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FULL SAIL BREWERY & TASTING ROOM & PUB

506 Columbia St. • Hood River, OR 97031 • (541) 386-2247 fullsailbrewing.com • Established: 1987

SCENE & STORY

Early settlers here braved Hood River’s wind tunnel conditions, and the fruit orchards they established thrived and made it famous. Fast forward two hundred years: today, the quaint Columbia River-side town of 6,500 located an hour east of Portland still boasts the same majestic views of Mt. Hood and fertile fruit trees. But thanks to that steady wind, it’s now regarded as one of the world’s top destinations for windsurfing and kite boarding. Since 1987 it’s been a beer town, too, home to the once-tiny, now huge Full Sail, where you can drink a beer and watch the speeding sails embroider the waves. (This is preferable to attempting actual windsurfing, which, for most of us, becomes an infinite wipeout.)

PHILOSOPHY

Progressive and green-minded. In 1999 Full Sail became 100 percent employee-owned, and employees work four 10-hour days to save resources (and make the most of powder days up on Mt. Hood and winds on the Columbia, no doubt).

KEY BEER

If you’re visiting in the fall (a beautiful season to be in the area), look for the fresh hop ales—there’s often two or three on at a time, made with huge quantities of just-picked hop flowers. “To get a comparable extract out of the hop (compared to the dried version), you have to use about five times the amount, and when you add that much more, you get more of a green, chlorophyll, leaf, and vegetative matter flavor,” says Full Sail brewmaster John Harris, who has made many in his day. The rest of the year, try Full Sail Amber, the company’s flagship and Oregon’s first craft beer in bottles, which came out in 1989 and won a gold at GABF the same year. It’s 5.5% ABV and on the sweet and malty side, with a light touch of Mt. Hood and Cascade hops.

DETOUR

FACE FALLS FIRST:

OREGON’S WATERFALL-FILLED COLUMBIA GORGE

The Columbia Gorge—a short drive east from Portland on highway I-84 toward Hood River—is braided with postcard cataracts that lure masses. Multnomah Falls, at 620 feet, is the nation’s second highest waterfall after Yosemite. Hike eight hundred feet up to stroll past the more serene Weisendanger and Ecola falls, invisible from ground level. Marginally tougher to reach (but far lesser known) is Oneonta Gorge, a gloamy slot canyon lined with neon-bright lichens accessed by fording a logjam (one that, thankfully, turns back Fast Food Nation) merely a quarter of a mile away. (www.oregon.com/hiking)

LOGSDON ORGANIC FARMHOUSE ALES

785 Booth Hill Rd. • Hood River, OR 97031 • (541) 490-9161 farmhousebeer.com • Established: 2011

SCENE & STORY

Plenty of American brewers these days claim to brew “farmhouse” ales (meaning the refreshing, yeast-driven beer that was traditionally brewed in the Belgian and French countryside for local consumption) but there’s just one problem: no farmhouse. Not so for Oregon’s Dave Logsdon, who was the founding brewmaster of Full Sail, and went on to found Wyeast Laboratories, a hugely successful wholesale and retail yeast company for the wine and beer industries. With a partner, experienced brewer Charles Porter, Logsdon opened the brewery on his family’s beautiful working farm outside of Hood River, complete with a big red barn (where the kettles, tanks, and barrels live), pets, horses, and highland cattle, in 2011.

PHILOSOPHY

Purist, with hometown allegiances. “How do you make a farmhouse beer if you’re not in a farmhouse? That’s a really important part of the definition for me,” says Logsdon, who has imported schaerbeekse kriek (cherry) trees from an orchard in East Flanders to use in barrel-aged beers, including a planned Cascadian Red, named for the Pacific Northwest region. The ingredients are all certified organic (as in the home-land). With his wood-aged beers, he’s going for a smidge less sourness than some of the more intense Belgian ales: “I try to create a lot of maltiness