The Oregonian’s Q&A with Assembly Brewing Company owner, George Johnson

Three years ago this month, George Johnson introduced Oregon to three things: Assembly Brewing’s beers, his Detroit pizza recipe, and a Black brewery owner.

Each posed its own set of challenges. But one thing the first-time business owner didn’t realize he’d need to take on as well: COVID-19. Assembly, like all other breweries, bars and restaurants, was shut down for a long period and had to adjust its business approach to survive.

But the Southeast Portland brewery has made it to the three-year mark, and the customers are back. This month Assembly celebrates an anniversary for the first time, rolling its first, second and third year celebrations into one. On Wednesday, its anniversary date of March 23, Assembly will have a celebratory happy hour from 11 to 9 p.m. at the pub, 6112 S.E. Foster Road, with more information at its website.

We sat down with Johnson to discuss what has happened, what’s going on now at Assembly, and what the future holds. His answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q. Tell us about the progress you’ve made these past three years at Assembly. How’s it going?

It’s going great. We’ve been getting awesome reviews, awesome feedback. It’s always great to have old friends tell me that people that I don’t know are telling them, Hey, have you ever checked out this place Assembly? And they’re like, yeah! So it’s not just the people that I know, it’s getting around so other people are telling my friends about it. So popularity wise, it’s growing. We had to get into self-distribution so that was a huge change. We’ve gotten some more technical equipment in the lab and in the brewery, so we’re able to do better quality control and quality assurance. We’re working on (signing with) a distributor. We’re in Market of Choice now, and we’re green-lighted for New Seasons.

Q. What’s new in the brewhouse, and how have you evolved?

A lot of experiments. When you first start off with any brewhouse, it’s a big learning curve. And so the first-off recipes, they came out how they came out. So it’s like, OK, now what do I have to do to change it. So every batch was a little bit of an improvement. Sometimes switching out ingredients. We’ve gotten a dissolved oxygen meter, we can use that to see how much oxygen is in the tanks before we put the beer in. It just really helps, because the major spoiler of beer is oxygen. We hired a brewer, Jacob Hutter. He’s great, he also went to brewing school, and it’s great to have another brewer to be able to speak the same language and shoot ideas off of. We’ve worked really well together.

Q. Will you tell me about 3 Times Anniversary IPA, the latest out of the brewhouse?

This is our anniversary ale, and since we were shut down for our first and second anniversaries, this is our first anniversary ale and our first second and third anniversary acknowledgement. So this features three malts, Pilzen, Maris Otter and Vienna, and three hops, Strata, estate grown Comet from Crosby Hop Farm – actually all three of the hops are from Crosby here in the Willamette Valley – and the third hop is Zappa.

Q. What challenges of owning and operating a brewery did you not expect?

COVID. Yeah everything was going great (laughs). Also, when we finally got to doing self-distribution, I never thought it was going to be easy. But one of the reasons we didn’t do it was because I knew it was going to be a whole other three jobs and it was already a daunting task in Portland three years ago to try to get shelf space (in stores). But then once COVID hit, everyone had to go to packaging, and now you have these established breweries and they might have eight different brands in one store. How do I get my two brands in? So it was a horrible time to try to start doing self-distribution. Also, labor. Minimum wage went up twice since the quarantine, and of course if the bottom wage gets raised they all get raised. We weren’t open for more hours because we couldn’t find the labor. Second is the supply chain. Just last week our main to-go container doubled in price, that on top of the many times it had previously gone up in price. That type of stuff is going on with most items. You mix those factors plus limited hours and the fact that many people felt unsafe about going out, and you have a real problem. And what I didn’t know was how many programs I would have to learn. Our brewery management software, Adobe suite, Office, the point of sale and others create a never-ending learning curve.

Q. Was there a point when you thought you might not make it, and how did you get through?

Yes. Pretty much in quarantine, when I was unemployed, and all my savings was wrapped up in the brewery and I realized pretty quickly I was pretty screwed. Yeah, that was a scary time for sure. We got through with PPP (Paycheck Protection Program). Got some loans and grants from the government. I was able to get some staff back in. PPP was definitely a life-saver.

Q. Does being Oregon’s only Black owner of a brewery affect you in any way?

It’s a lot of pressure. I feel like as a brewer in Portland if you’re not doing it right you shouldn’t be there. But as the only Black-owned brewery, it’s like I’m representing all possibilities of what a Black person can do in this industry, and if I screw up, then it’s like, oh Black people can’t do this. So I’ve got the weight of everyone’s perception of what a Black-owned brewery could be on my shoulders, which is not the best feeling, especially during COVID times. It was already really stressful, but then to have that extra pressure of, I have no choice but to succeed, which was already the case because I’d be broke and homeless otherwise, but yeah, failure isn’t an option.

Q. The craft brewing industry has faced criticism as being white-male dominated. Do you see that in Portland?

I see it in Portland because it is white-male dominated, but I also see things like SheBrew. I don’t know how many cities have something like that. The Oregon Brewers Guild just started a program, Mashing Barriers, which is helping underrepresented people get into the industry and doing an internship at established breweries. And I think that’s great. I know it was really hard for me to get into it, and I’m not going to say it was because of racism, but there were just a lot less breweries in the ‘90s, and yeah, a lot of people wanted to work in them. And the schooling wasn’t as accessible or as well known. There wasn’t hardly the internet. So trying to figure out where to go to school – I didn’t know there was a brewing school until ya know, 2000. (Johnson talked about getting started in the business for our 2019 Portland Breweries Series.)

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Q. What would help bring people of color into brewing?

The answer might just be having open spaces where people feel welcome. What I hear from people is, maybe they walk into a space and the record stops and everyone looks. It’s just making a space welcome. The products will speak for themselves, and if you like it you like it and if you don’t you don’t. But it’s been proven that there’s plenty of Black people who love beer. Going to the Brewers Association’s Craft Brewers Conference last year, there were a lot of classes about inclusion and a lot of speakers talking about what breweries do to make people feel more welcome. That’s a good start, but it’s just up to individual people.

Q. Where is Portland on that continuum?

That’s a loaded question because A) Portland doesn’t have a ton of Black people to begin with. B) The historically Black neighborhoods have gotten gentrified and people have gotten pushed out. I don’t even know where to find some people anymore. Like, do they live in Gresham? There is no centralized Black community necessarily, not as much as there used to be. In a place where there isn’t a huge percentage of Black people to begin with, it’s a really hard question to answer – how to get more Black people into it. It’s just a much larger question of, let’s start with getting Black people into the city and keeping them in the city and not pushing them out of the city. It starts there, then we can talk about getting them into the brewing industry.

Q. How’d you get involved in selling your beer at Black Rose Market?

Keith the owner actually approached us. It might have actually been right before we had done our first canning. He came by and was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got this store and I’d like to carry your beer.’ Well, we don’t have a way to do that yet. But we’re working on it. So actually it was him and Green Zebra, they were the first ones to have the beer.

Q. What are you excited about coming up here at Assembly?

We’re working on hooking up with a distributor, so that’s pretty exciting. We get out into more spaces and to get known a little more. We invested in some larger tanks to be able to handle the capacity that that will probably bring on. And just being open, just having people back in here enjoying themselves. And starting March 7 we’re open for lunch seven days a week for the first time since pre-COVID. So that’s huge. But also I’m slowly but surely looking forward to opening up a second spot.

Q. Any place in mind yet?

No. I’ve looked at a couple spots but the time’s not quite right, but I’m keeping my eyes peeled. I think Northeast Portland? That’s where I have plans from the business plan to do it, but if something else opens up and I can’t say no to it, then I’m open.

Q. What do your patrons love about Assembly Brewing?

They love the atmosphere. They love that it’s a mellow place, a chill place. We do get some blowback, but I think a lot of people, even the parents, like the fact that it’s 21 and over. It’s a great place for date night. We have a lot of teacher meetings here. There needs to be a spot that you can have beer and pizza in an adult environment.

Q. What do you see in your crystal ball in 10 years for George Johnson and Assembly Brewing?

Just a couple pubs, and local distribution still. I don’t feel it’s necessary to be a regional brewery or a national, for that matter. This industry and where it’s at right now, and why it got to where it is, is because there were localized markets, and I’m fine being a Portland brewery. And maybe hopefully having a lot more days off.

— Andre Meunier; [email protected]; sign up for my weekly newsletter Oregon Brews and News, and follow me on Instagram, where I’m @oregonianbeerguy