Hood River: Hiding from the Crappy Weather

Ann and I finally made our long-delayed trip to Hood River to take in the sights along the Columbia River. The previous post outlines our trip and our stops along the way to Hood River. This post covers the day and a half that we spent in Hood River proper.

Around 2pm on Tuesday, after having visited White River Falls State Park and Rowena Crest Viewpoint overlooking the Columbia Gorge, we pulled into a parking space in the Hood River waterfront just opposite pFriem Family Brewers. Given that we had not eaten yet and that the weather was windy and rainy, we just wanted to go some place warm. It seemed that seeing the sights in Hood River was out of the question; even seeing across the Columbia to White Salmon, Washington was sketchy at times because of the rapidly moving cloud cover.

Washington State Barely Visible Across the Columbia

The weather would not improve over the next day, but our mood certainly did sitting at the bar at pFriem sampling beers from one of the best Oregon brewers. Later on in the afternoon after sampling one of the high-gravity beers on tap, I asked our bartender if he would put together a six-pack of bottles of their barrel-aged bottles. He sent us home with a collection of stouts, porters, dark ales, and a quadrupel. I can imagine that these will be fun to get into next winter on a cold day next to the fire.

Six-Pack of Barrel-Aged Beers to Take Home

We had the good fortune to be seated at the bar with a couple from Liverpool with whom we talked all afternoon and into the evening. They are Gareth and Vicky Morgan of Dead Crafty Beer Company in Liverpool, over here for a weeks-long reconnoiter of the American craft brew scene. They are doubtless scouting for more beers for their pub, one of the very few craft brew-focused pubs in England. We saw that the following evening they were in Portland at Breakside and Great Notion. They certainly made great choices of places to visit while over here. Next trip to the UK, we'll have to make a side trip to Liverpool to visit with them.

Gareth and Vicky Morgan of Dead Crafty Beer Company in Liverpool

We have long ago given up on finding decent food at restaurants, so mostly when we travel, it's pub grub or food truck food. We were pleasantly surprised by the food at pFriem. We ended up having brussels sprouts, poutine, and a burger and they were all made carefully.

Poutine, Pub Grub at pFriem

After taking our leave of pFriem, Gareth, and Vicky, we drove up the hill into town to find our room, perhaps five minutes from the waterfront. Hood River is dead simple to navigate, but the rain and fog made it difficult to see in the dark, while road construction caused a couple of detours. The weather kept us from doing anything more in the evening and truth be told, the next day.

Wednesday morning we got motivated in the late morning to go find some coffee and breakfast. Ann had already decided that she wanted to try the Pine Street Bakery; her mission on our trips seems to be to find us good coffee houses. The baked goods, especially the English muffin on the breakfast sandwich, were really good; the coffee, not so much, thick, dark, and murky.

Breakfast at Pine Street Bakery

After going back to our room to hole up against the rain and chill wind, we decided weather be damned, to head down to the waterfront around noon. Every few minutes, a new squall would come flying up the river from the west, raising whitecaps and slashing rain. In between squalls, I ventured out of the car for about ten minutes to walk by the river. That was all I wanted of this weather and we headed to find some lunch.

One Lone Boarder in the Screaming Wind and Rain

Evil Invasive, Shining Geranium, Geranium lucidum
You Must Admit that the Red Foliage is Beautiful

A Rose on the Banks of the Columbia River

We took refuge from the nasty weather in another waterfront storefront called Solstice Pizza. The pizzas were well-cooked and worth trying. The pizza aficionado in us would say that the crust, while appropriately thin, crisp, and bubbly, didn't seem to have any flavor from the fermentation. Perhaps it just need a touch of salt. And we found the crusts very dry, especially on the Margherita. The baby arugula on the salami pie was primo. The ratio of toppings to crust was just right.

Given the weather and our lack of enthusiasm for doing anything in it, we asked for two more pies to go for dinner back at our room. It turned out to be a good move, for the rain continued and the crusts acquired a little humidity while sitting until dinner, rendering them much better than the lunch pies consumed at the restaurant.

Pizza at Solstice

About Happy Hour, the sun started trying to poke through the clouds, motivating us to want to go explore a bit more of Hood River. Alas, the sun was funning us and disappeared behind thick clouds as soon as we left our room.

We had three target breweries to try on our trip: pFriem, Ferment, and over across the river, Everybody's. We decided to skip Full Sail and Double Mountain. Full Sail, the OG brewery in the Hood that spawned all the other breweries, ceased to be relevant some years ago. As for Double Mountain, we just haven't cared for their beers that we have tasted back home in Bend. The slashing rain curbed our desire to cross the river to visit Everybody's, so we tried Ferment, an unknown quantity, on the waterfront near pFriem.

We only had an appetite for a beer apiece in this very modern space where the tasting room is on the second floor along a glassed-in atrium overlooking the brewery floor. I think we both liked the homier more pub-like feel of pFriem as opposed to the beautiful modern PNW architecture of Ferment, but that's just us. The uncomfortably warm tasting room also hastened our departure. The beers we tasted, one IPA and one hazy IPA, were unfiltered and filling, but tasty. I'd like to go back in the future and sample more of their pours.

We Stopped into Ferment for a Beer

After our beer, we went back to the room and caught up on some TV and reading, the weather just not making our stay in Hood River all that exciting. After our to-go pizzas, we called it a fairly early night.

We awoke the next morning to, wait for it, sunshine, brilliant sunshine streaming in our windows! After packing our stuff, we headed down the hill to have breakfast at Egg River Cafe. We enjoyed the casual service and the food, along with plenty of coffee. Ann got a country-fried steak and I got a chorizo breakfast burrito, way more food than we really wanted. After that large feed, we decided to skip lunch.

Mt. Adams, Finally Visible Across the River

Breakfast at Egg River Cafe

California Poppies on Oak Street

After a quick fill-up of gas, we headed on our way back to Bend, driving south along Hood River Highway to Mount Hood, rather than going back through The Dalles, the way we came. This part of our trip is covered in the next post, the final one of the Hood River trilogy.