By Sean Avery
Columbia Gorge News
HOOD RIVER — pFriem Family Brewers, Oregon’s second-largest independent beer producer with 120 employees in the Gorge, is eyeing the development of a 5,280 square foot, purpose-built metal building on the south side of its Port of Hood River property to support packaging operations. The preliminary construction estimate is approximately $2.1 million, with potential for minor value engineering reductions.
pFriem CEO Rudy Kellner described plans for expansion at the Port of Hood River Board of Commissioners meeting on Feb. 17, where commissioners and Port Property Manager Amanda Rose expressed ardent support for the project. Moving forward, staff will evaluate lease rates for the addition and how the expansion fits in with port plans.
Founded and headquartered in the Halyard building, pFriem has been a tenant of the port since 2012 — one of the foundational tenants of the waterfront, Kellner said. In order to maintain transparency and preserve a healthy relationship with its landlord, the brewery attends a Board of Commissioners meeting annually, providing updates on operations.
Beyond a platform to pitch expansion plans, this year’s presentation served as a temperature check “in light of some of the things happening in the beer business and some of the things happening in our own business,” Kellner explained.
Although the craft beer industry is declining nationwide — alcohol consumption is down in younger circles, and more health-conscious alternatives line the shelves — pFriem has more than doubled in size since 2020.
At a Hood River Rotary meeting in September 2025, Kellner and representatives from fellow Hood River-based breweries discussed what makes the city a friendlier market for craft beer, citing a culture built around leisure and recreation.
And pFriem has paid that forward. According to Kellner, the brewery donated more than $35,000 to local causes in 2025, specifically those aligned with the three pillars that define its ethos: community, land, and water quality. pFriem also maintains a strong working relationship with Cindy Thieman, executive director of the Hood River Watershed. “You can’t make good beer without wonderful water,” Kellner said. “It’s one of the reasons we have such amazing beer in Hood River; we should protect it.”
Today, pFriem is the 40th-largest independent beer producer in the country, brewing 54,000 barrels last year. The company hopes to grow another 5-7% in 2026, a meager clip compared to years past, but a successful one in modern alcohol. “We’re enthusiastic about the future, but we’re going to be growing at a far more compressed pace,” Kellner said. “Which puts us in a situation where we need to start to manage the Halyard site.”
As of late, pFriem has found itself at capacity at Halyard, and with no desire to leave home, the brewery feels that on-site expansion is its best bet. “There’s not a square inch of bare floor. There’s stainless steel everywhere. We’re really, really full,” Kellner said.
pFriem is currently in the final phase of a series of small, incremental expansions and has recently submitted engineering plans to expand kegging capacity. After completion, though, the company needs a more creative, larger-scale solution.
Although pFriem owns a couple of warehouses in Cascade Locks with available space, Kellner stressed the importance of colocation: brewing, kegging, and canning operations must inhabit the same space to ensure growth. If the producer was growing at a faster rate, Kellner said, a more ambitious expansion would be in the cards, but market realities require careful, deliberate planning.
The Halyard building encompasses two-thirds of the property, but a small amount of asphalt remains available for development on its center-south side.
Here, with the port’s help, pFriem aims to build a new 5,280-square-foot metal structure to house and scale up its canning line and packaging operations. To date, the brewery has completed a comprehensive civil and site-conformance analysis and developed a basic plumbing and electrical plan. Ideally, pFriem hopes to tie up the loose ends and begin construction this winter, aiming to have the new facility operational by summer 2027.
pFriem has additionally completed a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) analysis with Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co., which has built the brewery’s last three major projects in and around the Halyard site.
The ROM estimates a total cost of $2.1 million, with value-engineering reductions in the $100,000-$200,000 range. pFriem would invest more than $1.5 million into equipment and overall fit-out. “My ask is to have the commissioner’s blessing to work with staff to figure out creative options … and find creative solutions so we can pull it off,” Kellner said.
The project will require a site plan review from the city, but since the expansion doesn’t change the site’s purpose and won’t have any traffic impact, pFriem is confident it’ll receive approval. The most complex issue will be the relocation of power utilities, which the brewery has addressed, Kellner said, working with Pacific Power.
pFriem projects it will outgrow the expansion in around seven years, which, in beer-industry time, is a very long window. “This is not our last investment, but the last at this site,” Kellner said. “And I hope a bridge to something bigger down the road.”
Rose offered immense support for the endeavor, highlighting pFriem’s unique devotion to Hood River. “To have a tenant here that provides job security and love for the community is something we should pay attention to,” Rose said. “I think it would be a great investment for the port to explore the abilities of the Halyard building moving forward.”
Commissioner Ben Sheppard backed Rose’s thoughts, emphasizing the port’s longstanding, harmonious relationship with pFriem. “In the past, every single investment has been rewarded multiple times over. They have always done what they said they were going to do,” he said. “It’s our job as commissioners to help them grow. We want to keep them here, and we want to support their business.”
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