Super Owl Brewery
Posted By Chris Machold, Nov 27, 2017
When a King Hall student imagines the life of a UC Davis School of Law alum, there are various images that come to mind: a desk stacked with files, an extensive client list, and a corner office on the top floor of some building downtown. They are probably wearing a blazer or suit coat, working steadily away as a fervent advocate for their client as the day ticks along. In most cases, the image is correct; after all, King Hall students go to law school to become lawyers. Even so, every so often, someone imagines their life differently, and trails off the beaten track to follow a different dream. In the West Lake Shopping Center, in West Davis, just a minute’s drive off of Covell and next to establishments like Chuy’s Taqueria and Lamppost Pizza lies such a place. There, a new brewery is celebrating its second month of business. On a Saturday at 1:00 p.m. on a cool November day, the sleek storefront is entertaining a dozen or so guests with over a half-dozen beer choices (see http://www.superowlbrewing.com/beer/). A King Hall alum sits at a wooden picnic table indoors with a child in her lap. She owns and operates Super Owl Brewing, Davis’ fourth and newest brewery, along with her husband. By all appearances, she is living the life. Super Owl is the sort of brewery that would fit in a lot of places on the West Coast. It sits in an unassuming shopping center in West Davis, alongside a handful of other family-owned businesses. Its beer menu is written in chalk, is adorned with a selection of tall and picnic bench-esque tables, and its walls are made of chalkboard material and scrawled with images and phrases by adults and children alike. Rather than traditional pints, they serve their beer in cute custom jars, and rather than having beer in growlers, they have “owlers.” A native of Portland or Boise could easily walk in and forget they had ever driven southward into California. And this is unsurprising, perhaps, because Rachel and Joey Vida met while undergraduates at Portland’s own Lewis & Clark College. With the humble but hip setup and evergreen trees visible from the windows, it provides a family and student-friendly atmosphere where one could share a pint with friends or dissect the latest midterm. Co-owner Joey grew up in the Sacramento area, and met Rachel in college. A year after they graduated, they moved to the Central Valley. Before entering law school, Rachel took advantage of her proximity to Sacramento by working in environmental lobbying. Like many King Hall students, she carried her passion for environmental law into law school. Neither Rachel or Joey had operated a brewery before September of this year, but neither is new to the industry. As a 1L (a first year law student), Rachel joined the King Hall Wine Law Society. Soon after, she took a 1L summer job at Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty, a wine law firm in the United States’ wine capital, nearby Napa Valley. Like many future microbrewers, Joey took up homebrewing. They didn’t stay in Davis for long. After graduating, Rachel followed a job offer down to San Diego, where she worked in probate and environmental litigation. “Somehow,” she remarked, “I always ended up doing litigation.” But Rachel and her husband never forgot Davis. When they wanted to focus on starting a family a few years later, they remembered how ideal her university town had been for starting a family. In time, Joey and Rachel became residents of West Davis, blocks from the eventual home of their joint venture. When they investigated whether Davis had a need for another brewery, they noticed that West Davis didn’t have one. It was a problem they sought to fix. King Hall students often encounter the ferocious loyalty of alums toward the law school, even decades after graduation. Rachel reflected on something similar while sitting in Super Owl, attributing the feeling toward the people who study there. As we spoke, a King Hall alumna was serving customers behind the bar. When I spoke with her, she pointed to another woman sitting with Rachel. “We’re both King Hall alums, too,” she said. As it turns out, the trio graduated the same year: 2006. But moreover, they were members of the same 1L section. The other two women practice in the area and in their free moments, they or their spouses (along with other King Hall alums) volunteer to help their classmate and friend keep the new brewery running. Rachel returned to the closeness of their graduating class a handful of times. One of the alumnae, Katy Cotter, represents California State Parks. She mentioned that friends and classmates of theirs had been supportive throughout the first two months of Super Owl’s operation, coming from as far as the Bay Area to drink Mr. J, the brewery’s most popular IPA, and support a fellow Aggie. Rachel recounted a funny story of such a time, when a tall, thin classmate nicknamed “Fat Tony” hung out with them and tried Joey’s homebrew. He had used the nickname before, writing it on a cold-calling card in Con Law their 1L year. The homebrew was a hit and Joey promised to name it after him when their brewery opened. Now, a 7.1 ABV saison sits on their menu. Its name? “Fat Tony.” Throughout the interview, Rachel was clear that while not currently practicing law, she was proud of her King Hall education. In fact, she said it had continued to come in handy. In making her point, she cited the various state and federal licenses, in addition to all the taxes, that the Vidas had had to navigate while opening Super Owl. “It’s all about speaking the language,” she said, also noting that their business lawyer was, yet again, a member of the King Hall Class of 2006. Joey also continues to work as a financial analyst, meaning that the duo carried into their new project a depth of both legal and financial experience. Rachel hasn’t forgotten her old law school. She has entertained eventually doing more work in craft beer law, or perhaps working for a judge. She also noted the expansion of both beer and wine law as a field of practice, and offered some tips for current Aggies. For those seeking to practice wine and beer law or even seeking to follow her path into microbrewing, she recommended courses in Property Law, Real Estate Law, Environmental Law, and Business Associations. Beyond that, she left a general word of advice: “[h]ave a good time, and keep in touch with friends.” The volume of support from her classmates suggests that she lived those words of advice, too. Long-term, the Vidas hope to continue molding Super Owl Brewing into a place that locals and students can visit “just to hang out,” a model of brewery that has risen in popularity in college towns like Davis. They are open Wednesday-Friday, 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Saturday, noon to 9:00 p.m. They serve a host of brews ranging from IPAs and double-IPAs to stouts and saisons, and they don’t skimp on the alcohol content: the lightest beer at the moment is a 6.2 ABV American Pale Ale, and the heaviest is an 8.7 ABV double-IPA. While they don’t serve food, guests are invited to bring in food from Chuy’s Taqueria and Lamppost Pizzeria, two of their fellow tenants in the complex and favorite Aggie destinations. And for studious Aggies, Super Owl does provide wireless internet access to paying guests.