Only Pour the Good S**t

The Decades-Long Overnight Success of The Drake Beer Parlour

“It’s our job to only pour the good shit.“

–        Scot Blair, Craft Beer Publican/Hero

Mike Spence has never brewed beer, or even worked for a brewery. But he has the Sickness. Through a decade and a half of long nights slinging suds, building his success upon the smelly dregs of pint glasses, he still holds an unmatched reverence for the Art of Brewing. The tourists in this suddenly-hip scene are so legion it’s like a horrible, bearded joke – making it more important than ever to separate the Heroes from the Hangers-On, and pay homage where it’s due. But, like rare birds, you will have to seek them out. The true forefathers of the beer snifter are reluctant heroes.

Before I can even sit down to initiate a dialogue, Mike asks if I’ve heard about a new plot by InBev (Budweiser’s parent company) to choke hop supply to independent breweries. He recounts a story about Lagunitas’ founder purposefully misspelling label information, to stay consistent with the mistakes he made on his first print runs. He tells me—with as much ecstasy as his reserved, quiet nature can summon—that Scot Blair, bar-owner/personal-hero from San Diego, will be flying up to The Drake for an upcoming event.

When it comes to craft beer, make no mistake: Mike Spence lives, breathes, and sweats the stuff. But only the best stuff.

In 1989 Mike made his way out West, to Vancouver from Charlottetown, PEI. Soon after, he was waiting for the ferry in Horseshoe Bay, Nanaimo-bound. He entered a bar and ordered what he calls ‘the bad beer of my youth.’ Beside him at the bar, the Prototypical Old Timer snarled at him, “You don’t want to drink that shit.” It turns out the ‘shit’ he should have been drinking, in one portentous curmudgeon’s opinion, was Hermann’s Dark Lager (VI Brewery.) This wasn’t a clichéd epiphany–the light bulb didn’t magically switch on overhead, there and then—it was more of a clichéd seed, planted firmly in a young traveler’s mind, that would come to bear fruit much, much later…

Thirteen years later, in fact. On February 2^nd, 2002, to be exact. Because that’s when the Knockanback Grill opened its doors, at Wilkinson and Interurban roads in Saanich, under the proprietorship of Mike and Lee Spence (Mike’s partner in marriage/business/crime.) Initially a stalwart outpost for the ‘bad beer’ of Mike’s shameful past, the Knockanback clientele began leaning toward a handful of the emerging local brews.

Back in the day, this was not only a question of taste – local beer was comparatively expensive. And local brewers were not able to meet the ‘incentives’ (legal or otherwise…mostly otherwise) that Big Beer was able to put on the table for bar owners and managers. This was a pivotal moment for the Spences. As a fledgling local pub, with everything on the line, moving away from the economic and generic safety of Big Beer was a bold and potentially disastrous move. It’s difficult to understand the gravity of such a decision now. But ultimately, the budgetary shoestring that Mike was operating under became his guiding hand—he could relate to those cash-starved local breweries, and this tapped into an innate sense of responsibility to support them wherever possible.

Spoiler: the shift in direction went quite well. The taps at Knockanback expanded from five to sixteen. The line-up grew overwhelmingly Island-oriented. The lonely mass-produced domestic lagers went stale in the lines. And when the idea of a second location seemingly fell into their laps, it was a no-brainer to pull the trigger. So they did. Years and years and years ago. But the Colwood Corners development – which sat overgrown with Scotch Broom and wilting rebar for almost a decade – is the remnants of that ‘golden opportunity.’ Broken landlord’s promises, and being retrospectively stretched too thin, led to their decision to step away from the industry entirely, and take a self-imposed break to re-evaluate their direction.

When Mike describes his ‘happy place’ you can see him retreat there, mentally. Cannon Beach, Oregon. It’s his place to “clear your brain…find space…peace…” and though it’s by no means a Beer Destination, “you don’t have to be in Portland to get great beer down there [in the US.]” This was 2012, and although the momentum for craft beer here on the Island was trending towards its current velocity, it was still such a different scene South of the Border: “Victoria, or Canada even, was still deep in the IPA phase, but even local restaurants [down the West Coast] had ambers, pilseners, stouts, sours…they were like wine and tapas bars, but with beer.” And Mike and Lee hadn’t even hit the Big Smoke of the major PNW cities yet…

That’s where they honed their inspiration. “Every city had some kind of version of this [waves his hands around the bar of The Drake]: small, creative, fresh menu. No hard-bar. Little-to-no wine.” And yet Victoria did not. Now the Spence’s had found their niche, the Real Work began: business plans, investors, venues, leasehold improvements, etc. A year, and a metric ton of perseverance later, everything was coming together. And then—sitting around the house one afternoon, the stresses of the project fading, and with a clean bill of health—Mike had a massive heart attack.

Not that there’s ever ‘good timing’ for a quadruple bypass, but in the closing months of a new venture…not ideal. Despite a superhuman recovery (February surgery, June assisting with construction), I suggest to him that this must have slowed the project. He motions toward Lee (busy as usual, sleeves up clearing tables and helping support the staff) and trails off a sentence: “Lee was…wow…” And I can only imagine—nurse, support group, CEO, project manager… I asked Mike to describe their business relationship: “I’m the nutty ideas. Lee makes it work.”

And their latest nutty idea seems to have tapped a vein. The place is jammed far more often than not. Their ‘five-year-plan’ became a ‘two-years-in-and we-need-a-new-plan’ plan. What’s the secret formula? Mike laughs it off, humble as usual: “We wanted casual, comfortable. But it gets serious when you talk about the product.” So serious that the rooms are void of distraction – no TV’s, no flashy décor. There’s definitely a ‘living room’ atmosphere; if your living room poured the finest beers available on the Left Coast. Mike calls it “authenticity.”

There’s been a noticeable “owner/operator energy” in all his favourite beer haunts, that he has strived to replicate. And you can’t deny that he has succeeded, despite some initial customer pushback. The self-service at the bar, lack of hard liquor and limited wine options, caused issues for some of Victoria’s more ‘culturally entrenched’ and highly vocal customer base. I will leave you with Mike’s response, and my favourite of his many softly spoken, highly insightful, humbly presented quotes: “You go to a pizza joint for pizza. Not Chinese food.”