RIP Steve Allen, founder of Astoria’s oldest brewery has passed away
Steve Allen, the Astoria visionary and founder of one of Oregon’s oldest current breweries, has passed away at 73. Allen, a certified accountant by trade, co-founded the Astoria Brewing Company and Wet Dog Cafe, and he and his wife Karen were behind some of the most iconic properties and businesses in Astoria.
The Wet Dog Cafe is a 30 year old landmark and oldest brewery in Astoria, Oregon, located off the waterfront at 144 11th Street. The old-timey style family friendly saloon first opened in 1995 and was the first location to host the Fisher Poets Gathering in 1998. Steve Allen was initially a silent investor when The Wet Dog opened, but he bought out majority owners Joe Gwerder and Harry Henke a few years later. In 1997 Allen added a small nano brewery to the pub that he initially called the Pacific Rim Brewery. In 2005 the brewery portion of the business was renamed to Astoria Brewing Company in an homage to Astoria’s first brewery with the same name, originally established in 1872.
By 2012 with the tremendous growth of craft breweries and Astoria’s resurgence to growth in large part because of said breweries, Astoria Brewing began an expansion partially powered by the success of their Bitter Bitch Imperial IPA. The Allen’s took over The Chart Room bar on the other side of the block and built a new taproom and much larger brewhouse to begin canning and distributing their beers.
The Allens became major contributors to Astoria’s culture, reviving and rejuvenating properties and businesses like the Desdemona Club in 2005, and returning Pier 11 into a waterfront shopping galleria in 2014.
In 2018 they dropped the name “The Wet Dog Cafe” and fully rebranded into Astoria Brewing Company as Karen and Steve began to transition into retirement. The brewpub stayed in the family with the Allen’s children Kera Huber, Andy Huber and Mike Allen, along with longtime manager Matthew McClure.
“We’ve become partners,” Karen Allen said to The Astorian in 2018. “They’re supporting, managing. They have been doing that all along anyway.”
Most recently the Allen’s acquired the historic Columbian Theater in early 2022 in a purchase of the entire Riviera Building which includes the theater, the Voodoo Room bar (now renamed Xanadu), and beloved breakfast diner the Columbian Cafe (now Sonny’s Astoria) and the adjacent storefront that was previously Metal Head (now Nest Property Management.) The Riviera Building shares the block with the Wet Dog Cafe on the northwest corner, and with the new Sisu Brewing location in the middle separating the pub from the Astoria Brewing Company taproom on the southeast corner.
Steve was born on October 20, 1952, in Coos Bay, Oregon, and passed away on December 27, 2025 in Warrenton Oregon, surrounded by his loved ones. In remembrance of Steve the Astoria Brewing Company will host a public toast in his honor on January 24th from 1-4pm. Come down and share a memory and have a beer on Steve and honor his life’s legacy.
Steve Allen and his wife Karen Allen