Alvarado St. Brewery: Old theater offers new destination for beer fans
They had me at brewery. Truth be told, they could’ve had me at wax museum or parking garage.
That’s howmuch the empty old Regency Theatre building in the middle of down town Monterey ached for newlife. Years separated it from use. Fire and water damage chewed it up. Pigeons moved in. Other empty storefronts along Monterey’s historic Main Street reflected the underachieving feel of the district, but none so dramatically.
No longer. Alvarado Street Brewery& Grill is a siren for eyeballs and taste buds, rebuilt from craggy bones in less than a year.
The architectural makeover was the immediate wow factor of the debut in May. Only the perimeter walls remain, with 20foot ceilings and nearly 5,000 airy square feet within them. Original steel beams inspire newer pieces like the huge geometric steel lamps hanging on high.
Co-owner John Hill designed it after decades of work on projects like the Inter Continental on Cannery Rowand the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe.
The hardworking brewing room is surrounded by windows. Black-and-white microtile floors date back to the Regency theater days, setting off the entryway. Adozen metal stools front the long bar and its 20 taps. Beyond the bar, an open kitchen faces a cavernous 110seat dining room.
Vintage beers cans found on eBay and photographed in large format by Winston Swift Boyer of Carmel hang like banners. An upstairs landing holds beers aging in whiskey and port barrels and various bags of malt.
Hill’s son, co-owner J.C. Hill, designed the formidable beers, and in so doing earns points for intuition and industriousness. After discovering his craft at Amplified Ale Works in San Diego, he has already created 30 house beers— old-school pilsners, cream ales and black IPAs among them.
“I like to bring out the finesse of some dynamic craft beers while including traditional styles aswell,” he says.
House IPAs like the tropical pine Minesweeper don’t last more than twoweeks. Mosaic hops and lychee accents in the Mai Tai PA American pale earned it a surprise best-beer nod at the California Beer Festival in Aptos in August.
J.C. Hill has a nose for hops like Citra and Chinook, and downtown Tuesday’s farmers’ market finds like honey, cherries and exotic citrus. One brew combines Duane’s World IPA— named for the home-brew supplier who secured its rare hops — with Fresno chiles. When new beers like the recent crazy skunky Double Cone aren’t debuting, cask beers are known to flow, as are-whiskey- and wine-barrelaged beers. Growlers and flights
appeared last month.
“We have a roadmap on what we’d like to do,” he says, with watchwords that include “seasonal” and “approachable.”
The house creations go with a selection of rotating guest taps like Firestone Walker, Green Flash and collaborators-downthe-street Peter B’s.
The food menu goes minimal and shareable, with six small bites, five salads, five flatbreads, six entrees and five sides.
The smoked mussels in a curry-toasted grain broth and the pork belly poutine— a cheese curd-fries-gravy mess— stand out among the introductory plates, the beer-melon-salami-frisee number among the salads.
The flatbreads are a staple of the place, and are true to the shape, thinness, light sauce and cheesiness of the North African way. The house-made duck ham-grilled pineapple-pickled chiles pizza has stuck around from the beginning for a reason. (Tip: Request house harissa for the crusts.) The butcher’s bacon and egg with Gruyere meat cured by executive chef Aaron Haas is next most popular.
Anice brioche bun carries the chef-ground Black Angus burger with white cheddar and ASB Belgian white alemustard. On a recent visit, the daily catch meant halibut on a bed of golden raisins and cheddar-and-green cauliflower, with black ale butter sauce.
And some of the most memorable items don’t appear on the menu. Oneweek, itwas a spicy pork banh mi reinvented in bowl form. On Labor Day, itwas a lunch-only Hawaiian-style comfort load of loco moco (with $5 mimosas).
In concert with Restaurant 1833 up the block, and invigorated new ownership across the street at the landmark Golden State Theatre and a proliferation of sidewalk patios— with more on theway— Alvarado Brewing is a historic upgrade. It is also a partner in the city’s Downtown Specific Plan, which is partly designed to streamline permitting and enhance streetscapes.
I’ve watched Alvarado for decades. But the other day, seated on the brewery’s patio on an Indian summer evening, with a Duane’s inmy hand and a duckham flatbread onmy plate, it felt for a minute as if Iwere looking at Alvarado Street for the first time.