Video Mart, Grants Pass, OR

OK, since we’re on the subject of great, old-school video stores, I gotta tell ya about one more of them. Video Mart is located literally on the wrong side of the tracks in my wife’s hometown of Grants Pass, Oregon, but, don’t let that stop you, because this store seriously rocks!

Although it’s been in Grants Pass for years, I just discovered Video Mart this past July with my nephews. They were drawn in by the store’s amazing Sunday deal on video games — all games are a dollar and you get them for five days! — but what really thrilled me was the store’s vast selection of truly unique movies.

Sure, they have all the top-40 shit up front and yes, they rent Blu-Ray too, which is awesome, but, the thing that kept us coming back was their rocking selection of older titles. The pricing didn’t hurt either, every older title is available to rent for $1.00 for three nights. And if you rent more than five, you get to keep them for five glorious nights! Awesome!

Needless to say, I got myself a membership (yep, they let me get one even though I live out of state!) and we got down to some serious movie renting. All totaled, I think we rented somewhere between 10-15 movies during our visit and at least 4 video games. Best. Vacation. Ever!

And kudos to the fine folks at Video Mart for knowing their shit too. The dudes at Odd Obsession would probably still take the gold in a movie trivia head-to-head, but, trust me, there are some truly knowledgeable film and game geeks working here too.

So, next time you’re in Southern Oregon, grab yourself some Abby’s Legendary Pizza, a six pack of Weed Pale Ale, a movie from Video Mart, and call it a night…

Mt. Shasta Brewing Company’s signature brew: Weed Pale Ale!

As you may have read in my previous post, last summer, Christine and I finally got off the freeway in the mythical town of Weed. But we weren’t looking for gas, or, well, you know…weed. Nope, what we were looking for was some of the legendary Weed beer brewed locally by the Mt. Shasta Brewing Company.

And though Christine only gave me one shot at finding it — we were trying to make Oregon by nightfall, yo — I happened to find plenty of Weed beer at the first and only gas station we stopped at. Yay!

Why all this trouble for a microbrew you ask? Well, first off, I loves me some beer, the smaller the batches, the better, and secondly, I wanted to support the brewery in their epic struggle with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) over the pithy slogan on their bottle cap.

See, until spring of 2008, the bottlecaps on all the MSBC’s beers read: “Try Legal Weed”. Hilarious, right? Well, apparently, the suits in Washington did not agree and even though the trinkets at the gas station were loaded with pot humor and Weed references, the bottle caps had to be recalled. As the local headlines jokingly proclaimed: “Government is keeping us safe from bottle caps”. Insane!

Of course, that only made me wanna try the beer even more. Not just as a beer lover, but to help support the kick ass dudes who brewed it. I mean, hell, microbreweries are having a hard enough time making ends meet these days, last thing they need is to be replacing hundreds of so-called “inappropriate” bottle caps. The way I saw it, if my lowly purchase could in any way help their bottom line…sign me up!

So, we bought a six pack of their signature brew, the Weed Pale Ale, picked up some Weed-centric shot glasses and refrigerator magnets at the gas station and drove the rest of the way to Grants Pass. Only then, when safely ensconced in the bosom of Christine’s family farmhouse did I get to taste this magical beer for the first time…and let me tell ya, it rocked!

Crisp and malty with a vaguely sweet aftertaste, this was a pale ale for the ages, and after a long, sweaty trek up the interstate from Burbank, it was just what the doctor ordered. Amazing!

Sadly, the bottle caps I was searching for had already been replaced with a generic gold cap with no writing on it at all. LAME! But a few months later, the case was overturned and the Mt. Shasta Brewing Company was allowed to resume bottling all of their beers with their now-legendary bottle caps. So, yay!

To read more about the Mt. Shasta Brewing Company and the many fine beers they produce — I wanna try the space-alien-themed Lemurian Lager next! — click here. And, once again, happy 420, amigos!