Q&A: Vee Vee's Dan Valachovic on local beer

[Editor's note: This story originally ran in October 2010. Even columnists get a vacation sometimes, so enjoy this archive edition of "Homegrown."]

At Vee Vee, the draught line-up is a locavore's dream. From the shoals of Ipswich, where the water will get you a nice, hoppy brew to a pumpkin beer with a smooth-as-silk caramel finish from Lakeville, New York, there's something for every beer lover's palate.

And local is decidedly the point at the Centre Street spot, which has been in business for just about three years. There are some bottled imports—what beer list would be complete without a solid hefeweissen?—and an occasional Belgian occupying one of the four draught lines, but owners Dan and Kristen Valachovic pride themselves on local fare.

In addition to food, there's local art on the walls, which incidentally are painted in Benjamin Moore's Autumn Cover, a color the Valachovics have featured in their own JP dining room for years. I caught up with Dan, who schooled me on regional craft beer and Vee Vee's philosophy, while sipping some of said craft beer. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home" came on the iPod shuffle—a pleasant backdrop for a discussion of homegrown brew.

Local fare is en vogue now but it seems you were are a bit ahead of the curve. How did that evolve for you?

It just makes sense. It does seem like it's become fashionable. When we were trying to think of a name for the place, one of the ideas was The Local. It felt like it had a few different meanings: local spot, local food, locally sourced. But we shied away from that because it seemed a little too much like a pub or a bar. But that was definitely part of the idea from the beginning. We've seen the advantages of dealing with local. It's always fresher because it hasn't traveled as far and it's good to support your neighbors. Supporting people who live close to you is only bettering your environment.

What are some factors that come into play when you edit the beer?

We have a smaller selection. You know what's featured is kind of special. It's almost harder to put together a smaller list.  When you edit it, you have to make choices… A big part of editing the list is trying to have a broad spectrum of styles. The list goes from light to dark.

A good bulk of your beer menu is local. Tell me about some of the selections on tap.

There's the Pretty Things Headgerow Bitter. It's in the style of an English IPA, so it's quite bitter and very dry. [Carrying] Pretty Things started from a friendship. I've been friends with the owners of the brewery before they started the brewery. They have an office in Cambridge and rent space in different breweries… I knew I wanted to support them regardless but once I started tasting their beers it became clear that it was really, really good stuff. They had their first beer dinner here. It was wonderful; we did four different courses. They only had three beers at that time so we had a guest beer.

We have Cambridge Brewing Company's Flower Child IPA. It's kind of a neat story. Ithaca, New York has a brewery with a beer called Flower Power. The brewer at Cambridge expressed his adoration and the brewer at Ithaca sent the recipe and said, "Feel free to make your own version of it." So they tweaked it a little bit and made Flower Child as a tribute to that beer. They made just a very small batch, just one run of it. We're lucky enough to have it here… I told them how much I liked it and how much I'd love to carry it here. It's turned a lot of people on in just the week we've had it. You can still get a beer from California but this was just made, it just came out of the tank, it hasn't sat around at all. And you can tell, it's really vibrant.

Listening to you talk, it sounds like you know quite a bit about the brewing process. Have you thought of brewing something on your own?

I have thought about it. I haven't taken the step to buy all the equipment. I would like to some day. I've assisted before with a friend who brews at home just to see the process. It was a ton to learn and he tried to edit what he was teaching me, knowing that I wouldn't take in everything.