Waypoint by Bend Brewing Co.

Waypoint is the newer, cocktail-led room from Bend Brewing Co., out on Mount Washington Drive on the west side of town near NorthWest Crossing. Where the original brewery is a beer hall, Waypoint is a bar — and its treatment of zero-proof drinks is the clearest example in Bend of the difference between accommodating non-drinkers and actually serving them.

The spirit-free options are built with the same structure and balance as the alcoholic list. Both anchors use Pathfinder, a hemp-derived non-alcoholic spirit made in Oregon that is bitter, herbal and aggressively aromatic — closer in character to an amaro than to a soft drink, and one of the few NA spirits with enough backbone to carry a stirred drink. The Pathfinder Negroni is the test case: a negroni is nothing but bitterness, sweetness and botanical weight, so there is nowhere for a weak substitute to hide. The E & T is the longer, more sessionable of the two.

What lifts this above a two-drink token list is that the zero-proof cocktails rotate seasonally alongside the rest of the menu. That means the bar is doing development work on them through the year rather than printing two and forgetting about them, and it means what is pouring in October will not be what was pouring in June.

The room is comfortable and modern with mountain views, and the location makes it a natural stop coming back into town from Tumalo Falls or the Phil's Trail network. Hours run to ten every night, with an earlier Saturday open.