Lompoc and the Legacy Brewery Hex

Finishing up a week in Hawaii, I got a message suggesting that Lompoc Brewing was about to close. Two or three inquiries later, I learned it was all a vicious rumor, apparently started by irresponsible, fake news journalists and suspected communists.

A day later, the vicious rumor turned out to be true. Jerry Fechter was calling it a day and closing the Fifth Quadrant Brewpub, along with Sidebar. The Oaks Bottom Pub will carry on with Fechter at the helm, but it will remain a pub with no brewing and no connection to Lompoc. 

Fechter's collection of pubs had shrunk from five a few years ago to just three in recent times. Hedge House on Southeast Division closed two years ago and now houses Little Beast. Lompoc Tavern, formerly New Old Lompoc where the adventure started in 1996, closed in September 2018. 

When I was putting the final touches on Portland Beer in 2013, I included Lompoc on my list of the city's significant beer businesses. Laurelwood and Lucky Lab were the other two...the list being focused mainly on the multi-pub footprint of the three entities. 

These are all what we currently refer to as legacy breweries. I'm not exactly sure how to define "legacy brewery." Is that a five-year-old brewery? 10 years old? 20 years old? Or does it just need to be a brewery that has failed to keep up with the twists and turns of the market? You tell me.

The Lompoc story is fairly well-known. Fechter, a transplant from Ohio and wannabe brewer, worked at Old Lompoc Brewing in Northwest Portland for several years in the early 1990s. When he saw an opening, Fechter inquired about buying the business. During a round of golf.

Soon enough, the owners came back with a number. Fechter thought he could manage it, but realized he would need an investment partner to pull off the purchase and make needed improvements. That's when legendary Portland publican, Don Younger, entered the picture.

Don Younger tribute beer in 2013

Fechter and Younger mixed blackout drinking with business over a period of several months. They eventually hammered out an agreement whereby Younger became a partner in the business, but stayed mostly in the background while Fechter managed day-to-day operations.

It turned out to be a good match. Old Lompoc was renamed New Old Lompoc to signify the change in ownership and did well. Fechter and Younger later opened the Fifth Quadrant, Sidebar and Hedge House. Fechter also partnered with the late Jim Parker on Oaks Bottom Public House. After Parker exited and Younger passed away (in 2011), Fechter became sole owner of the businesses. 

As the list of brewery/brewpub failures grew over the past few years, many were left wondering which brewery might be next. After seeing Lompoc Tavern and Hedge House close, I added Lompoc to my "Most Likely to Fail" list. There was nothing diabolical about it. I always liked Jerry, who is one of the more jovial people you'll ever meet.

In recent years, I had several conversations with Fechter and with Mike De Kalb of Laurelwood about the difficulty faced by older, so-called legacy breweries. Probably the biggest challenge is that the people who follow craft beer tend to be attracted by shiny new breweries and beers.

Sidebar entry 2014

In the saturated beer market that is Portland, fads and trends are king. Customer loyalty is zero. Drinkers bounce from pub to pub and beer to beer with little thought, seeking the newest thing. That's why you rarely see a non-rotating tap at beer bars and pubs. Bad for business.

This is surely truer in a place like Portland, which is overrun with breweries and pubs, than it is in a rural setting like, say, Baker City or Yakima. The sheer glut of beer-centric businesses in Portland make it an increasingly difficult place to stay viable and relevant.

Add to overcrowding and fierce competition the fact that craft beer market growth is static or in gradual decline. That's bad news for everyone, including breweries that opened more recently, as they, too, will get old and be forced to deal with the challenges Fechter and De Kalb faced.

Laurelwood worked hard over the past decade to build brand recognition outside Portland. That's likely why, as things got tough, De Kalb was able to sell Laurelwood's intellectual property to Legacy Breweries, parent of Ninkasi. Laurelwood's core brands have value in regional distribution.

Lompoc was not in a similar situation. Its brands never gained the kind of following that would have attracted Legacy or a similar entity. Fechter had his collection of pubs and that was where he was going to live or die in an increasingly trendy, difficult market. We know things didn't work out.

I don't think Lompoc failed due to bad beer. Sure, their standards came off as a little flat next to the fancy stuff many breweries are pushing out in wrapped cans. But you could always find more interesting stuff on tap in the Lompoc pubs.

C-Note was a favorite of mine

What went wrong? It wasn't the food and service, which I always found decent. I suppose the beer could have been more exciting and certainly more visible in beer bars and taprooms, though that would have been difficult as competition stiffened. At the end of the day, I think Lompoc mostly fell victim to being old and less cool in a saturated sea of newness.

The last day is Tuesday, Oct. 29, when the Fifth Quadrant and Sidebar close for good. Fechter will hold a "garage sale” next Saturday, Nov. 2, at Sidebar from Noon to 5 p.m. Vintage Lompoc bottles, schwag, glassware and more will be for sale.

Fechter's trajectory? Untied from the Lompoc brand, he'll be free to build the tap list he could never have built at Lompoc. With no brewing, he'll focus strictly on the pub part of the business. Things may work out fine for him, though I doubt he's pleased with how it happened.

Farewell, Lompoc. Thanks for the memories.

Lompoc Tavern Closure a Sign of the Times

The news that Lompoc Tavern will soon close arrived Friday afternoon. I wasn't surprised. It has become increasingly difficult in recent years for established pubs and breweries to compete with a sea of newcomers that tend to have greater appeal among young drinkers.

In the press release announcing the closure, owner Jerry Fechter talked about the challenge of operating pubs in various parts of the city and said it's time to sharpen the organization's focus on the pubs they have left...Fifth Quadrant, Oaks Bottom and Side Bar.

"We're embracing this as an opportunity to invest more time and attention on the remaining pubs and brewery, and making them the best they can be.”

This is the second Lompoc pub to close within the last year. The Hedge House on Southeast Division closed late last year and is now home to Little Beast. Lompoc had been a major player in the Portland market for many years, but its status is apparently waning.

Recall that Lompoc Tavern is the descendent of the original Old Lompoc Tavern, founded in 1993. Fechter, who moved to Oregon from Ohio in 1989, got hooked on craft beer and homebrewing in the early 1990s. He wanted a brewing job, but couldn't find one.

"McMenamins wouldn’t hire me," he told me in 2013. "I never got hired."

He wound up working at Old Lompoc Tavern and they got interested in brewing in-house. He started brewing there in late 1996, marked as the beginning of Lompoc. The initial results were sketchy.

"The first batch of beer was called Erstfest," Fechter remembered. "It wasn't good, but that's how I got started."

Several years later, Fechter negotiated with the owners to buy the place. They worked out a deal that included all the appropriate numbers. At the point where everyone was supposed to sign, the owners backed out, saying they wanted more money. Fechter would need a partner.

"That’s how I got partnered with Don Younger," he said. "Don and I met and chatted over several months on barstools in various places and eventually combined to buy the place. We renamed it New Old Lompoc."

I never met Don Younger, who was a partner is several of the Lompoc ventures. He passed away in 2011, as I was starting to cover Portland's beer scene. But conversations with Fechter suggest to me that the partnership worked fairly well. Don was the wacky elder statesmen who knew the business; Jerry was the eager apprentice who took it all in, though they weren't always in sync.

"I didn’t know how influential Don was until I started talking to him," Fechter told me. "He knew everyone and had been involved in craft beer from the start. Don was a character, always coming up with creative and crazy ideas." Fechter has an archive of stories.

After Younger passed away, New Old Lompoc came under Fechter's control. But things were changing dramatically in the area. The building owner soon decided to demolish it and build something that's a better fit for the trendy Northwest neighborhood.

When it reopened in 2013, the Lompoc Tavern had been reconfigured to fit a smaller space. The antiquated little brewery was gone, which helps explain the name change. Changes in the industry were also putting pressure on Lompoc.

Portland's brewery count started spiraling dramatically upward around 2009. By the time Lompoc Tavern opened, the city had more than twice as many breweries as it featured only a few years earlier. Competition in the beer and pub business was stiffening.

The press release says the crowd that supported New Old Lompoc found other places to go during construction and never returned when Lompoc Tavern opened. It also suggests business declined because a number of jobs moved out of the neighborhood.

My own version is that a lot of options started popping up in the area. Breakside Slabtown, just a short walk from Lompoc Tavern, undoubtedly sucked business away after it opened in 2017. Other new places harmonize better with what the millennial crowd is looking for.

Lompoc Tavern's final day will be Wednesday, Sept. 26. The lease is being taken over by Tap & Table, which currently has a location on Southeast Ankeny St. There will almost certainly be a gathering of regulars and friends on that last day. Note to self.

There are those who will shrug at the demise of Lompoc Tavern. For them, it's a relic of a bygone era. That's one way to look at it. Another view is that a slice of Portland's craft brewing history is being displaced. There's an instructive tale here for established pubs and breweries.

The Fate of Hedge House and More

Yesterday's news that Lompoc's Hedge House in Southeast Portland is closing comes on the heels of last week's featured stories regarding the overnight closure of Widmer's Gasthaus and the final day of operation at The Commons. The last day at the Hedge House will be Nov. 28.

The announcement was met with shock. Maybe it shouldn't have been. We've been cruising along in unlimited craft beer growth mode, watching countless places open and assuming there was room for everyone. Market saturation is today's reality. And there is a price.

During last week's media preview of Lompoc's holiday beers, with the Widmer news fresh, I asked owner Jerry Fechter about the challenges presented by growing competition and saturation in the restaurant and pub business.

The reality, he said, is that all the Lompoc pubs have been affected by the seemingly endless number of similar businesses that have opened around the city. There's no longer any limit on how many places can open in a given area. He made no mention of impending closures, but confided that the situation had him frustrated and worried about the future.

As we were reminded in the press release announcing its closure, the Hedge House resided in a quaint and underdeveloped location for many years after it opened in 2003. It wasn't fancy and it was beloved by many precisely because it was a simple place where you could relax with your friends, your family or your dog.

In fact, the Hedge House surely benefited by being in a sort of rundown area where rents were cheap. That was a common theme in Portland craft beer for several decades. Southeast Portland and what is now the Pearl District were once littered with vacant warehouses and busted up storefronts perfect for breweries and related businesses. It's flipped now, of course.

As the area around the Hedge House was flooded by a virtual tsunami of trendy bars, restaurants and related establishments, sales slowed and its prospects dimmed. Even if it had been idyllic in terms of service, food and beer, the Hedge House was an old school place ill-prepared to compete with the barrage of fresh new choices.

The situation we face is odd. After several years of double-digit growth, craft beer will likely see low single digit growth for 2017. Yet new breweries, pubs and taprooms continue to open. There isn't room for everyone. Established places like the Hedge House appear to be at greater risk than shiny new joints that are more marketable to the young crowd that spins craft beer's disco ball.

There's no way to change course. The market will sort out which places will survive and which ones won't. I think older, established spots are most vulnerable, though poorly run newbies aren't immune to market forces by any means.

Lompoc Rolls With Changes at 20

Lompoc Brewing is turning 20. In case you aren't aware, Lompoc was one of the second wave of craft breweries that launched here in the mid-1990s. While some are no longer around, Lompoc has rolled with the punches and continues to carve out a successful path.

Jerry Fechter and Bryan Keilty

They'll be celebrating two decades in December with Zwanzig Fest, a week-long lineup of special events at Lompoc’s five pubs (Zwanzig means 20 in German). Several local brewers and writers, including yours truly, helped brew their anniversary beer, Zwanzig, a bitter Märzen ale.

Purests know authentic Märzen is a lager, not an ale. Never mind. This particular beer is a tip of the hat to Lompoc's first beer, Erst Ale. It will be pale orange in color with a mildly malty body. Eight hop additions ought to give it plenty of aroma, flavor and bitterness.

If craft beer newbies aren't particularly familiar with Lompoc, there's a reason. Which is that, despite operating out of several locations, they have been somewhat obscured by Portland's brewery explosion. When owner Jerry Fechter opened New Old Lompoc in late 1996, there were only a handful of competing breweries.

The story is fairly well-known and is briefly retold in Portland Beer. Fechter had worked at Old Lompoc Brewing in Northwest Portland for several years. The beers were decent, but he felt the food should be better. The lease was always an issue. When the owners negotiated a three-year renewal, Fechter saw an opening and inquired about buying the business during a round of golf.

Soon enough, the owners came back with a number. It was a number Fechter thought he could manage. But as he looked at what needed to be done to move in the direction he wanted, it became apparent that an investor would be needed. Enter legendary publican, Don Younger.

"I had enjoyed beers with Don," Fechter recalls, "but I didn't really know him. A guy at Belmont Station, then next to the Horse Brass on Southeast Belmont, told me Don might be interested in my project. He spoke to Don. The next day, my phone rang. It was Younger."

The call led to a couple months of drinking and discussion, trying to figure out how a partnership might work. Eventually, they hammered out an agreement. Younger became a partner in the business, but stayed mostly in the background while Fechter managed day-to-day operations.

"We knew the food needed to be better," Fechter recalls. "That meant a hood and an improved kitchen. We also realized there was unutilized space in back where we could put a patio. So we built a nice patio, which was busy and a hidden gem in Northwest Portland for many years.

By the time Younger passed away in 2011, he and Fechter had opened additional locations...the Fifth Quadrant, Sidebar and Hedge House. Fechter had also partnered with publican Jim Parker on Oaks Bottom Public House. Today, Fechter operates those locations, as well as Lompoc Tavern, which replaced the original Lompoc pub on Northwest 23rd after it was demolished.

The pub and beer business is a more challenging enterprise these days. You can't get by with a few standard beers and an occasional seasonal. You need seasonals and specialty beers all the time to keep up with all the new places coming online. Head brewer Bryan Keilty is constantly working to develop unique recipes and approaches.

"We know relevance is a challenge with so many new breweries opening," Keilty says. "The attraction of new places isn't new and it doesn't bother us. It just means we need to stay on top of our menu and work to build and maintain a solid beer lineup. That's our focus."

Packaged product is another matter. Lompoc has a handful of bottled beers in distribution via Maletis Beverage. That was strictly 22 oz bombers until last summer, when they launched C-Note and Pampelmousse IPA in 12 oz six-packs. Cans of something may be on the way.

"The strategy with bottles is marketing, getting our name in front of consumers," Fechter says. "That's the main reason we do packaged product. When we saw bomber sales slowing, we launched six-packs. The next step might be cans, but distribution will never be a big part of what we do."

Fechter's thinking is well-informed. He knows the best margin on his beer is in his pubs. Why play the distribution game where the profit per bottle, gallon or keg is small? With retail space getting crowded, some regional and national craft brands are getting squeezed. Meanwhile, a lot of smaller breweries are doing fine. Small and local is a good place to be.

After 20 years in an increasingly competitive business, it's clear enough that Fechter and his team have figured out how to successfully navigate changing times. Congrats on the milestone, folks. See you at Zwanzig Fest.

Lompoc Six-Packs to Hit Store Shelves

They may not get much coverage, but Lompoc Brewing is releasing beer in the six-pack format for the first time in its 20-year history. Six-packs of Pamplemousse Citrus IPA and C-Note IPA will soon appear on store shelves throughout Oregon and Washington.

Why, you may fairly ask, would they launch six-packs after so much time? The press release offers a partial explanation in the form of a quote from Lompoc owner, Jerry Fechter.

“The craft brewing market in retail stores has become flooded with 22-oz bottles. "We wanted to stand out, and provide our fans with greater options. Adding six-packs achieved both of these goals.”

It's true about 22 ounce bombers. They're everywhere. And the bomber market is increasingly occupied by newcomers and, in most bottleshops, by higher end product. Lompoc isn't a newcomer by any means and none of its general release bombers fit the high end profile. So what's the deal?

The deal is that established places like Lompoc face a steep challenge trying to stay relevant in a sea of shiny new breweries that have decent beer and massive social media games. Older breweries start to look irrelevant in that scenario, particularly in the eyes of younger drinkers.

Putting your beer in six-packs is more of a necessity than a cool option at this point. Six-packs are by far the most popular form of packaging in beer and getting six-packs of your beer on shelves is an increasingly important way to stay relevant. Old and new breweries are doing it, thanks in large part to advances in technology that make six-packs of cans and bottles economically feasible in brewpub-sized batches.

In fact, C-Note and Pamplemousse are excellent choices. They fit in nicely with the popularity of aromatic, citrus-forward IPAs. Fechter had a number of beers to choose from and surely chose these because they are exactly what consumers are looking for in 2016.

C-Note, the press release reminds, has been around for 15 years and was first brewed to celebrate the Horse Brass Pub's 25th anniversary. Why the Horse Brass? Because, if you didn't know, Fechter's partner in Lompoc was the late Don Younger, owner of the Horse Brass. Fechter has a zillion Don Younger stories and, by the way, C-Note has always been a damned good beer.

Pamplemousse is a newer kid on the block, arriving a few years ago. It's lighter in color and body than C-Note and leans on four hop varieties, along with grapefruit juice, to create a lingering bitterness highlighted by citrus notes.

These six-packs, packaged by a mobile bottler at the Fifth Quadrant Brewery, will supposedly complement, not replace, Lompoc's current lineup of bombers. We'll see about that. When Laurelwood released Workhorse and Free Range Red in six-packs, Workhorse bombers carried on, but sales of Free Range Red bombers flattened. Could something like that happen with C-Note or Pamplemousse bombers? We'll soon see.

The C-Note and Pamplemousse six-packs are now available at Lompoc's Fifth Quadrant and Sidebar. They will soon arrive at the Hedge House and Oaks Bottom in Southeast, and at the Lompoc Tavern in Northwest. In-house pricing will be $11. Grocery and bottleshop pricing may vary.

Lompoc Launches 2013 Winter Seasonal Barrage

Winter seasonals are nothing new around here. Breweries have been brewing them for years and it's part of what's expected. But no one showcases as many winter seasonals as Lompoc Brewing. Jerry Fechter and his brewers regularly provide a wide swath of holiday beers. And proud of that tradition, they are.

Not sure what Don would think of the poinsettia

There are nine Lompoc holiday beers for 2013 and eight of them were on display at a media tasting Monday night at Sidebar. This is always a fun event, as the Lompoc folks roll out the red rug for those of us who attempt to cover Portland's beer scene. Last night was no exception, held as the ghost of Don Younger looked on (courtesy of John Foyston's great painting).

The beer list is familiar....C-Sons Greetings, Old Tavern Rat, Brewdolph, etc. There is no 8 Malty Nights for 2013, which will miff some beer fans, but you can't have everything. Still, it's a nice lineup of beers. The bulk of these will be released on Dec. 3 at Lompoc locations. I'll speak to the specific details below.

One of my favorite Lompoc beers is C-Sons Greetings, an Imperial IPA brewed with seven "C" hops and packing a serious wallop in aroma and flavor. This is essentially a bigger version of their standard IPA, C-Note, and clocks in at 8% ABV. The label no longer sports Jerry's graphic likeness in a Santa hat, but you'll get over it. C-Sons Greetings will be in pubs and on store shelves soon. Look for it.

Kids explain what they're up to

We tasted two versions of Old Tavern Rat, a barleywine affectionately named after the late publican, Don Younger, who is pictured on the label. The 2013 OTR is fairly straight forward beer...big, fairly smooth, not all that complex. It clocks in at 9.4%. This beer will be poured in pubs, but there will be no bottles.

Up next beer was a bourbon barrel aged version of 2011 OTR. This beer sent my nasal passages into arrest. The press materials say this beer is 9.7%, but it seems to have sucked some serious alcohol from the barrels. I bet it's closer to 12%. Anyway, barrel-aged OTR is a little rough right now. It will surely improve with some cellaring. They will have this on draft and in bottles (very limited) at their pubs. I recommend tasting it now and getting a bottle or two for future reference.

Lompoc's beer for the upcoming Holiday Ale Festival is Revelry Red, which is their Big Bang Red aged in whiskey barrels with sour cherries for nine months, then blended with Big Bang Red aged in Port barrels for nearly a year. This beer was on double secret probation because the HAF prefers that its beers not be tasted prior to the event. No matter. This beer is fantastic...mildly sour, gently complex. There is still blending to be done, so the final result will change. Seek this beer! They will evidently hold onto some of this to be served in their pubs after the HAF.

Tools of a tasting

There are five more Lompoc winter brews worth tasting, including Cherry Christmas, Jolly Bock (lager), Brewdolph (Belgian-style red), Holiday Cheer (Vanilla Porter) and Blitzen (a spiced golden ale we didn't taste). As noted above, you'll find all of these at Lompoc locations beginning on Dec. 3. 

Special thanks to Jerry Fechter for continuing to placate us beer media folks. Similar thanks to Chris Crabb, who routinely does a great job of organizing materials for lazy, sometimes disorganized media folks. Finally, a shout out to Lompoc brewers Bryan Keilty, Irena Bierzynski (a better brewer name does not exist) and Grant Golden, who hung out to talk about their beers.