It’s confirmed: popular Portland, OR beer bar and bottle shop The BeerMongers, is moving from their home of 13 years at SE 12th Avenue and Division Street, and going one block to the west of their current location. BeerMongers owner Sean Campbell confirmed that the long-anticipated move would be happening, but not without a touch of uncertainty. BeerMongers started up in its current space in September 2009, and Campbell is just a bit proud that his pub has been open for business every day since then, even during the roughest of times in 2020, when the covid pandemic upended everything in the hospitality trade. Throughout the years, it's been that third place where people hang out with friends, share bottles, play cribbage, watch the Timbers kick their way through a season, or just pick out something good from the coolers to take home to drink.

During the early days of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, BeerMongers still operated in limited fashion, allowing off-premise bottle sales only, effectively knocking out all of the pub's on-premises revenue. Eventually, after discussion with the building's landlord, a provisional solution was allowed, and a beer garden was set up under a canopy in the parking lot space, right just off the pub's front door, aided by the availability of vaccines in early 2021.The building's landlord later decided that the beer garden space would be better suited to its original purpose as car parking. However, BeerMongers customers had enjoyed the free and easy outdoor space, and it had proved to be popular, even during winter snows and summer heat waves.

This led Campbell to consider an alternative solution: a new location for the pub that would allow a beer garden again. The search bore fruit, a potential new location just a block west. The current location is on a short-term timeline. The last few sessions of cribbage, of bottle shares, of just dropping by for a beer on the way home, may be sooner rather than later. The new location is a short stumble west at 2415 SE 11th Avenue. Are there complications? Hell yes there are. The current pub's infrastructure has to be moved, and whether it's a block or a mile, dismantling and reassembling is hard work. So far, says Campbell, "the restrooms are done but there's more to go." Will the pub stay in its current space while getting the new place ready to room? That's not an easy one to answer. Much of the furnishings can be disassembled for moving. Ultimately, the new BeerMongers space is going to be a new version of welcoming space, one the regular customers will continue to patronize and appreciate. "People's behavior has changed," claims Campbell, in recognition that outdoor seating is something that will continue to be appreciated as operations transition to a post-pandemic era. "The space will be just about the same," says Campbell, while revealing that a couple of hand pumps will also be part of the new space, allowing cask-conditioned beers to be added to the pub's already excellent line-up. Parking? There's plenty within a short walk. Suck it up, walk a couple of minutes, and take in the ambiance of one of the city's best and longest-lived beer bars. Also coming to the new space: a collaboration raddled brew with Great Notion, with even more beers in the pipeline. "Collaborations are fun and I'm even getting more of our customers involved," Campbell said.

What happens during the time during the cut-over to the new location? Licensing is complicated with the Oregon bureaucracy, but Campbell figures he can work within the system to accomplish a smooth cut over from the current location at SE 12th and Division to the new location just a block away.

For those who follow The BeerMongers on social media, the best bet it to continue monitoring their feed. There may be a few hiccups in the transition from old space to new. There will likely be call for volunteers to help out with some parts of the moving process. Somehow, though, by autumn of 2022, BeerMongers will have a new space to call home, to host cribbage tournaments, Timbers watch parties, beer bottles shares, and everything else that has made it one of Portland's go-to beer bars for the last thirteen years.