SUSTAINABILITY

At Fort George Brewery we believe what goes around comes around. When you drink a pint of Fort George beer we want you to appreciate the aroma, the taste, and the sustainable efforts of the people who brewed it.

OUR APPROACH TO SUSTAINABILITY

Our community comes first at Fort George. Everything we do to enrich, preserve and benefit Astoria and the North Coast helps us grow as a company and a community. From investing in sustainable infrastructure to sourcing local ingredients to working with local community non-profits, we’re prioritizing sustainability for the long term. Sustainability isn’t about the world today, it’s not about increasing short term profits or marketing; it is about how we leave this world for tomorrow.

PEOPLE

 

BENEFITS & INCENTIVES

All employees qualify for Shift Beers* as well as 50% off beer*, merch and food at our pubs. All employees are eligible for professional development opportunities, a Cicerone Certification Bonus, Employee Referral Bonus, annual company Profit Sharing Plan bonus, paid breaks, paid volunteering hours, paid time off, enjoy standing invitations to events and special releases, benefit from paid sick time and have access to our employee assistance program. In addition, all full-time employees are eligible for low-cost health insurance, paid holidays, a 10-year anniversary Beer Trip anywhere in the world, an annual keg of Fort George beer* and enrollment in the company 401k Retirement Plan with a 4% contribution match.

*beer benefits for employees 21 or over

ENVIRONMENT

 

1% FOR THE PLANET

Since 2021, Fort George has partnered with 1% for the Planet – donating 1% of all 12oz can sales and 16oz cans in our Lager Series to local and regional environmental organizations like Elakha Alliance, North Coast Watershed Association, Oregon Agricultural Trust, The North Coast Land Conservancy, and Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership. Through this partnership, we donate over $75,000 a year to local environmentally focused non-profits in addition to our other ongoing partnerships which benefit non-profit organizations in the community. We’re committed to the water that makes our beer delicious, and to the land that surrounds us.

CERTIFIED OCEAN FRIENDLY BY THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION

In 2025, our Pubs were Certified Ocean Friendly by the Surfrider Foundation. So far, Surfrider has certified 648 restaurants as Ocean Friendly across 32 states, preventing an estimated 42 million meals worth of plastic items from entering the waste stream every year. Qualifying for this certification was a huge undertaking for the Pub team. From sourcing our seafood in the most responsible and sustainable way to reducing our water consumption and eliminating single-use plastic dining items – qualifying for this certification required creativity, flexibility, infrastructure changes, and real commitment from our whole team. For over a decade, we’ve been taking steps to reduce waste in our restaurants, from hosting low to no waste festivals, using curbside-compostable and recyclable containers and finally eliminating single-use plastic dining items. By offering bamboo straws and using washable, reusable ramekins for dine-in items, we estimate that we’ll prevent 191,902 total single-use plastic items from going into the waste stream (that’s more than 1500 pounds of plastic per year).

WATERFRONT SOLAR ARRAY

The Fort George Waterfront Production Facility in Astoria is home to the largest single-building private solar array in the state of Oregon.

The 1,155 panel array was installed in the summer of 2024. The array provides over 70% of the energy needed yearly to power Fort George’s production brewery, canning facility and distribution operations. Over the next 35 years, the system is expected to offset carbon dioxide at a level equivalent to planting 207,210 trees or averting the use of the equivalent of one million gallons of gasoline. Fort George’s solar array was one of a dozen community-based renewable energy projects partially funded by Pacific Power’s Blue Sky 2023 awards. Blue Sky is an opt-in program that gives Pacific Power customers an option to match all or part of their energy use with renewable energy.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE FLEET

Solar technology isn’t the only way the Fort is utilizing alternative energy sources to power our beer. Since 2020 our fleet of hybrid plug-in electric sales vehicles has made 200,000 miles over 5x more fuel efficient than they would have been if driven by single fuel source internal combustion engine vehicles. Many sales and delivery routes throughout the week are driven on an electric charge, saving hundreds of gallons of fuel per y ear and reducing our carbon footprint significantly.

At the Pub in Astoria, 4 public charging ports hosted and maintained by the Fort charge over 1,600 vehicles per year. The Fort is proud to provide an epic place for our customers, visitors and community members to charge up their electric vehicles right in the middle of Downtown Astoria. The charging stations are within walking distance of dozens of restaurants and over a hundred local shops, cafes and museums, making it easy for EV drivers to patronize local businesses while recharging at the Fort.

WASTEWATER TREATMENT

We’ve been diverting spent grain and brewing process wastewater from Astoria’s sewers since we opened. Through partnerships with local dairy farms, we’ve been able to provide super high quality, nutrient-rich animal feed, reducing local farm’s operational costs and cutting back water treatment needs for all three of our brewing facilities. At the Waterfront facility, the installation of two BioGill Ultra BioReactors further reduces our brewery process wastewater strength to the equivalent of a single residential 4 person home – an over 90% reduction.

Processing our wastewater before it hits the sewer allows us to keep all of our brewery operations within the city of Astoria without overtaxing the aging local infrastructure, while helping local farms thrive.

NITROGEN GENERATION

In 2025 we brought our Nitrogen Generator online at the Waterfront Brewery. The Nitrogen Generator harvests Nitrogen from the atmosphere by compressing air inside a filter chamber and pressing out oxygen and other molecules. The resulting gas, almost pure Nitrogen, is collected in a storage tank and used in our brewing facility in place of CO2.

Using Nitrogen gas that we harvest from the air around us and store onsite drastically reduces our dependence on the manufactured CO2 that must be made, packaged and shipped from Portland and elsewhere. We use Nitrogen for a lot of jobs that previously required manufactured CO2 like purging tanks free of oxygen, rousing hops in fermenters, providing head pressure for moving beer from tank to tank, and creating a blanket in our canning line to keep oxygen out of the beer during packaging. Our Nitrogen Generator has replaced over 30% of our CO2 needs.

Our next step is to implement a CO2 recapture system that will enable us to harvest and utilize the CO2 that is a natural byproduct of the fermentation process, completely eliminating our reliance on manufactured gas.

SUSTAINABLE PURCHASING

We make buying local a priority. We strive to purchase ingredients grown without harmful pesticides, herbicides, or hormones whenever feasible. One way we minimize our carbon footprint is by limiting emissions associated with transportation. The Pacific Northwest is responsible for growing some of the world’s best hops and grains. The less we transport, the smaller the environmental impact of our beer.

We have always sourced the vast majority of our grain and hops from the Pacific Northwest. Our beer is truly a local product. We distribute our beer only in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Northern California, further reducing transportation emissions.

Remaining local is better for the Northwest and better for the beer.

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

We’ve been canning beer since 2011 – back then most craft breweries were still putting their beer in bottles. We made the commitment to cans early to support our goal of minimizing the impact of transportation on our environment. Aluminum is one of the lightest packaging materials available and by far the most recyclable. We still package our beers in aluminum cans and are constantly implementing new technologies and practices that can increase our efficiency, use our resources more sustainably, and decrease our impact on the planet.

COMMUNITY

 

BENEFIT NIGHTS

The last Tuesday of every month is Benefit Night at the public house. These events rally non-profits, the brewery, and the community, helping to raise over $1,000,000 in cash donations for local charities since we opened. Fort George contributes additional goods and services each year, helping local and regional non-profits raise money at their fundraisers. We provide support for local organizations with a focus on education, human services, arts & culture, and the environment. You can learn more about the non-profits we have hosted, and how to apply, on our Benefit Night page.

BEER COLLABORATIONS

We work with several local non-profits each year to raise funds and awareness for causes that are close to our hearts. These collaborative beer projects end up creating some of our favorite beers in cans and on draft. Beers like Pet of the Week (a collaboration with Clatsop Animal Assistance and the Clatsop County Animal Shelter), Consejo (a collaboration with Consejo Hispano in Astoria), Oregon Agricultural Trust’s Cheers to the Land project and Ales for ALS have all raised money for some of our favorite non-profits.

THURSDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES

From October through May, Fort George hosts a free community education series in the Lovell Showroom. Thursday Talks feature presentations from a rotating group of local organizations including Clatsop Community College, Clatsop County Historical Society, The North Coast Watershed Council, Lewis and Clark National Historic Park, and local Philosophy group, Philosofarian.

OREGON BREWSHED ALLIANCE

We are proud to have signed on as a charter member supporting the Oregon Brewshed Alliance. From the inception in April of 2015, their mission has been to protect watersheds throughout the State of Oregon. Fort George has participated in the Brewshed Brewfest since 2016.

Benefit Night Application

If you’d like your organization to be considered for a benefit night, complete this benefit application and submit it for review.

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Donation Request Form

If you’d like to request a donation from Fort George, complete this form and submit it for review.

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