Rusty Truck Brewing Company / Roadhouse 101

Date of initial visit: 07.27.13

kind of an old west meets roadhouse and biker vibe to this place, odd for the oregon coast, unexpected maybe is better, but its cool to see so many breweries popping up in these towns now, the drive south is littered with them, awesome to make a day of connecting some dots. this place is set back off the road with a tavern that has a nice patio and a lot of open space in front which serves as the main bar and restaurant and taproom, and the brewery production space and small taproom or events area in the back behind the main bar building, that part was closed when we were there. the bar is big and sort of country feeling, they had just a handful of their own beers on, pretty basic stuff across the board, save for a strawberry sour what was rather ambitious. none of the beer was real impressive, the ipa was lackluster, the blackberry ale just okay, and the strawberry sour probably the best of the bunch, but quality was inconsistent at best. the service was also kind of bad, no details on the beers were available, and the girls seemed distracted even though it wasnt all that busy, definitely more of a focus on the bar aspect than the beer aspect, but it was a chill place to hang for a couple of pints. i think if its great beer you are after you can do a lot better than this place in the area, but if you want a bit more of a cultural experience this could be a good pick, looks like they do live music and decent food when things are fully up and running. also the back space looks cool, would like to check that out next time through. largely unimpressive beers though in our experience...

 

Family surprised me with a weekend camping trip at the coast for Father's Day. Saw that Rusty Truck was about 5 minutes from the camp grounds and I had sampled their Chocolate Cherry Baltic Porter at the KLCC Brewfest in Eugene before and liked it. It had won a top 3 spot 3 years in a row in the People's Choice. I figured they knew what they were doing with what I had experienced so far. I figured wrong.

The vibe of the place was as you would expect from a roadhouse diner, lots of vehicle parts, road signs, license plates. Oddly enough there were dollar bills with writing on them stapled all over the ceiling. Wooden pizza oven to the side.

The food was actually quite good. The pizza was loaded with toppings and cheese, crust was chewy and crispy. The reuben had good flavor, moist. My wife liked the Bier Cheese soup which was quite chunky. I thought it was too chunky and the veggies were still too crisp.

The selection of food and beers was good, lots of variety. One big negative is that there was not an actual taplist with all the beers on it. There was one lone sign on the far wall written in chalk that said now on tap: Hempseed Hefe. When I asked about it I was told that they didn't have any more. Then erase the chalkboard?!?! There was another chalk board that had their house beers, but there were 5 beers not listed anywhere visible from the dining room and the waitress didn't know what they had.

From here it just continues to spiral down hard. One big contention I have with most older brewpubs, especially the ones in destination areas (vacation spots) is the 2 taste maximum then taster tray. I want to enjoy a pint or two of a good beer. I have no way to know what the beer tastes like and if I want a pint of it unless I taste it. Paying more than $1 for 4oz of beer is an overcharge in itself. Now I have dropped the money for 2 pints of beer and merely sampled your wares. The beer better be phenomenal if you want me to lay down more cash for full pints. Sadly, it was far from it. The Double IPA had no detectable hops in the nose, flavor, or finish. It was cloyingly sweet, smelled and tasted of caramel and was loaded with acetaldehyde - straight caramel sour apple candy. The Belgian Strong Ale was slightly oxidized with almond notes over nondescript Belgian esters. The Hoppy Saison was decent as was the basic IPA. The ISA was hop water, not tasty at all. The Toffee Porter was muddy. The two berry laced ales were drinkable, my wife had a pint, and when we got the check for $6 for a pint of house beer I nearly flipped my lid - that is a $4/pint beer. The coffee stout was passable as the coffee covered up any issues in the beer, but it also watered it down giving the beer the finish of a highly roasted Schwarzbier and not the chew of a Stout. The Imperial Red Ale was actually nice and I would have purchased a pint had I not just paid $8 to suffer through the rest of the tasters.

Definitely not going back there again. They have the potential to do really well if they would clean up there beers, drop their prices, and up their service. Felt like we had gone back to the early 90s when every dude who bought a Mr Beer kit thought he could open a brewpub.

Down at the coast saying at Best Western Landmark Hotel..on a very rainy windy night. Bored to visit this place across 101..i had been here years ago..before Rusty Truck and was not impressed. This time the place looked cleaner and the barkeep was wonderful..unfortunately they only had 4 of their beers on tap. The IPA was OK..food was good enough bar food..place was empty on this out of season rainy evening..just a few people. OK place probably better in the summer.