Astoria loses a brewery, a cidery, and further collapse of waterfront brewpub
Astoria has been a favorite Oregon small-town ever since The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop were filmed there in the 80’s and 1990, and a favorite craft beer destination since Astoria Brewing and Wet Dog Cafe opened in 1997, followed 10 years later by Fort George Brewery in 2007. Astoria only became more popular as residents fled the cities looking to embrace small town life and the natural historic beauty that has proximity both to industry and nature. By 2023, Astoria boasted 6 breweries (7 if you count the new location of Breakside Brewery); Fort George, Astoria Brewing, Hondo’s Brew, Obelisk Beer, Buoy Beer, and Reach Break Brewing, and 1 cidery; Fortune & Glory (formerly Reveille Ciderworks), plus beer destination Bridge & Tunnel. However 2024 has not been kind to the industry, and even while Astoria seemed to be thriving, a confluence of factors that may or may not include wet weather and dry January has led to a series of devastating closures and disasters.
Reach Break Brewing suddenly Closes
We were working to confirm reports that Reach Break Brewing had closed after their December 29th Bingo Night, when founder Josh Allison took to their social media feeds to announce it via a brief thank you and goodbye video last week. Reach Break is just down 2 blocks down street from Fort George Brewing, and right across the street from Bridge & Tunnel Bottle Shop, and recently Breakside Brewery opened a new location next door as well.
Reach Break Brewing opened in January 2017 from founders Josh Allison, Jared Allison, and Finn Parker. The building which appeared to be a former auto or repair station, was split into two suites with Reveille Ciderworks sharing the suite next door with their own taproom. They converted their parking lot into a beer garden and one of the most popular little food truck lots in the area. They also originally boasted one of the only sour beer/wild programs in the county when they first got going, with aspirations to fill a basement beer cellar with barrels below street level that once connected to the old Astoria historic tunnel system.
Josh Allison and his brother Jared Allison launched the Reach Break Brewing program, with experience as homebrewers and at various commercial breweries, biologist, and the Craft Brewing Business program Finn’s background was as the taproom manager for Fieldwork Brewing in Berkeley, California. Reach Break produced beers on a 7bbl system, and mostly focused on approachable pub beers like ESB and Pale Ale, with specialty beers packaged into bottles, and eventually cans.
Reach Break’s closure seemed to catch most people by surprise, afterall they had just expanded to open the ‘Tributary Room’ on November 25th next door in the former suite of Reveille Ciderworks. This area was made to host events, offer more indoor seating, and showcase specialty beers and future packaged releases to Reach Break’s member club the ‘Whale Pod’. We made repeated attempts to reach Josh Allison about the closure but have not yet heard back, so one can only speculate that the very slow winter months had something to do with it. No word yet on what will come of the space, equipment, and the food trucks which call the lot home.
Fortune & Glory Cider (formerly Reveille Ciderworks) has Closed
Fortune & Glory Cider was founded 6 years ago as Reveille Ciderworks, also known as Astoria Cider Co., inside the same building at 1343 Duane St, Astoria, OR 97103 they shared with Reach Break Brewing. Their acclaimed ciders saw success in the north coast area, and when they learned that the 1450 Exchange St space above Fort George Brewing that was formerly the home of Fernhill Glass Studio was opening up, they jumped at the opportunity to relocate just a few blocks up the road and rebrand themselves to Fortune & Glory Cider.
Many beer fans may have visited Fortune & Glory in their new home during Festival of the Dark Arts in 2022. The building perched above the Fort George beer garden and adjacent to their gardens, hosted glass blowing demos during Dark Arts before the cidery moved in, and during the most recent Dark Arts they had both their ciders and lots of big barrel-aged stouts on their board as event participants.
“What a wild journey it has been! Like so many craft beverage makers, I started making cider in my basement long ago as a hobby. Encouraged by successful batches and spurred on by the support of friends and family eager to fuel my passion, I was driven to test my potential in the craft cider industry. Armed with some gusto and a desire for change, our family decided to start a new life out on the edge, opening Reveille Ciderworks in Astoria in the summer of 2017,” said Fortune & Glory owner Jeremy Towsey-French, when announcing he was closing the business down last week.
In 2022 Reveille became Fortune & Glory and opened in their new location, but according to Towsey-French the industry dealt him some blows, along with personal life changes, that led him to make the decision to close down.
Also in 2022, Towsey-French opened a retro-futuristic arcade bar called Galactix in downtown Astoria at 254 9th St. The lower basement level space is dark and secretive like a speakeasy, with an incredible assortment of games and custom light displays, sounds, and soundtrack created just for them. Galactix has proved a hit, and a reliable place to find good beer and cider, and you might still be able to grab a Fortune & Glory cider there for a ways into the future. Towsey-French also says their fan-favorite event series, Films with Benefits, and their much-loved Liège waffles might even make a comeback there.
Buoy Beer’s Waterfront Brewpub Collapses further into the Columbia
The disaster at Buoy Beer’s brewpub perched on a pier over the waterfront was one of the biggest Oregon beer stories of the pandemic era. On June 14, 2022, part of a building on the brewery’s campus collapsed into the river after the pilings underneath gave way, causing significant damage to the restaurant, small batch brewery, brite tanks, lager tanks, and canning line. Buoy pivoted to bring their expansion project across the waterfront walkway to completion and are still working to build a new working distillery and tasting room online, meanwhile they secured prime space in the Astoria Food Hub to open a kitchen and taproom for their award-winning beers. The Buoy Beer story has been one of successful pivots and resilience, and one year after the collapse the future of the building was still unknown, with the Army Core of Engineers, who permit all Columbia River work, to clean up the damage.
However sometime on or around December 27th, the Buoy waterfront building began to collapse even further into the river with damage beginning to even more visibly effect the taproom portion of the building and the pier. The city of Astoria temporarily closed the Riverwalk between Seventh and Eighth streets, and the trail was rerouted to Astor Street to avoid further accidents as it is unclear what will happen next. The new damage makes it more difficult to imagine the building can be saved at all.
We reached out to Buoy Beer co-founder David Kroening for more info, who had this to say about the status:
“We are working with city and state agencies to continue managing the situation caused by the original collapse of our building. The building has been in a state of failure since the initial incident while we've worked through the lengthy permit process, in-water work period and specialized equipment availability. Although the building had mostly remained in a somewhat stable condition since the initial collapse, recently the failure continued. We quickly got a debris boom installed around the site, although king tides and surrounding dock structures complicate the debris containment efforts. Our team has been doing our best to remove debris as we're able to through group and individual cleanups, and we very much appreciate the help from our community with those efforts. We are pushing to get a larger cleanup complete as soon as permits and equipment availability allow, as well as address the overall plans for the site soon, which will likely include a more substantial removal of the building structure. We'll share more information as it becomes available” - Dave Kroening.
Positive News from Astoria:
This is undoubtedly the slowest time for Astoria businesses, but the area is just holding their breath for “Stout Month” in February, when Fort George Brewery will bring back lots of events and beer releases, notably Festival of the Dark Arts on 2/17. And on February 10th, popular beer bar and bottle shop Bridge & Tunnel will celebrate their 6th anniversary, as things start to look up in Astoria with hopefully a return to busier times in Spring.
Obelisk Beer Co., Astoria’s newest brewery, is finally brewing their beers on-site in the new year after being forced to brew elsewhere thanks to city permitting issues for the last 1+ years. Breakside Brewing also opened a new location last year, the taproom is known not only for a wide selection of their beers but a seafood and champagne centric menu with pacific northwest and east coast-style classics.