October 6, 2026 · Hood River and Astoria, OR Two Oregon breweries on opposite ends of the Columbia River started from the exact same recipe and went their own way. pFriem Family Brewers in Hood River and Fort George Brewery in Astoria release a pair of companion IPAs on Thursday, October 8: Vacation Destination, a West Coast IPA from pFriem, and Destination Vacation, a Hazy IPA from Fort George. Both are 7.0% ABV and arrive on draft and in 16 oz four-packs. The breweries agreed on a shared grist and hop bill, then brewed independently. Both beers use Pilsner and pale malts with malted and unmalted wheat, hopped with Eclipse, Krush, Citra Cryo, and Simcoe. Everything after that, including yeast, fermentation, and dry hopping, was left to each brewery. pFriem went for clarity and snap. Vacation Destination is a bright, straw-colored West Coast IPA with hot-side hop additions, a clean, attenuated fermentation, piney Simcoe and sharp citrus up front, and a bone-dry, bitter finish. Fort George went the other way. Destination Vacation uses a different yeast strain and heavy dry hopping for an opaque, soft-bodied Hazy IPA where the bitterness is rounded off and Eclipse and Krush show up as mandarin and ripe stone fruit. The names nod to where each brewery lives: Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge and Astoria on the Oregon Coast. "We encourage you to try them side by side or maybe even better to have an excuse to go to Hood River and/or Astoria," said Josh Pfriem, co-founder and brewmaster at pFriem. Brian Bovenizer, director of sales and marketing at Fort George, summed it up: "One's hazy, the other is clear." The breweries are also running a free-entry sweepstakes for a weekend in either town, open through December 1, 2026 to entrants 21 and older. Both beers pour starting October 8 at the pFriem and Fort George tasting rooms, then roll out through October to select retailers and draft accounts in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Southern California. Release parties are planned at pFriem's Milwaukie tasting room on October 8 from 3 to 5 p.m., followed by 1847 Taproom from 5 to 7 p.m.; at the Fort George Brewpub in Astoria on October 10, with a pre-party ahead of a 5 p.m. stop at Bridge and Tunnel; and at Seattle's Queen Anne Beer Hall on October 14 from 5 to 8 p.m. Brewery pages on Local Brews: https://localbrews.beer/businesses/pfriem-family-brewers and https://localbrews.beer/businesses/fort-george-brewery Grab one of each and taste them side by side. It is a rare chance to see how much a brewery's process, not just its recipe, shapes the beer in your glass. Sources: pFriem Family Brewers and Fort George Brewery press release via Brewbound (September 29, 2026), pfriembeer.com.One build, two directions
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