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.

Breakside, Younger Steal OBA Show

Breakside Brewing and Don Younger dominated Tuesday evening's Oregon Beer Awards, presented in front of a packed house at Revolution Hall. The industry-centric affair, sponsored by Willamette Week, coincided with the release of the 2017 Beer Guide.

Breakside walked away with 10 medals, including four golds. It won two medals, a bronze and a gold, in the hotly contested IPA category. It's not all that surprising to see Breakside do well.Their beers are well-made and have won medals in a lot of places. But seeing them win 15 percent of the total medals awarded in 22 categories was somewhat shocking.

Jeff Alworth, who is few years younger than me and slightly less of a curmudgeon, speculates in his event recap that Breakside winning so many medals is a little awkward. It's awkward because Breakside's head brewer, Ben Edmunds, organizes the OBA judging. Yup.

In fact, it would be pretty impossible to mess with the tasting results. Beers are numbered and tasted blind. Numbers become names when the winners are chosen. Ben would have to be pretty shifty to alter the outcomes. Also pretty dishonest. I can't see it. Claims of impropriety remind me of an NFL pool I ran for many years with a friend. Whenever we won money, people complained that we were fixing the results. That was quite impossible. I had no power to modify picks or results. Such is the case with Ben Edmunds and Breakside. It just looks awkward.

Don Younger, who passed away in 2011, was honored for Lifetime Achievement. Younger, you will recall, was owner of the Horse Brass. Very early on, the Old Tavern Rat became a passionate advocate for Oregon craft beer. His energy and promotional ideas helped make Portland what it is. He is one of a handful of local icons who essentially launched the craft beer industry here.

Organizers showed a wonderful video, created by Lucas Chemotti and Ezra Johnson-Greenough. It featured comments from folks who knew Younger well...Jerry Fechter (Lompoc Brewing), Karl Ockert (founding brewer at Bridgeport Brewing), John Foyston (Oregonian for many years), Carl Singmaster (Belmont Station), Fred Bowman (co-founder of Portland Brewing) and others. It was a fabulous tribute. Follow the link above if you haven't seen the video.

With respect to the results, I'm not going to pile on and post them here. No point. You can chase them down in a variety of places, including here. There are always surprises. That's what happens when beers are judged anonymously. Some beers that are well-regarded don't do well. Some that aren't regarded at all do. That was definitely the case this year, as it was last year, the first time blind judging was used.

The event itself has grown in popularity, complete with red carpet interviews. This was the second year at Revolution Hall and it sold out for the first time. That led to some issues with folks entering the venue. I arrived fairly early and waited only a few minutes to get in. Folks who showed up later, like Jeff, got stuck in long lines and were not happy.

Organizers actually anticipated problems herding people through the door, having experienced it last year, They made a concerted effort to shepherd people into the venue via multiple lines. Somehow, it didn't work out. For some reason, Portlanders accustomed to waiting in single file lines (possibly for rare specialty beer) wanted to enter the venue that way. Doh!

Once inside, there seemed to be ample seating in the theater. I sat in the balcony area and enjoyed panoramic views. There were the usual lines for beer. Hey, these are pro drinkers. What did you expect? They didn't mess with food this year, avoiding last year's free-for-all fiasco. If you wanted or needed to eat, there was a food truck parked outside. Problem solved.

After last year's event, which packed the venue about as tight as it was Tuesday night, I wondered if organizers might consider moving to a larger venue. They're kinda stuck. They need something larger than Revolution Hall, but smaller than the Schnitz. There isn't much in-between that would work for them, I'm told. That will force them to figure out how to make Revolution Hall work.

Speaking of Revolution Hall, everyone knows the building originally housed Washington High School, right? Sitting upstairs gave me the opportunity to snoop around while sipping a beer. There's some amazing history on display in the trophy/memento cases. That part of Revolution Hall is worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. Very cool surprise.

My thanks once again to Martin Cizmar and Willamette Week, for asking me to be part of OBA judging and the 2017 Beer Guide. Special thanks to Steph Barnhart, Ezra Johnson-Greenough, Ben Edmunds and the countless volunteers (you know who you are) without whom this event would not happen. I hope to see you next year.

Universal Bar Etiquette: The Younger Rule

I stopped off at Belmont Station the other night. It's one of my favorite places. My timing was a little off. You may recall hearing that tickets for Pliny pours sold out in 22 minutes. Well this was one of the days on which they were exchanging pours of the Younger and Elder for tickets.

The place was busy, not packed. I didn't have any Pliny tickets. Lisa Morrison, Beer Goddess and co-owner of the joint, stopped by to redeem a ticket. She kindly offered me a taste of the Younger. Not bad, I thought, but definitely not worth the hype surrounding it.

I resumed my drinking/tasting. My habit at Belmont Station is to order glasses (as opposed to pints) of the most interesting beers on the tap list, which is usually pretty good there. That way I get to taste a few great beers without having to stumble out of the place.

At one point, I needed to use the restroom. Since the place was relatively busy and I wanted to keep my seat at the bar, I put a coaster over my beer. That's the universal signal for "Please don't disturb my beer" and "This seat is taken."

When I returned a few minutes later, I found a young gent glued to my seat and another gent wedged in next to him against the bar. I guess traditional bar etiquette may be lost on the younger generation of craft beer drinkers. That's not the only thing that's lost, but never mind.

The incident reminded me of a story Morrison shared with me when I was interviewing her for my book about a year ago. This was one of many Don Younger stories I heard. Few made the book, sad to say, due to the contractual word count limit. This one involved something that happened when he was at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver in some unspecified year.

When Don went to the GABF, he evidently didn't hang out much in the frat hall. He knew a lot of people in the business and liked to spend time drinking and partying with them. So he would visit his favorite places in Denver and hang out with friends..

On this particular occasion, Younger was at the Falling Rock Taphouse, a joint patterned after his own Horse Brass. Sitting in his designated seat drinking (and surely chain smoking), his throat started to bleed where he'd had an incision (apparently a tracheotomy).

Younger got up, put a coaster on top of his beer and announced he was going to the hospital to have his throat taken care of. "I'll be back," he told them.

When he returned a few hours later, his beer was gone. "What happened to my beer?" he wondered. "I told you I was coming back." No one had an answer and he wasn't happy.

Back to Belmont Station. I didn't make a big deal about the gents who commandeered my seat. I reached between them and grabbed my beer. I told them I didn't mind standing. "I've been sitting most of the day," I said. Which was true.

The point is, if you see a glass with a coaster on top of it, leave it alone...and assume the empty seat or stool is only temporarily vacant. Perhaps we should call it the Younger Rule.

Oregon Craft Beer Month: Cheers to Don Younger

July is Oregon Craft Beer month. There's plenty going on every month of the year in Oregon, but July is special. We use it to salute our thriving beer culture. It's perfectly fitting that Don Younger's birthday is in July. Don, who passed away in late 2011, would have been 72 on July 11. His legacy lives on in a big way in these parts.

I've mentioned that I never formally met Don. I saw him in action many times and just never got acquainted. But I've heard a ton or stories in connection with the book on Portland's beer history I'm finishing up. Fun stuff.

Most everyone remembers Younger when they think of the Horse Brass Pub. Don bought the place during a day (and night) of heavy drinking in 1976. He and his brother, Bill, ran it as an authentic British-style pub. The theme stuck.

The Horse Brass eventually became a haven for craft brewers and beer long before either had any standing in this town. Just ask around. Ask Kurt and Rob Widmer. Ask Karl Ockert or Dick or Nancy Ponzi. Ask Brian or Mike McMenamin. Ask Art Larrance or Fred Bowman. Don was an early craft beer convert. Brewers would meet at the Horse Brass to conduct tastings and share ideas. It was a big deal.

A lot of people probably have no idea where the idea for Oregon Craft Beer Month came from. Don Younger played a leading role. The idea was born years ago when he was talking to Lisa Morrison and others about Oregon breweries who were left out of the Oregon Brewers Festival. They came up with the idea of a Fringe Fest featuring those breweries. That became Oregon Beer Week the following year and eventually Oregon Craft Beer Month, now run by the Oregon Brewers Guild.

"Don went viral before anyone knew what it meant," says John Foyston, longtime Oregonian beer guru.  "He started Fringe Fest, Oregon Beer Week and Oregon Craft Beer Month. People somehow assume these ideas have always been out there...like craft beer. But that's not the case. Someone had to think these things up and Don was the guy who played a huge role in that."

"Don was an early supporter of craft brewers and good beer in general," recalls Alan Sprints, founder of Hair of the Dog Brewing. "Don gave me a permanent handle at his pub to pour my beer when no one else would."

In 1999, Younger partnered with Jerry Fechter of Lompoc Brewing, an arrangement that lasted until Younger's death. "I didn't know how influential Don was until I started talking to him," Fechter recalls. "He knew everyone and had been involved from the start. He liked everybody. If he didn't like you, he wouldn't tell you or let you know it."

Don's influence transcended Portland and Oregon. He became well-known around the country. There are some great stories of his exploits while on the road. But he remained down to earth. He hired people who were down on their luck and they stayed loyal for years. He loaned money to people who wanted to start a business, telling them to pay him back when they could.

It's hard to say what Portland's beer landscape would look like today without Younger's influence. We would certainly have a lot of good beer. Would we have what we have? Almost certainly not.

So mark July 11 on you calendar...and raise a toast to Don Younger. And if you happen to miss the 11th, almost any day or days in July will do. Because Oregon Craft Beer Month is a big part of Don Younger's legacy.

Cheers, Don. We wish you were here.

Don Younger's Lingering Influence on Display

Beer geeks and industry folks gathered at the Horse Brass last night to give another sendoff to legendary publican Don Younger, who passed away a year ago last week. The event was well-attended, as beer people packed the area around the back bar at the HB...and parking was scarce.

Two vices

The main event was the unveiling of a new John Foyston painting of Younger. Prior to the unveiling, Foyston tapped a Firkin of Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA for all to enjoy. Lots of mingling. Good times.

For the unknowing, another Foyston painting of Younger hangs over the mantle at Lompoc's Sidebar on North Williams. Younger was a partner in the Lompoc operation and the Sidebar painting was mounted just months before his death. When Don first saw that painting, he was shocked, but loved it, according to Foyston and Lompoc owner Jerry Fechter.

Foyston lifts a glass moments before the unveiling

The newly unveiled portrait is a painted version of a picture taken by Lisa Morrison, aka the Beer Goddess. It appropriately shows Younger drinking a beer from a glass (he's drinking from a plastic mug in the picture at Lompoc) and smoking a cigarette. His favorite vices. Morrison took the photo at Amnesia Brewing.

While we surely crossed paths many times over the years, I never formally met Don Younger. So my points of reference with him revolve around the legendary stories, which are many. I've always been drawn to the one about how he wound up owning the Horse Brass.

Fred Eckhardt and Rob Widmer enjoyed some chat time

The story is well-known. He evidently bought the place during the course of a day and night of drinking, and wasn't sure what he'd done when he discovered the bill of sale the next morning. He may have been a little groggy at the time.

After he took over, the Horse Brass would eventually become a place where players in the fledgling craft industry met to share ideas over a few beers. Some of those same folks, people like Fred Eckhardt and Rob Widmer, were on hand last night, honoring their departed friend.

This event and the people who attended it are proof of Younger's lingering and extensive influence. Without him, the Portland beer landscape would not be what it is today. Foyston's latest portrait will hang as a testament to that notion.