diff --git a/docker/owlbot/java/Dockerfile b/docker/owlbot/java/Dockerfile
index ecfa58c22..bfdf11499 100644
--- a/docker/owlbot/java/Dockerfile
+++ b/docker/owlbot/java/Dockerfile
@@ -13,12 +13,9 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 
 # build from the root of this repo:
-FROM gcr.io/cloud-devrel-public-resources/java11
+FROM gcr.io/cloud-devrel-public-resources/java8
 
-# The formatter version used by the fmt-maven-plugin through the
-# google-cloud-shared-config.
-# https://github.com/googleapis/java-shared-config/blob/main/pom.xml#L228
-ARG JAVA_FORMAT_VERSION=1.13.0
+ARG JAVA_FORMAT_VERSION=1.7
 
 RUN apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends jq
 
diff --git a/docker/owlbot/java/container_test.yaml b/docker/owlbot/java/container_test.yaml
index d7988dcf8..006acb24a 100644
--- a/docker/owlbot/java/container_test.yaml
+++ b/docker/owlbot/java/container_test.yaml
@@ -17,10 +17,10 @@ commandTests:
 - name: "version"
   command: ["java", "-version"]
   # java -version outputs to stderr...
-  expectedError: ["(java|openjdk) version \"11.*\""]
+  expectedError: ["(java|openjdk) version \"1.8.*\""]
 - name: "formatter"
   command: ["java", "-jar", "/owlbot/google-java-format.jar", "--version"]
-  expectedError: ["google-java-format: Version 1.13.0"]
+  expectedError: ["google-java-format: Version 1.7"]
 - name: "python"
   command: ["python", "--version"]
   expectedOutput: ["Python 3.6.1"]