If I knew the owners of the Seaside Brewing Company, I would gushingly say, I love what youve done with the place!

Housed in Seasides historic jailhouse and city hall building, the proprietors have completely refurbished the 100-year old space into a brew pub, using the reclaimed wood and brick in the restoration, while keeping the original outlaw-ish charm (there are still original jailhouse bars here and there). The result is Seasides first brewpub and brewery, and all its craft beers and spirits are made in Oregon. As a local who is pro-growth and pro-positive change, I am always happy to see entrepreneurs imbue old locales with a fresh perspective.

On the evening I visited, we started with a few of the brewerys craft beers and enjoyed them tremendously. Seaside Brewing Companys original beer selections are many, and this is a shining spot for the restaurant. I would suggest they try to headline this more, maybe in the form of a beer flight: a selection of four or five beers in small, taster servings, so that diners can try each without committing to a full glass (and a designated driver).

As an appetizer, we selected chicken drumsticks, made from fried, house-smoked chicken and tossed in buffalo hot sauce, accompanied by blue cheese dressing. I thought this an inventive alternative to traditional hot wings, which are mainly fat and gristle with little chicken. In contrast, drumsticks have much more meat on the bone. While the buffalo sauce was tasty, if a tad traditional (most are usually made with a sauce known as Franks Red Hot), the bold spicy flavor tasted odd against the subtle smokiness of the drumsticks. The house-smoked drumsticks may have been very flavorful on their own; likewise, plain drumsticks with the buffalo sauce alone, minus the smoky flavor, could have sufficed. And the blue cheese dipping sauce, which usually provides a creamy cool down from the hot sauce, plus the assertive bite of the cheese, was lacking flavor and any discernible bits of cheese. I like the idea of drumsticks rather than wings, but this combination of flavors didnt work for me.

We also chose a cup of clam chowder, which was above average. I did not detect the flavor of the craft beer that the menu purports as an ingredient, but it was still one of the better clam chowders Ive tasted: creamy, pleasingly spiced and full of clams.

Next up was a Thai salad, a bed of shredded cabbage and julienned vegetables, basil, green onions, cilantro, and crispy rice noodles with sweet Thai dressing. Unfortunately, rather than a bed of shredded cabbage, the salad consisted nearly entirely of bean sprouts: acceptable in their own right, but not what I was expecting or what was described, and certainly not substantive enough to be a salad (although the portion was enormous). The bean sprouts were swimming in the dressing, which was the tastiest part of the dish, but the sheer quantity of it engulfed the vegetables. Also overwhelming was the basil, which was tossed on the salad in whole leaves. Basil is derived from the mint family, and as any home chef knows, is pungent and peppery and can be quite overpowering when the leaves are eaten raw and whole. I liked the dressing and the topping of crispy rice noodles, though, and I would like to try them again on a proper salad.

As a first entrée, we selected a stone-oven pizza with beer-baked crust, topped with fresh marinara and mozzarella. Based on our servers suggestion, we chose the Tillamook, which also included Tillamook cheese, spinach, feta, Kalamata olives, sweet onions and artichoke hearts. Although the toppings made it sound promising, we were sadly disappointed. The crust itself was not flavorful or noteworthy, and the marinara was very off-putting: cloyingly sweet, without the spicy, tomato punch of traditional marinara more like a tomato paste. The expected astringent saltiness of the Greek toppings of feta, olives and artichoke hearts was completely imperceptible atop the sweet marinara. To me, the combination of flavors made it inedible.

A reuben sandwich arrived next. The menu, which I must say is truly a fun read and written with tongue-in-cheek cleverness, says their reuben has been called the greatest reuben ever made in the history of reubens by some guy claiming to know everything about reubens. I appreciate the humor and tip my cap to whoever wrote the menu, but I found the reuben short of greatness. While the corned beef was perfectly cooked and in ample supply, the sauerkraut acceptable and the rye toasted well, there seemed to be none of the 1,000 island dressing that serves as the cherry on top of the reuben sundae, although the menu lists it as a topping. The sandwich was still delectable, warm and pleasing with the enormous offering of corned beef, but to me, was not a reuben in the truest sense. The simple addition of a good dollop of 1,000 island really would have made it. The restaurants reuben is typically served with chips, but I substituted French fries, which were crisp and tasty.

I respect what the Seaside Brewing Company is trying to accomplish, and I think it has tremendous potential. Though I found most of the dishes average on the whole, I think they could be improved with relatively minor tweaks. And when all is said and done, a little beer makes everything better, doesnt it?