North Coast Brewing Company
Melissa and I visited Fort Bragg this weekend because I was covering Winesong! for The Wine News. We rolled into town late on Friday night, checked into our hotel, picked a restaurant out of the visitors' guide, and drove down the main road in this small coastal town. We changed our original dinner plans, however, when we saw the North Coast Brewing Company. I consider brewing companies with restaurants to be predictable and more interesting than the fast food restaurants that could claim the same. Sure enough, the food was standard pub fare, though the appetizers included atypical smoked salmon (a specialty of the region) and crostini, or roasted garlic and goat cheese with crostini.
You don't expect fantastic food at a brewery restaurant, but you should anticipate a good beer selection. I prefer wine, but I enjoy beer as well, and come on, what should one drink in this setting? I latched onto one option on the beverage menu: a 4-glass sampler of 4-oz. glasses. I didn't know which four beers to choose—the brewery makes about a dozen, and my beer knowledge is practically nonexistent—so I told the server what I like (not too hoppy) and asked her to choose for me. Melissa chose a glass of Scrimshaw, which she figured would complement the Scrimshaw-based batter on the fish and chips.
I tasted them as I would wine: beer has its own complexities, its own rewards for those who take the time to think about the taste. I started with the beer that seemed the lightest: the Acme California Pale Ale. A co-worker tells me that North Coast Brewing Company bought Acme Brewery at some point in the past. My tasting notes mention a nose of lemon, with a taste that was dominated by hops but also had baking spice and vanilla components. I found it pleasant but not too exciting.
My second beer was the Pranqster, and I was immediately grabbed by the nose of vanilla and waxy flowers and banana. I loved the creamy mouth feel, like some sort of fizzy cream. The finish suggested bubble gum, and my overall impression says "smooth and silky". This is a beer I will seek out and buy again. In retrospect, my rapture makes sense. The only beer I claim to have any knowledge about is Belgian beer (which means I can chat happily with beer snobs about Saison Dupont and Westvletern), and the brewery considers this a "Belgian-style" beer.
The Acme California Brown Ale offered wheat and oatmeal on the nose, and felt smooth in the mouth, leaving a hoppy finish after I swallowed. I liked it, but it didn't turn my heart from the beer I drank just moments before.
The final beer in my sample was the Old No. 38 Stout. Melissa watched with a twinkle in her eye as I tasted this one. Definite cocoa on the nose, but that became coffee with a bitter finish as I drank the smooth liquid. I don't like coffee. I don't like coffee flavoring. And, it turns out, I don't like things that taste like coffee even when they're not. I couldn't get past that flavor in the beer to give an overall impression. Melissa finished my glass. I'm sure, as a stout, it's quite good. But I'll be steering clear of this one.
I'd love to sample all this brewery's beers. They were rich and complex, even when I didn't like them. And I'll eagerly keep an eye out for Pranqster in the future. My co-worker (who knows a lot about beer), says he and his wife like the brewery's Blue Star as a crisp summer drink ("the kind of beer you can put a lemon wedge in and enjoy on a hot day"), and he also recommends the Old Rasputin, "a porter but with a bright fruit finish."
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