Oh my gosh… it’s like I am not even sure where to start with this! Greg and I have been doing trips together for the last few years in lieu of Christmas Gifts, and this year we decided to go just the two of us (with the pups of course) to Oregon. What a trip!!
*note: I am still working out the picture issue so I apologize if some of them appear upside down to you.. they show correctly for me so it’s tricky to figure out! *
We left nice and early at 5am to ensure we missed traffic at the border, and made it into Portland in good time. We stopped off in Bellingham to do our fave little hike with the pups. It was going to be a long day in the car so we wanted to be sure to get them some exercise.
After the hike, we headed to Portland. First stop, Brew Dr Kombucha head office.
This was amazing!!!! The founder, Matt, met us and gave us a little tour around. It was unreal to see their space and what they do there. I’m SUCH a fan of their booch (and their tea!) and it was really rad to be able to check out the tanks they use and how they brew massive amounts of Kombucha at their facility. I was a little bit pre occupied checking out all the tanks etc, that I didn’t even take any pics. #fail. But it was such a wicked experience and we’re so lucky we were able to stop in and get a little tour!
Following this stop, we headed over to Great Notion Brewery.
Greg was super stoked about trying their beers.. and lets be honest – look at that food!!!! It was incredible! The beers here were also amazing – Greg filled several crowlers to bring home!
Turns out, the brewery was pretty much right next to one of the Townshend Tea locations, so obviously I had to go in there!
After tea, we checked in to our awesome little BnB (which you should totally check out if you need a place in Portland) and set out on our bikes for the night!
At this point, I got a little drunk and a LOT lazy… and totally stopped taking pics. Whoops! We had an awesome night though, and I wish we had more time to spend in Portland.
The next morning, we got off to a pretty early start again, and headed out to Hood River.
It appears that as the trip went on, the lazier I got… as I don’t have pictures of as many things as I would have liked. This shot was taken by my lovely hubs, at Springhouse Cellar Winery. This winery had some really delicious wines (we were drinking the Southpaw Red) and check out that space outside~! It’s so different… and they use it for private parties and wedding venues!
We did hit up a couple breweries on this day… Full Sail, was one of them… we sat and had a flight here (which was a LOT!!! 6 x 5oz pours! 30 oz is WAY bigger than our flights in Canada!) and the beers were fab. We then went to pFriem for some more drinks and dinner! This place was super rad. Delicious beers and the food was amazing. They also had a sweet little patio fireplace which I LOVED.
The next morning, we checked out this wicked little local place called Farm Stand. This was recommended to us by one of the locals and I’m SO glad we checked it out. They had so many awesome options on the menu and they catered super well to vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free… etc! It’s not often that happened so I was stoked. They also had a bunch of kombuchas on tap- some from places I had never heard of before which I LOVE!
After fuelling up on a delicious breaky, we set off to go do a hike with the pups. Tamanawas falls was the place of choice. It was quite a long hike (about 3 hours round trip) but it was SO stunningly gorgeous. Well worth the trek out!
I could post a hundred pictures from this hike, but I narrowed it down best I could.
On the way back into town we stopped at Fox Tail Cidery. I was so excited because I had never been to a real cidery before… a place that JUST serves cider. It was amazing. They had several different ones on tap, and as you can see in my flight – I tried all of them! haha
Later on we stopped by Naked Winery. What a fun place!!! Their mission is to cut the divorce rate in half, by encouraging people to share a bottle of wine nightly. So cute~!
We stopped at two more breweries this day. Double Mountain, where Greg was really excited to go, but they ended up not having the beers he wanted to try on tap! Big Horse Brew pub was the second one, and we loved it here!! They had REALLY awesome beers (their coffee stout rocked my world!) and the service was amazing. We really enjoyed our experience!
To finish our night off, we went to Slopeswell Cidery. This was my favourite stop.
Look at that line up of ciders!!!!!! HEAVEN!!!!
And let me tell you… ALL of their ciders were amazing. Dry… crisp and delicious!
We sat there for hours chatting with one of the owners and really really enjoyed every bit of it. I can’t wait for these guys to start packaging so we can get it back home! We took two growlers home with us, but those are long gone!!!
I’m pretty sure this was the night that when we got back to our hotel I face planted sideways on the bed, and that is where I remained until morning. haha it was a LOT of cider.
The next day we packed up and were headed for Astoria. We stopped at Cannon beach on the way through. It was FREEZING.
We didn’t make it to Astoria until late afternoon, so we immediately set out on our bikes to get in as much exploring as possible!
On the way to Forge George brewery, we stopped to see the seals. It was unbelievable! They were SO LOUD and just laying all over each other trying to sleep. I had never seen anything like it!
It’s important to note the ridiculous view that we had from our motel. It was amazing. We had a lovely little sliding door right out onto the grass, and there was a huge space for the pups to run around and play, and a nice little sitting area for me to enjoy my morning tea (cider.. What?!!).
By day 5… the pups were absolutely exhausted.
We were headed home at this point, but we still had 1 more stop to make in Seattle. GHOSTFISH!!!! I was SO EXCITED all weekend to make the stop here. I had tried their Grapefruit IPA a while back and fell in LOVE with it… so it immediately went on the bucket list to be able to go and check out their space.
Look how beautiful their brewery is! One of the owners (pictured below with myself and his dog/the brewery mascot KAI!) is an architect which proved to be useful when he started this venture!
We had such a wonderful visit here with Randy and Kai (Sorry we missed you, Brian!!) and we hope to be able to go back and visit before too long. The money spent here on delicious gluten free beers for yours truly will not be discussed. haha
PLEASE hurry up, Ghostfish and get your products in Canada!
Well… if you’re still with me, we made it through!!! Long recap but there were just so many awesome places we visited I couldn’t really cut anything out!
Where are you fave places in Oregon? Would love to hear about it!!
xxx
Andrea