The Crooked Creek winds to St. Helens where Columbia County’s only brewery stakes a claim
For most of us, St. Helens is a drive-by town on the way to or from beer destinations in Astoria. The small town that sits on Highway 30 along the banks of the Columbia River is known more for its annual Halloweentown extravaganza and its status as one of the locations for the Twilight film than it is for beer. This may be why Dave Lauridsen saw an opportunity when he decided to scale up his Crooked Creek Brewery operation into a full-scale taproom right on the Columbia River waterfront earlier this year. Since 2021, the California native and former commercial photographer has been quietly running his Columbia County nano brewery with the Belgian-inspired ales he adores. What started as a tiny taproom around the corner from his four-barrel Warren brewhouse morphed into an opportunity that led him to open what is a low-key yet worthy stop for any beer-loving traveler.
Opening in the summer of 2023, the Crooked Creek taproom occupies a former steak and pasta joint that resembles a Pacific Northwest saloon from the outside. This is fitting considering it sits a stone's throw away from the Columbia River, offering a surprisingly serene view of the waterway that once led explorers like Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean. Surely, they would have stopped in for a pint. Crooked Creek also happens to be the only brewery currently operating in Columbia County, a somewhat remarkable fact considering it sits adjacent to one of the most brewery-dense counties in the entire country. St. Helens has been home to operations like Captured By Porches and, most recently, Running Dogs, but those have mostly fizzled out to make Crooked Creek the only player on the main drag of S 1st Street.
The taproom is the culmination of a dream for Lauridsen, who found his way to Columbia County following a tip from a friend of a friend. Burned out on photography and Los Angeles after spending most of his life there, he saw a chance to start a new chapter in Oregon pursuing what had been a hobby for many years.
“I was a commercial photographer and that was my main profession for a long time. I got to travel the world. I kind of home-brewed on the side and my best friend had been trying to get me to home-brew with him for years. One day he had me cornered and I couldn’t come up with an excuse not to help him out the next day. I brewed with him and had a blast,” reflects Lauridsen.
Sick of the mega-IBU hoppy beers of the 90s, his brewing journey led him to Belgian beers. “I discovered Belgian beers and yeast-driven flavors and was like that’s where it’s at. I loved that side of the beer world at that moment and decided that was the direction I wanted to go. There was some point [in LA] where I was like, this photography thing is not going to sustain me forever - it was changing with digital cameras and social media had a pretty big impact on the value of photography - so I was just tired of getting nickel and dimed. At that point basically working for free didn’t really work for me, and I was tired of being in LA. I came up this way - I was still working as a photographer at the time so we were trying to be within a couple of hours from an airport.”
Lauridsen and his wife found exactly what they were looking for (“a little old granny house on a couple of acres”) when they moved to St. Helens with their children nearly ten years ago. Fast forward to 2021 and Lauridsen was able to turn his love of brewing into a business when he officially launched Crooked Creek, named after a creek running through the property that houses the brewery in Warren just ten minutes from the taproom. Shortly after getting brewing operations off the ground, he was able to open a small taproom closer to Highway 30 in the spring of 2022.
Still, Lauridsen envisioned a larger space that could be more community-oriented and kept his eyes open for opportunities. When the restaurant on S 1st St. in the historic “downtown” St. Helens became available, he jumped on it. With the help of a $200,000 grant from Oregon Main Street, Lauridsen and his wife embarked on an extensive renovation process that involved tearing down walls and gutting the kitchen.
The result is a space that is clean, warm and welcoming with a long bar, high tables and booths. With Crooked Creek’s four-barrel system and the capacity to add four more tanks in the future, Lauridsen is able to keep sixteen beers on tap. Though he still leans towards the Belgian beers and is quick to point out that the biere de garde is his favorite, he knows what sells and tries to offer a solid variety to his customers with lagers, IPAs, blond ales, saisons and stouts, plus the occasional barrel-aged offering.
“I got into it to brew Belgian beer but now we’re doing a lot of lagers. My favorite is our biere de garde. We pitch it as a Belgian amber ale, and it’s on the sweeter side with some banana and clove, but people seem to like it. I’m at a point where I’m shifting what I do. I’m brewing our IPAs with chico yeast at this point. Pilsner and rice lager have been popular - really all of our lagers have been popular,” he says.
The beers also continue to get better as he figures out how to best serve the tastes of his customers, who include people from Hillsboro and Longview, Washington just across the river alongside plenty of St. Helens locals. Besides the beers, these people are drawn to Crooked Creek’s monthly fundraisers, trivia, game nights, and even the occasional live band. They have snacks, but the best move is to grab tacos, tortas, burritos or azada fries from Hery's Tacos, which currently serves up the tasty Mexican food from a pop-up tent on the patio.
As Crooked Creek settles into its St. Helens taproom, Lauridsen hopes it becomes even more of a draw for Portland folks passing by on the way to or from Astoria. The space even includes a small apartment on the roof that he hopes to transform into the town’s only Airbnb.
“When we made the move to purchase the building, having an apartment above it wasn’t a requirement or a deciding factor. It was more of a bonus and just made perfect sense to use it as a short-term rental when it’s got a taproom directly below, fantastic views of the Columbia River, it's located just 30 minutes from Portland, and there's currently no lodging downtown which the city really wants and needs,” he says.
He also sees potential for growth in the long term when the town develops the waterfront that sits in the now vacant lot just across from the taproom’s front door. This massive riverfront mixed-use project could give this quaint sleepy town a complete facelift, which would be a massive win for Crooked Creek. He would even like to package some of his beer eventually, but for now, Lauridsen is focused on keeping up with demand in his immediate community.
“I believe St Helens is an undiscovered gem with a bright future and I’ve absolutely got dreams to invest in a larger brewery. My head is still spinning as we get the business settled in at this new location and we scramble to finish renovations and get the apartment up and running so I’m not quite ready to go there yet. But yes, if I’m not run out of town and people keep drinking beer, I think in a few years it will make sense to invest in a larger brewery and I’d like to keep building the business here in St Helens and Columbia County. I’d like to get a taproom in Clatskanie and maybe Vernonia.”
