Loyal Legion’s mission statement is simple. The beer bar’s “sole purpose is to celebrate the Oregon Craft Brewing tradition,” its website helpfully explains. To that effect, the bar opened in 2014 pouring nearly 100 taps of beer, cider and wine, all from Oregon.
Soon, Loyal Legion will apply that single-minded pursuit to a state that has so far been kept off of those taps: Washington. In spring, the popular bar will head across the Columbia River to open its fourth location — after Portland, Beaverton and the Portland International Airport — in downtown Vancouver.
For Vancouver breweries, it’s a chance to join a lengthy beer list that has long eluded them. For beer fans elsewhere in the Portland metro area, it could mean a chance to sample some coveted Seattle breweries that rarely make it this far down Interstate 5.
“There’s been massive interest from Washington breweries, but we just don’t serve their beer,” said Loyal Legion’s Kurt Huffman. “We’ve been looking in Vancouver for a year and a half, so we were really lucky to find what we found.”
The former Heathen Brewing taproom in downtown Vancouver will soon be home to an outpost of the popular Portland beer bar Loyal Legion, this one featuring more than 70 taps of Washington state beer.Courtesy of Zzeppelin
That would be the former downtown Portland taproom of Heathen Brewing, with its 5,000-square-foot taproom and similarly sized patio — larger even than the one at Loyal Legion Beaverton — with room for around 150 people inside and the same number outdoors. A remodel will expose grand 22-foot ceilings long hidden inside the taproom, while trees and other landscaping are added to the patio.
A bigger kitchen means food will reach customers faster than it has at other Loyal Legion locations, Huffman said. Meanwhile, director of culinary operations Marcus Hilliker (Bar Sajor, Seattle; Oven & Shaker, Portland) plans to add pizza to the menu of burgers, pretzels, Olympia Provisions sausages and hand-dipped corn dogs. As with other Loyal Legion locations, the basement will eventually be home to a speakeasy-style cocktail bar.
Heathen Brewing owner Sunny Parsons is a partner in the project.
“The city has been really supportive, and there’s just tons of parking up there, which we like a lot,” Huffman said. “And there’s a natural spillover that’s going to come into downtown from the waterfront area.”
Also appealing is Vancouver’s Main Street Promise campaign, which is expanding sidewalks, adding street furniture and improving lighting between 5th and 15th streets on Main Street and is expected to wrap up by late 2026.
Loyal Legion plans to open next April at 1109 Washington St. Starting in February, the space plans to start hosting weekend pop-ups with beer from Washington breweries and smash burgers from the Portland bakery Dos Hermanos.
