Felecia and I strolled down to the New Old Lompoc after work last night for Miser Monday, which means $2 pints. The place looks like it's been around awhile but we first discovered it last spring and have neglected it for a few months now.
The Lompoc is dark and grimy, the kind of thing that makes for a really comfortable hangout. Walking in the front door you first encounter a small bar framed by a hops motif in tile. The walls seem encrusted with funny pictures, fliers, old brewery ads, news-clippings, and beer bottles. The look seems classically nostalgic at first, but I think its really just a big sarcastic joke. Ha! To the right is the main seating area, and to the left of the bar are a few tables that are non-smoking before 8 and a hallway that leads past the kitchen to a large patio in back.
Besides $2 (16 oz.) pints all day Mondays, Lompoc has happy hour food and drink menus.
The beers at the Lompoc are brutal and distinctive. Alcohol contents run high, as does flavor. There's also a particular feel that runs through all the beers that I can't describe. It reminds me of drinking mineral water, and maybe it's due to the brewery's plumbing or water source. They serve two IPAs, C-note, and Cenntenial. C-Note seems to be more in the vein of double IPA popular lately, but more bitter than delicate or floral. They serve LSD (Lompoc Strong Draft), a big monster of a beer, that looks dark and dirty and tastes mean. Both IPA's and the LSD have great potential to end one's night quick. A pitcher guarantees either a party or a nap.
My darling of all their brews is the Condor Pale Ale. It's mildly hopped, with just the right amount of bitter unique nutty flavor. It's really delicious, and almost subtle.
Lompoc also serves a stout that's hearty but unremarkable, a pilsner that the wait staff doesn't recommend and a couple seasonals. Right now they have a red and brown ale.
Overall the New Old Lompoc is an awesome little pub. The beers lack the refinement of other microbreweries in the nieghborhood, but are unique, cheap, and enjoyable. The atmosphere is authentic, smoky, comfortable, Portland. I think it's exactly the grail Mcmenemin's trys to achieve in some of their pubs. The food is spectacular pub fare.
The thought of coming in for beer soup and a sandwich in the chill damp evenings this winter is heartening. This place is comfy like an old quilt.
It's too bad that getting there, for me, involves a walk down NW 23rd Ave, which is irritating, or amusing depending on my mood. The first annoyance is all the fucking people in my way. I own these streets (I think), and I don't generally appreciate swarms of Abercronbie victims from Washington county and hordes of other undesirables that come between me and a cold drink. Last week a scabby girl across the street from Music Millennium accosted us with a CD she was peddling.
“What kind of music do you guys like? I'm like a singer-songwriter, and the music's kind of electronic and (directed at Felecia) its really sultry and something that I think, like, other women can totally understand.” This nearly ruined my appetite.
When we told her we don't have much money for purchasing random music people push on us on the street corner she said, “[scoff!] What are you doing on this street, then?”
As we were leaving we saw her drinking a beer a the Lomoc. She must have sold a CD.
