Tour Of The Brewery

Rogue Nation is a complex series of businesses from their own farms, to the cooperage, the distillery, storage warehouses and the final building in the saga that houses the beginning of this conglomerate, the brewery, along with the pub and and restaurant. It is like juggling liquid filled balls of different sizes, textures and volumes with a whole lot of sloshing going on (my analogy, not necessarily the views of Rogue management). From their online site:

Proudly rooted in Oregon soil, Rogue’s beers, spirits and sodas are made with ingredients grown on Rogue Farms in Independence, Oregon. Since 2008, Rogue has remained committed to sharing the terroir of Oregon hops, honey, cucumbers and pumpkins one acre at a time by growing its own.

If you are like me, I had to look up the word terroir to understand what that means and found the answer in Wikipedia:

Terroir is the set of all environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop’s specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character.

Of course that makes sense, the ground that the grows the harvest is as much a part of the end product as the water that is used in the brewing/distilling, or the barrels that house the spirits as they age.

Our tours of visiting the wharf and getting to see the workings of Rogue Nation led to a long, rainy day ending with our evening meal at the Rogue Restaurant. To get to the pub and restaurant, visitors stroll through the massive brew tanks following the yellow paint around the bends and curves of each station in the brewery to the back of the building until the eateries can be found. And here the pub is on the bottom floor while the restaurant is on the top floor.  It is important to note that the restrooms are located right near the front door as one enters and not anywhere near the back of the building for those of you who had been traveling but have no urgent need to ‘rest’ when you first walk in the door and want to see the excitement of the big, brewing stills before taking a break. In my humble opinion, you should ‘rest’ first (again, this are my thoughts not necessarily the views of Rogue management, but I was rather uncomfortable finding my way back down the staircase, through the pub and gift shop, and trailing along the yellow painted path and simply want to save you the same despair).

The warehouse is complex in layout. This comes from the nature of this small, homespun business growing each year with the need to expand as they increase sales,  require more equipment, get into new techniques, and invent new varieties of brewed beers, ales and spirits. The tour and a meal at the restaurant is well worth the time to explore.

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