New Museum Brewers and Blenders sits in Point Arena, a quiet coastal town in Mendocino County where you can actually park and walk your dog around without feeling like you’re fighting crowds. Rose and Peter, the owners and brewmasters, run this place as a true family operation where dogs hang out on the patio like they belong there.

What makes their beer different is worth understanding if you’re into that sort of thing. They ferment in open-top square vessels the old European way, which means their beers change with the seasons and conditions—nothing standardized or predictable about them. You might get something crisp and clean one visit, then something funky and wild the next. It’s the kind of approach that separates people who just want a cold beer from people who actually want to taste what a brewer is doing.

The taproom itself has a relaxed vibe, and the patio is where you’ll want to be with your dog. They run live music events fairly regularly, so it’s worth checking their schedule if you’re planning a trip. The food menu isn’t trying to be fancy—nachos, tacos, salads—but it’s solid stuff that pairs well with beer and doesn’t require a reservation or a commitment to some multi-course thing.

New Museum Brewers is part of the Mendocino County Beer Trail, and most of the breweries and taprooms along that route welcome dogs, so if you’re making a day of brewery hopping, you’ve got options. Point Arena itself is small enough that you can walk your dog down Main Street between stops without much hassle. The drive up the Mendocino Coast is worth the trip on its own—rugged coastline, redwood forests—and having a brewpub that actually wants your dog there makes it easy to break up the drive.