Buoy Beer pivots to Pop-Up Pub and Mobile Canning

After the devastating roof collapse over their restaurant and brewery on Astoria, Oregon’s waterfront, Buoy Beer is pivoting into a summer pop-up pub at the still in development Astoria Food Hub. The significant damage to their original building that happened 2 weeks ago has put up major challenges to their production and taproom operations, but Buoy Beer has been determined to move forward and had already established a Buoy Too food truck before the damage was done. By using a temporary space and kitchen will keep locals and tourists with a place to go and support the brewery, they are also teaming up with a mobile canner to make sure packaged beer supply doesn’t dry up as well. It is still unclear what caused the partial collapse and what the future holds for that building, but they are working quickly to get operations back on track. 

“After the last few years, I don’t think there’s much that our team can’t handle,” said Cofounder David Kroening. “I continue to be amazed by their determination and how quickly they’ve gotten beer production and a restaurant back up and running. To be canning beer one week after losing half of the production facility and opening a summer pub down on the Riverwalk this past weekend is pretty astounding.” 

Buoy Beer Company got back to canning last week with the help of Cascadia Canning and Craft Canning + Bottling. The mobile canners will allow Buoy to continue canning best-sellers like the Czech-style Pilsner and IPA. Buoy Beer will utilize mobile canning as a temporary solution while it figures out long-term plans for the brewery. 

“We were planning for a big season of growth this summer following our recent expansion, so this has been a trying couple of weeks for us all,” continued Kroening. “We’re focused on our customers and retailers, and keeping beer on the shelves."

In addition to the brewery adjusting to a different type of “new normal,” the beloved Buoy restaurant team has been busy doing what they’ve learned to do best through the pandemic, pivot quickly. 

“It’s heartbreaking to think about what this industry and our team have gone through since 2019,” said Kroening. “It’s been sort of a ‘one step forward, two steps back' situation. The effects of the pandemic were tough, but we kept a lot of our core team on board and ready to rebound as things started to get back to normal. Then last fall when we were close to fully reopening, we had to close the kitchen, lay off more of our friends and coworkers, and rework what moving forward looked like again."

Before the building collapse, Buoy had begun to move forward, opening a small fish-n-chips kitchen in the Taproom and a separate food truck dubbed “Buoy Too” to serve additional small bites. While the truck was unharmed, the fish-n-chips kitchen was forced to close due to the collapse.

The team quickly banded together and decided a pop-up pub was the right direction. They reached out to several locations in town that could offer temporary space and determined the Astoria Food Hub down the street was the perfect spot.

“When we walked into the newly remodeled Astoria Food Hub space, it was obvious this is where we needed to be,” said Kroening. “Partnering with such a community-minded entity is a natural fit for us and the future possibilities are endless. We’re lucky there was an open space for us, and we look forward to working with the rest of the new tenants as they begin to move in this year.” 

The Astoria Food Hub was established in 2021 with a mission to “create a resilient, equitable regional food system.” The project focuses on sustainable North Coast food brands, products, and restaurants and aims to alleviate complications related to cold storage, value-added production space, and aggregation. Their team repurposed the Riverwalk's historic Mason, Ehrman & Co. warehouse building built in 1935, which will house a commercial kitchen, storage, distribution resources, restaurants, and retail shops.

Buoy’s pop-up pub opened at the Astoria Food Hub (1152 Marine Dr) last weekend. The Buoy Too food truck will also be on site serving delicious rotating salads and small bites.

BUOY BEER COMPANY | ASTORIA, OR | WWW.BUOYBEER.COM

Astoria, OR overlooks the meeting of one of the West's most relentless rivers and the wilderness of an entire ocean - and it's here that Buoy Beer Company brews its beer. With balance always a priority, we focus on traditional lagers and NW ales to savor and share with friends after a hard day's work.