Some final notes about the beer scene in Baker City, Oregon (where we visited last weekend)…

The biggest beer selection in town (from a restaurant) is at Paizano’s Pizza—that’s the pizza parlor owned by our friend Kina, whom we were visiting. They’ve gone out of there way to establish a stock of good beer, so besides the usual mainstays you’ll also find bottles of Terminal Gravity‘s beers (they’re semi-local, “nearby” in Enterprise), Pike Brewing’s Naughty Nellie, and gluten-free Redbridge, among many others.

Another source for good beer: Bella Main Street Market, right in the heart of downtown (just a block down from Barley Brown’s, actually). In fact Bella has much more in the way of wine, but they do stock several coolers of good beer: Deschutes and Full Sail 22-ounce specialties, a nice assortment of Belgian beers, Sierra Nevada Celebration that was going for $6 a six-pack—things like that. Also an interesting selection of Japanese sake.

On a homebrewing note, we also met the most serious and dedicated homebrewer friend of Kina’s ever. (Hi Ted!) He’s got the homebrewing setup to aspire to: the basement is (mostly) dedicated to brewing with a custom setup, things like fermenters built out of kegs that are temperature-regulated with glycol, a kegerator fridge with three tap handles, and he’s even built his own walk-in cooler fully stocked with beer—both homebrewed and specialty beers from other breweries.

(They had just returned from a beer-drinking trip to Belgium also.)

It’s a serious enough setup to run as a microbrewery, and totally inspired me to start brewing regularly again: I’m planning a Coconut Cream Stout this weekend.