An interview with Rock Bottom's Van Havig

Portland Rock Bottom Brewing's head brewer Van Havig is also the president of the Oregon Brewer’s Guild. At the state's only Rock Bottom location, Havig handcrafts brews for a bustling downtown off the Max Line at SW 2nd and Morrison. At the Oregon Brewer's Guild,a non-profit trade association of self-proclaimed S.N.O.B.s (Supporters of Native Oregon Beer,) Havig and company have an objective of upholding the quality and integrity of local brews. Their stance is “advocating more progressive laws and regulations concerning beer and brewing; and fostering communication and networking between all members of the beer and brewing community.” In recent times, this has meant challenging a series of tax proposals that would seriously be a detriment to the Oregon brewing community, especially its brewers. I spoke with Havig this week as he discussed his experience in the brewing industry, some sobering issues at hand for Oregon brewer’s and the Oregon Brewer’s Guild, and talked about one of his favorite beers.

How long have you been brewing at Rock Bottom?

VH: Twelve years. I started in Minneapolis in 1995 and brewed there for a year and a half. Then I brewed in Bethesda, MD for four years then came to Portland in June 2000.



How has the Portland Rock Bottom differed from the other locations?

VH: The biggest difference, honestly is time. At the Rock Bottom in Minneapolis, I was working there in 1995. That was when craft beer was the sexiest thing there was. Probably the height of it was ‘95-’96. There were two of us and we were making a ton of beer. We were kids, 25 years old. We were doing 2,300 barrels (bbl) of beer a year by ourselves. It was nuts and it was a lot of fun. Maryland was a very different story. The brewery there wasn’t doing nearly the same amount of business. (In Maryland) we did about 1,500 bbl a year on average during the four years I was there. But I built that brewery. So I was very emotionally invested in that brewery and that brewery was pretty much my brewery because I helped build it. And the beer scene in the Mid-Atlantic, though everybody thinks is crap, is actually really good. If you just go to the regular bars, there’s a crap beer selection, but the pubs…there’s fantastic, fantastic brewpubs in the Mid-Atlantic. They’re great and make a great range of beers. I am really glad I spent four years in Maryland even though I wasn’t personally all that happy there. But I met a lot of awesome people and learned a lot of great things there. It was really good for my career as far as I’m concerned.

Here in Portland, things are just different. There’s sooo many breweries whereas the brewing community in the Mid-Atlantic was pretty closeknit. We were all kind of personally closeknit in a sense. We all knew each other and hung out. Here (in Portland), I’m friends with a lot of brewers, but there’s more of a professional closeknit nature. Brewer’s here, they don’t do the same kind of stuff. In Maryland, there were a lot of really different things going on in different breweries. I really enjoy brewing here and being a part of the Oregon brewing community. It’s a bunch of great people. The really great thing in Portland is that we’re nothing special. That’s fantastic! We’re just beer here. We’re not some bunch of kooks, like “Oh my god, you make beer! That’s craaazy!” We’re a normal part of the landscape. I think that’s great because that means we as craft brewers have won here. This is our town. We’re normal here.



Where are you from originally?

VH: I grew up in North Orange County, California. Yeah, its exciting (sarcastic). I left when I was 18 and never went back.



What got you into the craft brewing trade?

VH: I did a little, tiny bit of homebrewing in college. But it was really a little. The tiniest little bit. Maybe twice. It was nothing. After college, I went to grad school. In grad school, I had this gigantic income of $9,000 a year. That was in Minnesota, and it turned out to be cheaper to make your own beer than to buy it (laughs). So I kinda got into it Canadian-style. Professionally, I starting brewing because I dropped out of grad school and I didn’t have a job. I thought about being a mechanic and I thought about getting into brewing. I ended up getting into brewing. That was in January ’95. That was at Minnesota Brewing Company which was an old Schmidt plant from the turn of the Century. We had the Pete’s contract at the time and we made beers for the Minnesota/Upper-Midwest market like Grain Belt, Landmark, and an awful lot of Pete’s Wicked Ale…like 400,000 bbl. The brewery’s the size of what the (Portland) Blitz-Weinhard plant used to be. Pretty big.



How long have you been involved with the Oregon Brewer’s Guild?

VH: I’ve been involved with the Guild since I moved back here in 2000. That was just as a brewery member. I got elected to the board of directors in January 2005. Then they conned me into being the president a couple months ago (January 2007). We had our first meeting with the new board and John Harris (brewmaster, Full Sail Brewing), who was the outgoing president said “Who’s gonna be president?” And Kurt Widmer (owner, founder Widmer Brothers Brewing) said “Van’s gonna be president” and John said “I second that!” and Fred Bowman (founder of Portland Brewing Company and the Oregon Brewers’ Festival) said, yes I’m in. And I started saying “Woah! Woah! Woah! Hold on! What’s going on here?!” But they talked me into it so…

How has being president of the Oregon Brewers Guld been so far?

VH: It’s been a little bit hectic to tell you the truth. We have a guild director, Brian Butenschoen, a paid employee. As president, I work closely with the guild director on guild business. You make sure the director is working on things the board thinks he should be working on. We set out a set of initiatives and tasks and I make sure he's doing those. We just hired a PR firm for the first time ever and we are embarking on a longterm branding of Oregon beer. Not to the beer public, but to the general public. Not preaching to the choir anymore. We’re done with that. We have a marketing committee and there’s a tax fight going on right now with five bills in front of the legislature al to raise taxes. There are five or six guild members going down (to Salem) to testify in front of the House Revenue Committee. It’s been hectic in that sense right now. There’s a lot going on. There’s constant emails and phone calls to deal with.

This proposed beer tax is a hot topic in the Oregon brewing community. What is the status of this tax and what is the likelihood of it passing or not?

VH: Well, let me break the bills into a couple general categories. There’s one, maybe two bills that are trying to tax beer in order to fund substance abuse programs. They are trying to say essentially that meth is our problem and we (the brewing community) should pay for it. These bills also believe that increasing beer taxes is going to reduce underage drinking, which is, of course ridiculous. Some of these proposals are insane in terms of the amount of money they want to charge. One of them wants to raise the beer tax from $2.60 to $34.60 per barrel. It would make Oregon’s beer tazes easily the highest in the country. It’s just ridiculous. The other group of bills is looking to increase beer taxes as a way to fund state troopers and maybe a few other things, but mainly state troopers. The real problem is that the legislature right now is all hot to give beer and wine wholesalers a spanking because of the whole Hawaii trip thing. They think the way to do it is to increase beer taxes, but all it is really going to do is hurt Oregon brewers. (These tax proponents) have a very poor understanding of the mechanism of what the tax will do. It’s kind of frustrating.

Do you think the proponents of these taxes drink bad beer?

VH:Most of these proponents, or some of them, don’t drink. Period. Some of the proponents of the state trooper tax, and I don’t at all mean this in a bad way, are from Southern and Eastern Oregon. I can’t blame them completely because all politicians worry about their local constituencies, and there aren’t a lot of significant brewing industries there. I don’t blame them for not being aware of brewing’s full economic impact on the state. There’s not a whole lot of breweries there. There’s a few in Ashland, etc, but they’re small. Though they are important, I wouldn’t consider them major contributors to the Southern economy. I mean, if the five or six breweries close down there, I don’t think Southern Oregon’s economy is going to collapse. However, some individuals and families would be hurting horribly. I don’t really know what (the tax proponents) drink. I don’t have a clue. Their constituencies definitely aren’t affected in the same way as ours.

What is it like as a craft brewer working for a Rock Bottom, a national chain brewery? How much artistic control do you have?

VH: Rock Bottom as a greater brewery is probably one of the most misconceived breweries in the entire country. The false concept is that we are some sort of McBrew and that there are corporate recipes where everyone is doing the same thing. Yahdeeyahdeeyahda… The truth is the exact opposite of that. We have 36 or 37 breweries in the company. There are maybe five or six beers that are brewed at more than one location. And if they are brewed at more than one location, it’s maybe only three locations. Basically, every one has their own beers and the reason for that is simple. The craft brew market is not homogenous across the country. What sells as a good line-up in Massachusetts is just not the same as in Oregon or SoCal or Arizona or Colorado. So all the breweries, for the most part, do their own beer and we have a lot of freedom there.

What did you bring to Oregon’s Rock Bottom Brewery?

VH: I had a whole line-up of beers in Maryland and I didn’t bring asingle one of them here. I came here realizing Maryland is a different brewing community and a different market than Oregon. When I got here, the (Portland, Oregon Rock Bottom’s) wheat beer I kept essentially the same with the exception of changes in hop crop year. It’s pretty much the same as it was ten years ago. It’s a fantastic beer and its does everything right. But all the rest of the beers here have either been beers that I’ve developed or there’s a few specialties that come on annually that my assistant will do. My ego is not enormously tied up in whether I came up with a recipe for a beer or not. I am much, much more concerned about making the beer correctly and having high quality beer than I am with “Ooh, I get to say this one’s mine!” Ten years ago that was a big deal for me. I’ve ben brewing a long time now and that’s not what’s important to me anymore. The beer’s important, not my name associated with it.

Still, the brewery here is quite proud of you as its brewmaster. Your name and signature appears on their growler to-go jugs. How does that make you feel?

VH: It’s all embarrassing corporate crap to tell you the truth. Honestly, that’s all corporate mandated promotional BS. But I would say that it makes me feel good that the staff here is proud of the beer here. It’s important to have the people who work with you support you and believe what we’re doing here in the brewery for all kinds of reasons. It gives them a sense of ownership and pride and place in working here even if they don’t make beer here. It’s also good for beer sales and when customers come in here. If your server is proud of the beer, they’ll let the customer know. And that’s really important stuff. I’m glad I personally don’t have to sell beer, but…

Any highlights for new and upcoming beers at Rock Bottom?

VH: One of my all-time favorite beers is coming up on tap on May 17, which if you don’t know is Norwegian National Day, a very important day. We’re tapping a saison. I really love beer and this is my profession, but my beer geekdom is in a very narrow slot, and saison is one of a couple beers that I always get very excited about. I’m also a big fan of kolsch and we’re tapping one on June 21. Honestly, those are two of my favorite beers all year.

How do you define a saison, since it is kind of a broad definition of a beer genre?


Rock Bottom's Porter

VH: That’s actually a really good question. To be honest with you, everytime I brew a saison, I’m aiming at a very narrow target. DuPont (Belgian brewery) to me is thee saison brewery. And though I don’t use DuPont’s yeast strain, I’m aiming for the kind of balance and flavor range in general that DuPont beers have. I think they’re one of the greatest breweries. Saisons are a straw to deep gold color; very effervescent. The flavor is predominantly yeast strain derived. I think the malt isn’t particularly important. It’s important, but not a major driving factor in the beer. The hops in a saison are optional regarding the intensity, but I personally try to get them as grassy as I can. The main part of the beer is an estery and phenolic yeast strain drive that makes it fruity, peppery, and peppermint spicy. The floral hoppy spiciness at the end cleans it up and makes it crisp. That’s what I really like about it. I never spice my saisons...ever…EVER!

What words of wisdom would you offer to an aspiring brewer?

VH: This is a mean question. I really, really firmly believe this: Portland is a great town. It’s a fantastic town. It’s hands down my favorite city in the country. It’s a great town to be a brewer in. The problem is, every aspiring brewer in the country knows that. And I would say that even though there are a lot of breweries here and a lot of brewing jobs, they happen to almost all be taken. The problem is that you have a great number of people in this tiny town who are trying to be a brewer than probably anywhere else in the country. My honest advice: Move somewhere else. I’m dead serious. If you really, really want to do this, you have to make a decision: Do you want to do this, or do you want to live in Portland? I moved here in 1988 and got lucky enough to move back. But the fact of the matter is, you can get a job much easier in the Mid-Atlantic, probably much easier in a place like Chicago or Minnesota, or places like that where there are breweries, but it’s not the coolest thing in the world and everyone doesn’t think about beer all the time. It’s tough. It’s really, really tough to get a job in this town. It’s brutal! I tell people all the time to go to D.C. There’s a bunch of freakin’ breweries (there) and nobody thinks it’s cool to be a brewer…no-bo-dy! Everyone thinks its cool to work on the Hill or be a lobbiest or work for an NGO or be an engineer or work for a software company. Nobody freakin’ wants to be in brewing, therefore, if you really want to do it, you can get a job. I’m not trying to be a jerk. That’s the truth. It’s not like I started in Portland. I started in Minnesota and went to Maryland.