The road from Bend was long and windy. Very windy. As some of you know, CP can get motion sick at times. On this leg of our trip, she spent most of the ride lying down on the pull-out couch in the back fighting her sickness. Good times. We arrived in Newport early afternoon. It turns out the coast isn't always sunny and warm... UGH! It was the first rainy day of our trip so far. So instead of biking the town, we drove Mel around to get our bearings. We quite literally stumbled onto the brewery. And, we took this as a good sign. We decided to poke around the town a little more and then head back for the 3 pm brewery tour!
We arrived back to the brewery at 2:50 only to discover that their tours no longer happened at 3 pm, but at 4 pm. Hmmm... No big deal, we guess! We headed to the attached brewpub restaurant for a snack and to sample some beers. This was clearly our first mistake (or theirs...). The service was, in a word, AWFUL (stinking awful). We sat down and almost immediately ordered our drinks. CP - The Hazelnut Brown (CP - It was incredible, the saving grace of the entire Rogue experience. One of my favorite beers, this is the first time I had ever tried it on tap and it was even better.) SM - A three beer sampler. We also ordered a forgettable-type appetizer. CPs beer came. We waited. We waited some more. The food came. We nibbled, hoping to save the food for when SMs beers arrived. The people near us ordered and got both their food and drink. We tried to catch our waitresses eye... no luck. Finally CP stood and said quietly but firmly "Ashley, excuse me, but he is still waiting for his drink sampler" She said, "Oh. The taps have been slow. Let me go check." And then immediately returned with SMs rather warm sampler... Ugh...! Not a good start.
Not to be discouraged!! The tour was our real reason for the visit. We headed down to the gift shop to wait for the tour to start. We should have kept walking out of the door. What followed was undeniably the worst brewery tour we have ever taken. A young man in his early twenties walked us around the brewery. Almost every sentence he said started with "I think", "I am pretty sure", or "Like...". Every question us touring folks asked was answered with "I dunno but maybe..." It was crazy... (As a side note... Please discuss... Does this mean we're getting old? Are our expectations for the next generation just too high? Or was this kid just a freakin' boob?)
Halfway through the tour when it was clear that we, fairly novice homebrewers, knew more about brewing than he did, CP sweetly inquired "So, what are your responsibilities at Rogue?" He replied "I do everything." CP, taken aback slightly asked, "Oh, you're a brewer?" Our lovely guide laughed slightly and responded "Oh, no. I work in the gift shop and in the restaurant sometimes too." Boob!!!
Ah... it all made sense. We figured his tour was set up to get us to buy stuff in the gift shop and restaurant, not to properly inform us about the brewing operations. How freaking disappointing! Along the way and in our hometown of Boston (a nod to Harpoon), we were accustomed to brewers and employees of breweries actually caring about the product they produce and showing that enthusiasm as they discussed their beer. Almost like introducing their favorite child to you for the first time as you tour the facility. Rogue Brewery certainly needs to learn that lesson and take customer service and professionalism to heart... nuff said!
We left only after buying a couple of bottled beers (I mean, the brewery and brewpub experience may have lacked, but their beers never disappoint) and also buying, at a more than a 50% discount, a case of their stout. Some Rogue Brewery boob employee had been mistakenly put the stout in the wrong - single malt ale - bottles... One wonders if our tour guide was working bottling that day...
We headed back ready to call it an early night with dinner at "home". We stopped by the local fish piers and bought some fresh crab. Yum! The highlight of Newport. We took Murph for a nice walk along the beach and some much needed exercise and packed it in for the night.
We woke the next morning and headed to the Newport farmers market. It was a decent market. If we hadn't been to Bend's market a couple days earlier, it may have seemed more impressive. The first thing we noticed was a long winding line... CP went over to see what it was for... Everyone referred to it as the "bread line." We were in! We grabbed a loaf of cranberry walnut bread, some granola and a few pastries. It was all awesome. At a couple of the produce vendors we also scored more cherries and some blueberries.
After only a short discussion, we decided to cut our trip to Newport short. We initially planned for two days there. But based on our stellar experience at Rogue and our first day impressions of the town, we were sure that greener pastures awaited us elsewhere. We hit the road to head north along the Oregon coast with Portland in mind as our final destination...
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