Long Beach and Astoria

Long beach Washington is one of my very favorite places to travel. Spencer and I have gone to his family cabin there for many years and every time we do we always end up having a better time than the last. Discovering new trails, breweries, food and drinks while always admiring the beauty of the beach and the Pacific Ocean. Long beach is a bit of a trek from Seattle especially if you leave during prime traffic hours but it is worth the drive if you know where the gems are. I’m here today to help you uncover some of them and help you to maybe discover some of your own.

We went over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, we both took Monday off, so we would have ample time in our favorite spots. Friday afternoon we headed for Olympia Washington and while we did hit some pretty heavy traffic (Friday afternoons are hard especially passing Joint Base Lewis McCord and Tacoma) we made it to Olympia by dark. We met up with Spencer’s cousin and his wife who were kind enough to let us crash at their new home. I could write a whole separate post on the beauty and sketchy-ness of downtown Olympia so I will save that for another time. In the end we all had a lovely evening and our stomachs were filled with good food and great beer as well as plenty of laughs.

The next day we rose somewhat early, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Excited to get going on the next leg of our journey.

The main reason for our rush to get to Long Beach was so that we could dump our stuff off and run not walk to my favorite brewery; Fort George Brewery. Ok so it’s in Astoria, Oregon so we did drive. Astoria is a quaint sea town that looks a little crusty and stuck in another time. But if you look closer you can find some great places here. Famous for the having the house from the movie The Goonies, Astoria also has a great beer scene; including but not limited to Fort George, Rouge and Buoy Brewing. As well as an awesome Maritime Museum. The place that truly gets us rushing to Astoria though is Fort George Brewery. We make a pilgrimage here at least once a year but this year we are planning on twice. We love their annual stout month in February. The beer they make is exquisite and the food isn’t too shabby either. This particular day I had a delicious burger. I didn’t realize I was ordering a burger until the waitress asked me how I wanted it cooked. Normally I don’t go for burgers, but I was glad I happened on this one. Pork belly confit, burger, and some delicious fixings made this juicy sandwich perfect for eating while sipping cold, delicious IPAs. My co-pilot Spencer had the albacore fish and chips. His go to; they did not disappoint.

We were there for many hours soaking in the scene and 8oz beers (because drink responsibly) so we also had the fish platter, with crackers and various cured fish, it was also quite good. You know I love my cured foods. As good as all the food was the true stand out at Fort George is the beer. After our lunch we went over to the Lovell taproom across the way and tried some of the beers they didn’t have in the main dining area, and because we just love all that they have to offer. We didn’t do the tour this time but it’s free, always fun, informative and super interesting. We learn something new every time. Lovell had some amazing stuff and we ended up with a box full of delicious wax covered bottles. The Apertif Which is an awesome table Saison, The Candy Man a lovely Belgian style beer which is normally not up my alley, but I did enjoy, Light As a Feather is a bourbon barrel aged wheat wine. We have not cracked that one yet, but I am excited to dive into it soon. The 10th Anniversary is a barley aged wheat wine that is aged in pinot barrels surprisingly delightful we just had a taste at the brewery before buying it but I was surprised to like the pinot notes. And finally, we brought home our favorite next to the Apertif; The Three Wise Men a bourbon, tequila and rum barrel aged imperial stout! Full of flavor and absolutely delicious. We also filled a three-pack of crowlers; which if you don’t know is a can that is I believe around 32 ounces, the brewery fills the can with your choice beer and seals it up and you just pop the top as normal when you are ready to drink it! Our favorite crowler choice was the Field of Greens. A nice hoppy bitter beer that changes all the time, each batch is limited and exclusive to the Pacific Northwest! I have had it in taprooms around Seattle, but nothing compared to straight from the source. After another awesome journey at Fort George we headed back to the cabin to play domioes, eat some wonderful homecooked food and of course crack a crowler of beer. We turned in late but wanted to rise early to see more of what Long Beach has to offer.

Sunday was a full day! We got up surprisingly early and ventured out to the beach to watch the sandpipers race the waves and get our fix of the salty air. A perfect way to start the day. Being Seattlites though we then NEEDED coffee. In our quest we came upon a cute little café and knitting shop. My thoughts are normally to not have too high of expectations for coffee in Long Beach, I mean I once went to a coffee stand and they said they didn’t serve black drip coffee… But I was surprised to find an excellent dry cappuccino at Adelaide’s as well as a hearty and flavorful breakfast sandwich. We stayed a bit enjoying our breakfast and playing a mini bowling game.

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We then headed toward Willapa Bay to Leadbetter State Park. We parked at the trail head and were prepared with our Discover Pass. This is an important note because without you will have to pay around 10$ and are faced with fees if you don’t pay up. There are several trail loops, but we went for the Bay Loop Trail so that we got a bit of the beach, a bit of the marshlands and then finish by walking through the forest. It was a lovely 1.1-mile loop. Check to make sure the tide out a bit, when we went there were many trees down that made it a bit more difficult to navigate. We were walking in the water at some points and through the marsh we had to trek a bit of the trail due to some massive wet spots. The sign warns that some can be up to 4 feet deep. We didn’t run into that but there were definitely some soggy spots, so I recommend water resistant shoes. While on the beach we were lucky enough to find a few clusters of oysters (we left them on the beach) and a buoy that had washed up on the shore. The forest portion was so beautiful and peaceful. We could hear a lot of wildlife around us but failed to spy them. Except for a little brown squirrel. The lichen and the moss coat the trees plus the air smells fresh from the sea and the moist forest. While we were walking we kept seeing a low growing bush with bright red berries. I am always intrigued by wild food, so I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what they were. Turns out they are bearberries. Which I should have thought of first because one of the other trails is call Bearberry Trail… relieved to have solved that major mystery we continued on enjoying the forest and trying to spot frogs. Man, they have great camo. All of this made for a great little hike and I love that it’s a loop, it always feels so satisfying when you don’t have to backtrack. We had worked up a bit of an appetite and wanted a little snack, so we headed to one of our favorite spots near long beach Oysterville!

Oysterville is a lovely spot. It almost appears to be an abandoned movie set when you first come upon it. The houses are all pristine and most were built in the 1800s, a little coastal town stuck in another time. They nestle nicely along the coast line, and are sprinkled with oyster shells, making it a very cozy spot. We like to visit Oysterville Farms, a small cannery and seafood shop that also sells beer, wine and various cranberry scone mixes. They of course sell oysters which are great in all the forms they sell but today we were feeling some pickled herring and crackers. We also each had a glass of their signature wine which was meant to pair well with seafood. It was incredibly subtle in flavor; almost too light but so we decided against buying a bottle despite the nostalgia we knew we would feel looking at the bottle. It was a gorgeous winter day; the sun was bright, and the breeze was light, so we sat on their deck enjoying the water and watching the seagulls fight over mussels and other sea scraps. Once we had our fill of herring and wine we wanted to stay out in the beautiful weather, so we decide to drive to Cape Disappointment to check out the light houses.

We went to the North Head Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment. This is another public service announcement for having your Discover Pass on you or being ready to pay because this is also a state park, so it does cost money to park. I have never really explored the trails around the light house but they look like a good day trip. On this day we waked around the light house and had planned on climbing it but it is under construction. After the Navy purchased it they changed a few things, now that it is back in the hands of the park they are returning it back to its original glory and giving it a bit of a face lift. Next we decided to walk around the beach at cape disappointment, where I learned my shoes were not as waterproof as I thought when a wave cornered me and got to my socks. It’s a lovely black sandy beach with lots of rocks for kids to explore, as well as an ideal spot to set up a folding chair and soak in the sea breeze. From there we took to the North Jetty, in all the years we’ve been going we had never gone out there, but today was the day.

The North Jetty is a crazy long man-made rock structure that literally jets out into the Pacific and the Columbia River. The currents are strong, and we could see two currents mingling from the middle of the jetty. I was pretty nervous walking out there as it can get very rough and the mouth of the Columbia river is known for being particularly deadly, I have seen a few pictures of huge waves crashing over the jetty. For this reason, I didn’t want to walk out as far as some brave souls were going. Instead we went out just past a rock barrier; far enough to observe the seals fishing along the jetty, get a magnificent view, and we could see the light house we had just visited in the distance. Walking the jetty made us thirsty so we decided to make our way to our favorite Long Beach brewery; North Jetty Brewery.

The North Jetty Brewery is a great brewery on the main drag in Long Beach. It has good well-rounded beers, a decent atmosphere and free peanuts! You can bring food in the taproom, but we had fries from a food truck around the corner, oh so bougie for Long Beach. The beer itself is good, some of the beers are better than others but in general we preferred the IPAs and their Scotch ale. We ended up coming home with a 32oz growler of the scotch ale. The beer was good but we hadn’t had a real substantial meal so we decided to hunt for a spot we hadn’t been to yet and we found a great one in a small hotel near the beach.

The hotel is Adrift and the restaurant is called Pickled Fish. This is a real hidden gem. I never expected to find such a modern restaurant with such upscale food in Long Beach. To start we had a fish spread and pickle platter with thick cut grilled bread it was the perfect way to dive into their pickle centered menu. I ordered an Old Fashion and it was heavenly. For our main course I had the smoked salmon risotto and Spencer had the stroganoff. Both were very good but needed salt, they tasted like it may have been forgotten. I’m a big salt fan but this just needed a touch to open up all the flavors. The cocktails were true stars, I also had a cranberry lemonade with vodka that rocked. The areas known for the cranberry fields, so it was very delicious. It’s pretty new to me at least or Long Beach to have such high-class cocktails available. It was great to have the option and we truly enjoyed the whole experience. To top it all off we had a scoop of ice cream that came with coffee liqueur and bourbon, a full shot of each! We were both in too much shock to take a photo. It was a lot of booze for one scoop, so we just drizzled a bit of each on and it was absolutely delicious. We left the restaurant filled up and a bit warmer than when we came in.

That was the perfect end to an amazing weekend getaway. we left Long Beach the next morning ready to get back to Seattle but already planning our next trip back to this beautiful beach. Its one of my happy places and with this guide maybe it will become yours as well. Get out there and Crusch It!