BEACH N BREWS: GUILTY PLEASURES AND FRIENDS’ GREAT OREGON COAST MICROBREW TOUR

Back in the day, beer was beer was beer.

That was until several years ago when Guilty Pleasures became intimately involved with the beer business. Well, more accurately, intimately involved with someone in the beer biz.

During that time, Guilty Pleasures developed a great appreciation for the craft of brewing. All of a sudden, a beer’s IBUs and the types of hops used became a determining factor in selection. (Of course, Guilty Pleasures can still pound a PBR with the best of them.)

So when Guilty Pleasures and friends recently headed down to Seaside, Ore., our trip took an unexpected turn when so did the weather — seriously, it snowed on the beach. We decided to ditch the sand and look for suds as we embarked on the Great Oregon Coast Microbrew Tour.

It began innocently enough when Guilty Pleasures, cold and tired of wandering the same old boring shops in Cannon Beach, Ore., decided to make a pit stop in Bill’s Tavern.

Turns out, Bill’s isn’t just a bar, it’s a brewhouse with windows above the bar so you see the brewing vats rising up from the middle of the building. Also turns out, Bill’s makes a mighty fine beer.
G.P. RECOMMENDS: The nicely hoppy Duckdive Pale Ale.

Here’s where the brew tour also took us:
• The Pelican Pub in Pacific City, Ore., is pretty proud of it’s beer, as it should be: the ocean-front brewery racks up a ton of beer awards each year. But come on, $6 for a pint? Still, the pub’s view of the waves crashing on Cape Kiwanda is beautiful and well-worth the visit.
G.P. RECOMMENDS: A commemorative surfboard key chain bottle opener.

• Next, we set out to visit the home of Rogue Ales in Newport, Ore. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of only going to the public house on Bay Boulevard where the service was terrible — although the Kobe beef burgers were great. We quickly got our check and crossed the Yaquina Bay Bridge to the actual brewery, a cool old building on the marina where you have to walk between the shiny silver brewing vats to get the pub.
G.P. RECOMMENDS: The brewery tour. It’s daily at 3 p.m. (We got to peek inside one of the walk-in coolers and there were stacks of boxes with the HopUnion logo on them. Guilty Pleasures felt some Yakima pride.)

• Now card-carrying members of the Rogue Nation — there really is a card and it gets you discounts — the next day we visited what is perhaps Guilty Pleasures’ favorite place to enjoy a beer and good pub grub: The Rogue public house in the former Bumble Bee Tuna Cannery on Pier 39 in Astoria, Ore. It just feels like home.
G.P. RECOMMENDS: Since Guilty Pleasures didn’t have to drive this day, it was all about Rogue’s Old Crustacean, a robust, unfiltered barleywine that packs a punch.

Though, the beach ’n’ brew vacation had to come to an end, our quest for the best beer in the Northwest didn’t.

After spending the weekend in the Portland area, we hit BridgePort Brewing and one of the many McMenamins pubs, made a stop at Full Sail in Hood River, Ore., on the way back to Yakima — got the ruben sandwich there, it’s glorious — and capped the whole thing off at home with a 22-oz bottle of Beer Shoppe Anniversary Imperial Indian Pale Ale made by Ellensburg’s Iron Horse Brewery.

When all was said and done, Guilty Pleasures’ mementos from the trip included two brewery hoodies, one growler, two pint glasses, lots of pictures of Haystack Rock and five unbroken sand dollars. Not bad.

• Guilty Pleasures is a weekly look at whatever Guilty Pleasures wants to look at — or drink.