Camp Colvos Brewing and Pizza

Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down for a pint with Matt Lawrence, owner, founder, and brewer at Camp Colvos Brewing and Pizza.  We had a great chat about how this all got started, his take on NY Style pizza, and what’s next for CC.

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Byron Pullen: So, what came first: the beer or the pizza?

Matt Lawrence: Beer came first. I’ve always wanted to brew beer.  About seven or eight years ago now I was talking with a friend who said he was going to brew that weekend and I asked if I could tag along.  The second that I smelled the grain hit the water… that was it.  This is the rest of my life.

BP: So the beer here, are those your recipes and are you doing the brewing?

ML: Yeah.  For the first two and a half to three years I was brewing with a couple of guys and we’d do sort of a rotation.  I’d come up with the recipes and we’d test them out and work on them together, collaboratively.  As of a couple of months ago, we have a head brewer now and he’s sort of taken the reins.  He brewed this Kellerbier – he wanted to do it, so he did it, he came up with the recipe; I get to see it and make any comments, but usually my comments are also his comments!

BP: A lot of times people will ask me about good pizza places in the area, in addition to good breweries and beer, so tell me how that came about and has that always been a passion for you too?

ML: No, that’s a recent passion.  My friend Mike McConnell, who has Big Mario’s in Seattle, lives on the island and has a pizza shop “O Sole Mio”.  Me being from Chicago I had never had NY Style pizza before until I moved to Seattle and went to Big Mario’s on Cap Hill and had a slice of that.  I was like, “Woah – what is this!?  I love this!”  After that, I couldn’t be in a five-mile radius without going.  I feel like that’s how some people are with this place now.  So when I told Mike that we were doing this project he said ‘you have to do pizza’.  I said I don’t know pizza and he said he would ‘tell me everything you need to know’ about it.  So I started working for free at his shop on Vashon and I started doing dough and making pizzas and I was getting tons of experience.  Kendra, who is inside working right now, also trained there.  I paid for her to work over there so that when we did open here, we were both ready to roll.

BP: Being from Chicago then, is there any thought of changing things up, expanding the options at all, or is it ‘New York or bust’?

ML: No, I don’t think so.  What I like about slices is the speed and efficiency of it.  It may be fun to do a one-off Chicago style some night, but what I see at both the taproom on Vashon and also here [at the downtown location] in terms of the business, volume is what’s important and I wouldn’t want to constrict the volume for costs.  Chicago-style pizzas are pushing $45 or $50, maybe even more now I don’t know it’s been so long since I’ve had one, but I love that I can get you a slice for $4.50, And 200 of your friends!  And we can do that all day long.

BP: Since you brought up volume, what do the pizza numbers look like on average for you here?

ML: Well I just did a double batch for Saturday and we’ll use all of it.

BP: So like a hundred and something pies a day or..?

ML: Um, we go through 50 bags of flour a month; A pallet of flour each month. It’s a big business and our vendors are telling us that we’re going through a lot!

BP: Ok!  Now how about where the beer is concerned?  I don’t think I’ve seen Camp Colvos beer anywhere around town, so is distribution on the horizon or something you’re thinking about getting into?

ML: Before we opened this shop, we used to be in a few spots in Seattle and Tacoma, but once we opened this spot it’s just not possible.  We’re going through everything we make and I don’t see why we need to change that up right now.  In the summer we do sell kegs to weddings and that kind of stuff, which is tough but I love to support the community and I’m glad that people want it.

BP: So if anybody is interested and wants to try your beer, they have to come here.

ML: They’ve got to come here.

BP: And with the slices here there’s no reason not to!

ML: Exactly.

BP: I know people listening or reading this can’t see where we are right now, but it couldn’t be more beautiful out here on the patio on a day like today.

ML: Yeah, and in the winter we have these roll-up awnings and fireplaces. It’s a pretty charming place in the winter too.

BP: Can you talk a bit more about the passion and the beer side of things for folks looking to get a great beer and meet some cool people?

ML: I’ll say that we have 18 beers on tap right now and we have another one lined up for when one blows.  And what I hear from people consistently is that there’s not a bad beer in the lot.  That’s kind of rare to hear about with a brewery, especially one as small as us, to have that many styles, that different.  We have a handful of IPAs but they’re all unique, you would not think you’re drinking another one when you put one next to it.  Plus it’s also rare to have the variety of lagers that we have, and that’s something that we really try to focus on.  Like this Kellerbier is different than the pilsner, not just in the grain build, but in the hops and how the recipe comes together and the balance of it all.

BP: And that shows. When I got here and I was ordering I was looking at all the new taps since I was here last.  Sure you have the IPAs and a hazy option, but then you’ve got a farmhouse style and I need to try that sour cherry saison!

ML: It’s delicious. 18 months aged in a barrel.

BP: I’m into that.  That’s very cool.

ML: I’m really happy with how that turned out!  That is a risky beer, not only the time, but the double-fermentation, the fruit, the barrels that we use… there’s so much that could go wrong.  But this is so on point.  I feel like this really hits it.

BP: Is there anything down the road or another beer that you haven’t done yet that you’d like to?  I see a lot of crazy beers out there and you say that you took a risk with the sour, so is there some unicorn out there that has you wanting to try “X”?

ML: Ooh wow, great question.  No one has asked me that before so, well done.  We all, Brian, the brewer, and Nate, the other brewer, and I all like drinking pilsners.  So I think I would say like an Italian pilsner.  I just think it would go really well with the food here.  You know what went really well here before actually was a nut brown ale we did.

BP: Oh!  Outside of Newcastle or maybe Samuel Smith I don’t see many brown ales around.

ML: And all of them are too sweet. If you actually make it just a little drier, it’s an awesome food beer.  We sold like gangbusters, online and in-house.  But anyway, I think an Italian pilsner, something that we can do in-house and at volume all the time and can and get behind, I think that would be really neat.

BP: Alright – very cool!  Is there anything else that you’d like to share about Camp Colvos brewery on Vashon or the taproom and pizza place here?

ML: Two things.  All of us here or on Vashon are driven by hospitality.  Wanting to create a space where people feel welcome and like it’s a place for refreshment.  I hire that way, we talk that way, we work that way.  Sometimes it’s tough in the face of being busy or stressed or difficult customers, but that’s where we’re all at and I love the team that we have and the 25 employees.  Then the second is the specialness around why I think the pizza is what it is and how it’s different than we were trained on it.  We use a sourdough starter and it naturally ferments for at least two, but we try to shoot for three days, in the fridge.  We could cheat and do one-day dough, but you lose out on flavor and chewiness and presentation in the exchange for time.

BP: I can certainly speak to that given the fair share of slices I’ve had from here!  But I said I’d keep it short so I’ll end with that and let you get back to your day.

ML: Thank you for doing this and I’ve got to go do another batch of dough now!