Heathens Build Brand, Eye Expansion

Sunny Monday was a perfect day for a quick road trip and a stopover at Heathen Brewing in Vancouver. I'd been up there several times before, most recently over a year ago. A revisit is always fun because you see progress. Heathen continues to expand its portfolio and reach.

You may recall that Heathen resides in a residential garage in rural/suburban Vancouver. Yeah, it's a little odd. Founder/owner Sunny Parsons lives in the adjacent home and has a short work commute. The area around the brewery, once heavily wooded, has been cleared and stuffed with McMansions. Progress, some might say.

A lot has changed since my initial visit in 2013. They were pretty small back then. Parsons and brewer Rodney Stryker did everything. But they made a name for the place with Transgression IPA, winner of the Battle of the Brews competition at the 2013 Oregon Brewers Festival. Since then, they've added employees. Stryker has been directing the brewing operation for more than a year.

Snooping around the brewery, I spied many more beers pouring. They've dramatically expanded the list and it covers a wide spectrum of styles. They're making a lot more beer, as well. The garage, once fairly open, is packed with fermenters. And they have five larger fermenters outside. Rodney said they have more than 200 barrels worth of fermentation space.

One of the goals they set early on was to have a pub, and they realized that goal last July with the opening of the Feral Public House in downtown Vancouver. It's an important addition because the brewery/tasting room is small and remote. The Feral House is the brewery's "best customer," I was told, consuming several dozen kegs a week.

The big surprise on my last visit was the barrel program housed in a facility near the brewery. This is Stryker's pet project and it has grown significantly. Heathen's barrel house is now home to more than 120 barrels of beer aging in wine and spirits barrels. At Rodney's suggestion, we conducted pH testing (wink) of several barrels. The program seems to be coming along nicely.

Heathen's beers are distributed by Maletis Beverage in Vancouver and by Point Blank in Portland. It isn't that hard to find their beer in bottleshops, beer bars and specialty stores on both sides of the river. Grocery and convenience stores are another matter. Current volume simply isn't sufficient to support ongoing sales in those outlets.

"The worse thing we could do right now is make the jump to stores like Fred Meyer and Safeway and then not be able to keep the shelf space filled," Stryker said. "That's a bad scenario in the short run, but it would hurt us more in the long run because buyers remember that kind of thing."

Which takes us back to the brewery, which will produce something like 2,500 barrels this year. That's a decent number, but the place is apparently woefully inefficient and takes a lot of time and effort to brew. And there's a lot of waste. Plans for a production brewery have been in the works for several years and will likely come to fruition at some point.

"I think we could probably max out at around 5,000 barrels a year where we are," Stryker said. "But I hope it doesn't come to that. We'll be in a much better position to support our growth when we have a production brewery. It's a huge investment, but something that will happen."

As documented in various publications, the Vancouver/Clark County beer scene has improved dramatically in recent times. What was once a bad joke has turned into something pretty cool. Heathen is part of that, one of a growing number of breweries that are putting Vancouver on the beer map. It was a long time coming, but seeing the progress is fun.

Not the Same Ole Couv These Days

Although I worked across the Columbia River in Vancouver for many years, I don't get up there all that often these days. The beer culture there isn't nearly as wealthy as it is in Portland. However, things are changing. The Couv is moving on up.

An evening meeting with a guy I once worked with gave me an opening to check out By the Bottle, a shop in downtown Vancouver. This place has been in business as a bottle shop for something like six years. They added a taproom more recently and it fits in well with the mission here.

The tasters

First, the taproom. It's situated up a small flight of stairs and behind the main shop. There are nine taps. Eight of those taps pour a rotating selection of fine beers, including some that are not available across the river in Portland. One tap (big pink elephant) is dedicated to a Belgian beer. The taproom is cash only.

A significantly important feature of the taproom on my visit was the barkeep, Angelo DeIeso. Angelo is the founder of Brewpublic, one of Portland's most active beer blogs. His knowledge of beer runs deep and he's good at sharing what he knows with patrons.

There's no point spending much time talking about the available beers because they are ever-changing. My favorite was Mongo Double IPA from Port Brewing in San Marcos, Calif. This beer apparently isn't available in Oregon. It's terrific. Most of the beers I tasted came from Washington and Oregon, but you never know what you'll find. There's a tap list section on the By the Bottle website...I'm not sure how often it gets updated.

Angelo pours for the crowd

As for the bottle shop, it's packed with great beer. Angelo said they have around 600 different beers in there. They come from all over the world. One of things they do at By the Bottle is keep the bulk of their inventory cold. They also do their best to protect beer from UV rays...light being one of the worst enemies of beer. All windows and lights in the store have UV filters. It's all about keeping the beer as fresh as possible.

By the Bottle is a great spot and a nice example of how the beer culture in Vancouver is evolving. Once considered a laughing stock and backwater, the Couv has made huge strides. Mt. Tabor Brewing and Salmon Creek Brewing, like By the Bottle, are both in the downtown area. That's not all.

Lapellah
There are more beer destinations not far from downtown. McMenamin's on the Columbia and Beaches come to mind. Yesterdays excursion took me to Lapellah, a restaurant and bar located in Grand Central Mall east of downtown. This place is operated by the same folks who run Roots Restaurant and Bar and 360 Pizzeria in Camas. These places are all marginally upscale.

The handle at the far left was a pleasant surprise

Lapellah isn't nominally a destination for craft beer fans. But it isn't bad. They've got six taps, as well as a selection of bottles. They had Widmer Hefeweizen, Oakshire Espresso Stout and Lompoc Proletariat Red on tap. The big surprise was finding Boneyard RPM IPA on the tap list. I know some people who feverishly search for this beer around town. Lapellah apparently has it on often. Who knew?