Full Sail & Double Mountain

After visiting Everybody's Brewing and Big Horse on Thursday, we still had another 2 breweries to check out in Hood River. One was a big factor in my choice to visit this city, while the other was highly recommended by many Oregon beer lovers.

Full Sail's main production brewery is located in Hood River. I have been a fan of their beers for a while; especially the LTD and Brewmaster Reserve Series. My familiarity with their brews was a large factor in my decision to travel to Hood River. The brewery offers free tours at 1, 2, 3, and 4pm, and we hit the 4 o'clock timeslot. Surprisingly we were the only 2 people on the tour, so we got a very detailed version reserved for home brewers.

After the tour, we got the sampler of their Brewmaster Reserve and Brewer's Share beers. (The Brewer's Share series lets each employee of the brewery take a turn creating a beer.)

Here's how the tray looked after we decimated it.

All of the beers were tasty (as I expected), but my clear favorite was the Top Sail Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. Delicious, especially if you're a fan of bourbon like I am.

We left Full Sail happy, and moved on to our last brewery of the day: Double Mountain. I chose to visit there based on the recommendation of a Portland beer blogger. When we got into Oregon, everyone I talked to about Hood River breweries highly recommended Double Mountain. Nobody even mentioned Full Sail. This led me to believe that Double Mountain might just be the local favorite...

When we stepped into Double Mountain, it was immediately apparent that this was a popular place. I believe "packed house" might be the best descriptor. It was a hoppin' atmosphere with dim lighting, lots of conversation, and roller derby on the big screen (sorry for the picture quality - like I said, the lighting was dim).

 
Believe it or not, we didn't get a sampler at this brewery. One of the bartenders said he could just give us a taste of whichever beers we were interested in so we could make our full beer decisions. Here's a look at the beer list.

Based off the samples, I was quite impressed with their brews. I ultimately settled on having a Peche Mode and a Devil's Kriek. Both were awesome, but I think the Peche Mode is my favorite beer of my entire Oregon trip thus far. Yep, this may be a tough one to beat.

Yesterday was our transition day. We left the beautiful countryside of Hood River and moved into the urban beer environment of downtown Portland. This has been a great trip so far, and I'm looking forward to continuing the beer saga today. Alright, I'm off to the next brewery...