Postcards are often sent to loved ones with pictures or illustrations of a destination featuring the verbiage “Greetings from.” The Astoria, Ore.-based Fort George Brewery, founded in 2007, takes a cue from those salutations as it welcomes visitors to its website with a message reading “Greetings from Astoria, Ore.”

Currently, the brewery offers five different six-packs, five four-packs, two 19.2 options and two varieties of Hop Water in its year-round portfolio. Fort George distributes throughout Oregon, as well as in Washington state, Idaho and Northern California, with occasional pop-ups at festivals in Colorado.

“Most of those are made out of our production facility to keep up with demand,” says Brian Bovenizer, marketing director at the family-owned and operated brewery. “We also have two other brew houses and a second canning line at our taprooms a mile away. From there, we produce over 110 unique one-off beers a year in bottle, can and draft.”

Sustainability is a focus of Fort George and has been since the beginning, Bovenizer explains. Choosing cans as the packaging choice for its year-round beers had the environment in mind. The infinite recyclability of cans is huge, he says.

“We also recycle our grain bags and everything that we can on our block,” he states. “In the past few years, we have doubled down on sustainability with an electric-hybrid sales fleet and EV chargers at both of our buildings. This year, we installed the largest single building independent solar array in Oregon, generating 70% of our electricity from solar energy.”

For next year, Bovenizer shares that the brewery is installing a nitrogen generation system and is looking into carbon dioxide (CO2) re-capture.

“We realize that we use a lot of utilities and if we can generate those ourselves, it is best for the environment and ourselves,” he adds.

The marketing director also shares that the brewery has the best water he’s ever tasted right out of the tap, which helps make great beer.

“We realize that, without helping protect our waterways, this may not always be the case, so we have partnered with 1% for the Planet for our entire 12-ounce can line, generating over $75,000 in donations to local environmental nonprofits,” Bovenizer explains. “Sustainability is also important to help support our community. We host a Thursday Night Lecture Series, free Sunday Night Music and a monthly Tuesday Benefit Night, where we have donated over $1,000,000 in cash donations for local charities since we opened.”

Recently, the Fort George kicked off Pizza Pals, an IPA collaboration with a brewery friend that makes great IPA and great pizza.

“Our partner for 2024-2025 is Cellarmaker Brewing Co. from the Bay Area,” Bovenizer says. “They not only make some of my favorite beer, but also one of the most unique and best crust in a Detroit-style pizza that I have ever had. This hazy collab is available December-February and is a super fun project that features unique art by Portland’s Mike Bennett.”

Weathering the market

Despite the innovation practices and products coming out of Fort George, Bovenizer notes that the current craft beer market is facing its share of struggles.

“It should not come as any surprise that the craft beer market is tough right now, even in the Pacific Northwest, where we primarily distribute our beer to,” Bovenizer says. “In the off-prem, after years of expansion, craft’s space on store shelves is shrinking and craft beer is declining faster as a category than our beverage competitors.”

In the brewery’s largest market, the Portland, Ore., grocery segment, beer is down 2.6%, while craft is down 4.5%, Bovenizer notes, citing data from NielsenIQ. In convenience, beer is up, but craft is down by a similar margin, he adds.

“In the on-prem, we are just not seeing it bounce back like it did pre-pandemic,” Bovenizer shares. “The idea of that type of a return is no longer a realistic outlook. While there is more competition in craft, we’re all hungry, we are seeing a lot of closures. While it is super sad to see our friends in the industry close their doors or sell, it does seem to be regulating the market a bit.

“Thankfully, we seem to be bucking all of these trends for 2024 and are super thankful for it,” he continues.

Consumer trends are influencing the craft beer market as well. Bovenizer says that habits are shifting more and more.

“People do not seem to be going out as much around their cities,” he states. “In the off-prem, craft is definitely feeling the influx of ever-increasing options from FMBs [flavored malt beverages], seltzers, imports, wine and NA beverages. It also seems that there are not as many craft beer loyalists and more curious drinkers.”

In Oregon, Bovenizer expresses that breweries are lucky to not have in-store competition from ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages and liquor in grocery stores and convenience because such beverages must be sold through state-run liquor stores. He says not having RTD and liquor competition is “nice, but still hard” as a craft brewery.

“For Fort George, we have had to make a lot of moves that have contributed to our success in the last year,” Bovenizer notes. “We have traded out brands, added new brands, expanded product lines, played with pricing, pushed innovation and added an NA option with our LüP Sparkling Hop Water. The time of depending on steady growth is over.”

Looking ahead

Bovenizer is unsure of what exactly the future of craft beer looks like, but he assures consumers that Fort George will continue to evolve its recipes to the tastes of its drinkers, innovate new and continuing styles and generally be curious about any possibilities.

“We consider ourselves and experience brand and want people to taste our beer and come to Astoria, Ore.,” Bovenizer states. “Each can is a postcard to come out to Astoria, because we really do love this city. Come to our pubs any day of the week and you should see, hear and taste a unique experience. We want to provide more than beer and I think our pubs crush this.”

“You hear a lot in the beer industry about events falling off, and maybe we are insulated being in a destination city, but we love to throw a party and feel like we throw a good one,” he continues. “Our Festival of Dark Arts sold out in record time this year, and we’re looking to throwing more fun, experiential parties like Lupulin Ecstasy on May 17, 2025.”

Bovenizer encourages consumers to come check out Fort George and Astoria.