four cans of the brewery’s other offerings. And a quick stop at Corvallis Brewing Supply in Corvallis (which I just learned is closing after 25 years!) netted a few more beers, including a couple from Dirt Road Brewing which I haven’t tried yet.

So plenty of beer accompanied the trip home, which I drank throughout the week (three growlers plus a crowler). While it’s not as exciting (or photogenic) as drinking beer at the beach, I’ll round out this post with quick drinking notes on each of those.

McMenamins Lighthouse Lager: 5.42% ABV, 19 IBUs, Munich-style lager. It’s a brassy gold with an unfiltered, slightly hazy look. The growler held up well from when it was filled, with carbonation and a white head. Nice aroma, bready malts with a toasty graininess, and mellow spicy hops. It hits the spot as a bit of a zwickel or kellerbier, quite tasty, with rich maltiness that’s got rustic bread, hard tack, crackers, and just enough balancing hops to avoid being overly sweet.

Pelican Alt We Need is One An Otter: “In partnership with our friends at the Elakha Alliance, all proceeds of this collaboration beer will go towards their initiative to help restore a healthy population of sea otters to the Oregon coast, making Oregon’s marine and coastal ecosystem more robust and resilient.” 5% ABV, 35 IBUs, Altbier style.

Crowler from the source! Deep copper-brown with a nice light tan head. Dry toasty malts and floral, resiny hops in the aroma, and a light note of dark rye bread. Lightly nutty, dry-roasted grains, hard-toasted bread, solid hop bitterness that’s comfortingly herbal. Dry, crisp, drinkable; kind of a crisp hoppy brown overall.

Beachcrest Sweater Weather Winter Ale: Aged on American oak spirals. 6.2% ABV, 45 IBUs, towards the last of this beer. Dark brown, mostly opaque, light tan head though it’s not huge, perhaps the growler didn’t hold much pressure. Aroma is malty with a bit of caramel/toffee and a noticeable oak character, a hint of vanilla but more akin to a light cedar woodiness. Flavor has some roast, dark fruits (probably from dark crystal malts, my homebrewer’s brain tells me), a touch of dark brown sugar, and some oakiness that almost presents as a bare hint of smoky. A burnt caramel note here too in the malts/aftertaste.

McMenamins The Perfect Storm Barleywine: 10.45% ABV, 78 IBUs. Reddish hue to a lovely amber-brown color, with tan head. Rich and malty aroma with some leather, black currant, hints of alcohol spiciness. Flavor has excellent levels of malt, sweet, alcohol, hop bitterness, spice, fruitiness—pretty much what I want in a barleywine. Reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, big and hoppy, with good rich malt and sugar character going on. Warming.

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*We continue to mask even now when indoors and interacting with people, even while most people are not; I’d say 99.9% of the people we saw on this trip were mask-free, which is unfortunate. (But also not surprising for rural Oregon, which the coast mostly is.) I understand after two years that people are tired and “over it” and want things to return to normal—I am and do, too—but that has led to too many collectively deciding the pandemic is over and acting as if nothing has changed.

We will continue to take things slowly and cautiously, wear masks, and minimize contact, especially in touristy situations until the science (the real science, not the CDC’s weirdly politically-driven recommendations) indicates it’s safe to do so.