Pilsner and mug of beer

Embrace the funk of spring.

It’s that glorious time of year when a day of slush showers is followed by one of Visit Bend’s 364 (give or take) days a year of sunshine.

All that variety, though, makes it a great time to get out of your booze comfort zone. Put down your RPM, your Sweet As and your Red Chair, you triple-fisting son of a gun, and get a little weird.

Here’s a list of funky favorites and beers worth sticking your head into a vat of mayonnaise to get your hands on.

Dandy; Agrarian Ales (Coburg): The brothers with the brewery on their parents’ chili farm just north of Eugene have come up with a brown porter made with roasted dandelions. Just about everything Ben and Nate Tilley brew is outstanding — you haven’t really lived until you’ve had an amber made with farm-fresh poblano chiles — so their Dandy, which also utilizes cocoa and toffee, is worth the walk on the wild side.

Otra Vez; Sierra Nevada (Chico, California): Get your Gose on with Sierra Nevada’s love song to tart sour beers first popularized by 16th-century German brewers who didn’t want to admit their beer went funky. Sierra Nevada adds a Sacramento Valley twist to its Gose, brewing Otra Vez with prickly pear cacti.

Mango Even Keel; Ballast Point (San Diego): Yeah, you’ve got exactly one billion reasons not to drink Ballast Point, but you’re missing out on great beer if you do. Similar to how they slightly tweaked their Sculpin IPA and created Grapefruit Sculpin, Ballast Point altered their very drinkable Even Keel pale ale and gave it a bit of a mango twist. Very sweet, very drinkable after doing some standup paddle board yoga with your Yorkie.

Tropical Pale Ale; Boulevard (Kansas City, Missouri): Mangoes! Pears! Blueberries! Beer? Let’s give Boulevard the benefit of the doubt here. The Kansas City brewery’s beer, which is distributed in Oregon, has hit home runs with its Smokestack Series, so it’s worth checking out this new pale ale that out of the gate will become one of the brewery’s year-round staples.

Nut Crusher Peanut Butter Porter; Wild Ride (Redmond): It’s wild, it’s crazy, dare I say it’s a little nutty? Actually, this is a smooth drinking porter with just enough of a peanut butter kick that you’ll happily have a second and a third. Think of it as peanut butter cup for the soul.

Of course, you don’t have to embrace the Keep Beer Weird movement to check out a new quality beverage this spring. Pelican Brewing’s Dirty Bird IPA, released earlier this year, was born when a bag of darker-than-planned malt was used in Pelican’s traditional IPA. It’s good stuff, a worthy entrant into the slightly made-up Northwest Pale Ale beer style. Also, new offerings from Hopworks (Gear Up IPA) and Deschutes (Big Rig bitter) are worth drinking, as is Fort George’s Gose Bump in the Night, if you’re in the Astoria area — it’s only on tap at the brewery right now — a Gose that is highlighted with coriander and sea salts.

— Reporter: beaueastes@gmail.com