Day six started with a drive South to Bend, Oregon. One of the things I love about traveling is seeing new landscapes. The drive took me toward Mount Hood. The volume and size of the trees are amazing, and the views of the mountain make it hard to concentrate on the winding roads. There. I wanted to get out and do some fly fishing along the Deschutes and branches of the Hood River. After crossing the mountain pass, you go through beautiful terrain like a cross between desert and forest. Crazy rock structures and what I can only describe as reverse mountains line the view. Also, amazing flat structures (buttes?) crop up out of nowhere, and when you think you are on flat lower ground, you plunge again into these deep valleys.
As I approached Bend, I decided to stop and buy a cooler since my coolers were in my car back in Colorado. On the way out, I ran a yellow light and caught the attention of a super nice trooper who let me off with a warning. I hit two breweries in Bend. Crux Fermentation was fairly busy. They didn’t have any barrel-aged stuff on tap, so I grabbed a quick strawberry lemonade sour and a few to-go bottles. The brewery was out of the way on the edge of a dry desert-looking area but looked like a fun place to hang out with several food trucks going. With the extreme heat, everyone was crowded under the few trees in one corner.
After Crux, I headed over to The Ale Apothecary. This was another of my must-visit locations. A smaller tap room that only focuses on wild fermentation. I have learned at this point that the places with a singular focus have the best results, and Ale Apothecary is doing it right. The Partly Cloudy was particularly well-balanced with tons of stonefruit notes and citrus. The Be Still was also quite nice. It is a lighter sour stout. I picked out a couple of saisons, fruited sours, and the Be Still to go.
From there, I drove past Mount Hood again and hung a right turn to Hood River and pFriem. It’s crazy how many large snow-covered mountains you see along the way. Mount Adams was particularly cool in its shape. pFriem’s focus seems to be on their IPA selection at the taproom, but they have a nice selection of barrel-aged items to go. Unfortunately, you can’t taste them. So I grabbed a bunch of 375 bottles and took a good view of the activity on the Columbia River. It looked like a fun spot to hang out for a day, but the heat was stifling.
I headed back to Portland and hit a few bottle shops to catch a few bottles from places I missed and checked into my hotel. This is where I made a critical error. I thought Cascade closed at ten, but it was 8, and I missed my shot. I am here for two more days, but Cascade is closed on Monday and Tuesday, so I screwed that up. I’ll have to get my bottles at another shop and still hit Upright Brewing. Today I drive down to Eugene and Corvallis for a few stops before I head back to Portland again to take a day off and find some non-beer-related things to do for a rest day. Then it’s up to Seattle.
Random Art at Ale Apothecary
