317: Rogue Oyster Stout

Day three at the coast. We showed up at the surprisingly great* Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, which is also home to one of Oregon’s most well-known craft breweries – Rogue. I’d been to the brewery once before, but I didn’t remember it well, other than a vague recollection of chaos and batter (in the beaten-up sense, not the carb-coating sense).

Surprisingly, despite a well-done, recent exterior remodel that improved the brewery’s facade 10x, the interior remains cacophanous and rowdy. It was a zoo when we got there, and there weren’t any giraffes at the bar, either.

In some ways, the entrance is charming – you walk through a bright red silo (which looks more of the compressed gas than grain variety to this midwesterner), and into the nerve center of a working brewery. Hoses and puddles and hip boots are everywhere. If you’ve never been to a brewery, it’s a dramatic introduction, as you might narrowly miss being run over by a skid loader on your way to the pub.

Like a lot of breweries, this one has the general feel of being built out in stages. The pub’s lobby and bottle stocks are on the ground floor, and the actual restaurant and bar are up a flight of steep stairs. Both the pub and the restaurant have a pinched feel, as if their floor space has been slowly commandeered for brewing space. In some respects, their priorities are in order: beer first, pub second. But on the other hand … Really?

I suspect that for many, the pilgrimage to Newport is akin to a Red Sox fan’s return to Fenway: somewhat sacred, a mix of passion and excitement and dreams fulfilled. To walk into Rogue’s brewery pub 10 years overdue for a remodel is a little bit like entering Fenway through the public restrooms …

I realize Rogue has taken a lot on in the last few years (thanks for keeping the Green Dragon open!), but I think it’s time for the brewery to take a fresh look at the visitor experience at the Newport brewery, and of course … the Portland pub. But that is another story.

Beer Name: Oyster Stout
Brewer: Rogue Brewing
Price: $16.00/growler
Sampled: November 13, 2010
Rating: 3/5
Notes: Doesn’t smell briny – roasty/milk chocolate-y. Kind of light in flavor, in a seafood vs. red meat sense. It does have a thin richness – protein.
ABV: N/A
IBU: N/A
OG N/A
TG N/A
Serving Type: Growler.

* I hate zoos, and figured this would be a kind of water zoo. It’s really neat, especially the crazy colorful anemones and blacklit jellyfish.