This past weekend was a long one spent camping over in Newport on the Oregon Coast with the family—and normally “camping” means canned macro lagers (PBR and Copper Bell Light Beer that I found on sale at Whole Foods) but I also make sure to throw in a few canned specialty craft beers to enjoy too, so it wasn’t a total beer wasteland.

Newport is Rogue Ales territory, and you can find Rogue beers (usually Dead Guy Ale) on tap everywhere. And if you visit Mo’s Seafood restaurant for clam chowder (as we did) you’ll also find their Half-E-Weizen, a light Belgian-style wheat ale originally brewed for Mo’s (in fact, the bottled version—MoM Hefeweizen, has the likeness of Mo herself on the label). It goes really well with the chowder!

And of course there is always the requisite visit to Rogue itself. We stopped in the day before we left to fill a growler and grab some tasters:

From left to right, that’s Ginger Beer from Buckman Botanical Brewery in Portland; Menage a Frog from Issaquah Brewhouse, a Belgian-style Tripel; OBF 23, a Baltic Porter they brewed for the Oregon Brewfest; and Old Crusty Barleywine—not the “New Crusty” made from beard yeast (shudder).

For the canned craft beer I brought alongside with the PBR and Copper Bell, I’d included both 21st Amendment’s Monk’s Blood and the Ninkasi collaboration Allies Win the War!, the Maui Brewing/Jolly Pumpkin collaboration Sobrehumano Palena ‘ole, Fort George Vortex IPA (for IPA Day), and Oskar Blues Ten Fidy.

Of course you can’t take good beer to the beach without enjoying it on the beach.

Finally, I did have one additional can of beer that was somewhere between a macro lager and craft beer, one I couldn’t resist taking camping:

Yes, that’s a one liter can of Baltika 7 Export Lager. I picked it up the weekend before at Belmont Station in Portland. It’s better than the average macro lager, but that’s about it. But really, who can resist taking something this big camping?