It comes from the lips of arguably the best craft bartender in town, the kind who was curing bitters and concocting infusions before “mixology” was a thing with a waxed mustache and undersized vest. A guy who is obsessed with spirits and mixers.
“Beer is so hot right now,” he says.
True. Craft beer is booming. Homebrew is going viral. Even posh wine-centric restaurants now carry small-batch beer lists.
Which is why we took the occasion of a fledgling idea, Monterey Beer Week, to tap into as many inspiring stories of suds, hops and ABV as we could fit in these pages.
– Mark C. Anderson
The revolution isn’t just happening at Post No Bills Craft Beer House in Sand City. It’s happening in all sorts of unconventional outposts:
Downtown Monterey Coffee Shops
Cafe Lumiere (365 Calle Principal 920-2451, www.cafelumieremonterey.com) is known for their homemade lunch specials (fresh pho!), fine breakfasts and high-quality caffeine, but they also keep smart beers on draft, including Old Rasputin, and craft cans. A few blocks away, East Village Coffee Lounge (498 Washington St., 373-5601) serves four drafts – Boont Amber Ale and Coronado IPA among them – and a range of bottles.
Food Corner Market
1800 Noche Buena St., Seaside 394-5910
They have a wide craft beer selection, with hard-to-find bottles of Dogfish Head and Clown Shoes, refrigerated and on the shelf in singles and six-packs. And the owner/operator claims he can get anything you ask for.
Grocery Outlet
Marina Village Shopping Center, 215 Reservation Road, Marina
1548 Calaveras St., Seaside
While each locally owned Grocery Outlet is known for weird and cheap groceries, both the Marina and Seaside locations throw out a nice selection of craft beers, often a few bucks cheaper than other spots. The stock rotates often, but sixers of Green Flash, Stone, Firestone and Oskar Blues, even in cans, are common.
La Piccola Casa
212 17th St., Pacific Grove 373-0129
While the Rombi’s restaurant next door continues its fine dining with new owners, former owner/founder Joe Rombi’s classic Italian tastes live on in this upstairs converted cottage with handmade pastas and pizzas like the Famous Mauro (prosciutto, red onions and arugula). They rotate three microbrews and half a dozen bottles to wash it down with while you watch the Warriors or Giants on a 60-inch television.
Lokal
13750 Center St., Carmel Valley 659-5886
The six drafts rotate regularly and include things like Mendocino Brew’s Eye of the Hawk, Peter B’s IPA, Lagunitas Lil’ Sumpin, 21st Amendment’s Back in Black IPA and even rare majesty like Chesebro Winery’s Dry Apple Cider.
Roger Food & Liquor
Marina Village Shopping Center, 215 Reservation Road, Marina 384-0700
The locals’ go-to runs a wide assortment of novelty and regional beers like Ballast Point’s Sculpin IPA and Lost Coast Brewery’s Sharkinator. It’s an underappreciated place to pick up a hostess gift on the way to a party.
Salinas City BBQ
700 W. Market St., Salinas 758-2227
Barbecue goes well with beer. Great barbecue goes great with great beer. On tap at press time: Society Brewing’s Publican Pale Ale, Alvarado Street’s Finest City, Fieldwork’s Chocolate Milk Brown, Mike Hess Brewing’s Jucundus, Boont’s Amber Ale and Continental Drift IPA.
Taste of Vietnam
1868 Fremont Blvd, Seaside 394-8855
The excellent noodle, beef pho and stir fry spot enjoys 18 – yes, 18 – draft taps that recently included Deschutes Fresh-Squeezed IPA (one please), Big Daddy IPA, Arrogant Bastard Ale, Elusive Traveler Grapefruit Ale and Ninkasi Triceratops double IPA. Almost every single one runs a fair $4.50 per, and only $3.50 5-7pm daily for happy hour.
Valley Greens Gallery
16e E. Carmel Valley Road, Carmel Valley 620-2985
The art trends urban, edgy and awesome. The movie nights, bring-your-own-vinyl evenings, June 26’s Green Flash tap takeover and June 27’s burlesque night are damn cool too. So is the uniquely high-gravity craft beer selection behind the cute seven-stool bar, with knock-you-on-your-coaster pops like Boulevard’s The Calling Double IPA (8.5 pecent) and Discretion Foggy Forest IPA (7.7), plus Alpine Pale Ale, Lagunitas IPA and seven hard ciders in bottles.
Whole Enchilada Marketplace
7990 Highway 1, Moss Landing 632-2628
The small shop sells deep-fried artichoke hearts and tri-tip sandwiches next to two big produce stands, but inside at a modest bar they have $4 draft beers all the time, including three local brews from Peter B’s and English Ales.
The Soviet Union may have been the first to put a human in space, but the United States is dominating the only Space Race that matters: launching brewer’s yeast toward the stars.
Oregon-based Ninkasi Brewing Company spearheaded the operation, loftily-titled the Ninkasi Space Program. After an initial launch failed last July, Ninkasi redoubled its efforts last October and successfully recovered six vials of brewer’s yeast that flew nearly 80 miles from earth and spent four minutes of weightlessness in the exosphere before the rocket carrying it, SpaceLoft-9, coasted back down to the New Mexico desert.
Ninkasi’s website states the aim of the mission: to “brew delicious craft beer.”
Ground Control is the result, a limited-release imperial stout brewed with Oregon hazelnuts, star anise, cocoa nibs and ale yeast sent into space. The brew hit stores April 13, and according to Post No Bills bartender Kye Ricks, mission accomplished.
“It was nice and chocolaty, very rich and had a slight roasted flavor,” he says.
If you want to pick up Ground Control at Post No Bills, too late: Their two cases sold out in less than two weeks. Locals looking to slake their thirst with space suds should shoot to Roger Food and Liquor in Marina, which still had 10 22-oz. bottles (at $21.99 a pop) in stock May 26.
At a dollar an ounce, space brew isn’t likely to take off anytime soon, but there are other beer trends afoot to keep an eye on in 2015:
THE CAN REVOLUTION CONTINUES.
Canned beer first hit U.S markets on Jan. 24, 1935, when canned Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia. By the end of the year, 37 breweries followed Krueger’s lead. But early cans didn’t have the liners cans have today, often creating a slight metallic flavor in the beer. The old days created a stigma, but an increasing number of craft brewers are beginning to see the light. Colorado’s Oskar Blues Brewery began canning their beer in 2002, and since then a slew of other breweries have entered the aluminum fray: Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Anderson Valley Brewing, Santa Cruz’s Uncommon Brewers and San Francisco’s 21st Amendment among them.
The benefits flow: Cans come lighter and cheaper to ship, and don’t let in light that can turn beer south. Plus, you can’t drink from glass on the beach.
GROWING YOUR OWN HOPS IS GROWING.
Carmel Valley’s Chris Nelson, aka the Beer Geek, doesn’t brew his own beer. But he does grow hops.
“I think they look nice, and they’re just fun,” he says.
Nelson has been growing hops on and off for years – first in Seaside, now in Carmel Valley – and gives them to friends when the harvest is good. Marina homebrewer Steve Zmak is among the recipients.
“Being able to say the beer’s made with a local hop is a nice little feature,” Zmak says.
Zmak has tried growing his own hops in Marina, with little success.
“It was almost a complete failure,” he says. “There’s just not enough sun.”
But when conditions are right, Nelson says it’s incredible to watch.
“They’re like a weed,” he says. “Sometimes they grow a foot a day. They go crazy.”
Locally-grown hops have also turned up in more than just homebrews.
Peter B’s brewmaster Kevin Clark harvests hops grown at Rancho Cielo, which he uses to make Otto Ale, a beer named after the dog of Rancho Cielo founder and County Supervisor John Phillips.
Ana Melissa Garcia, former co-owner of Salinas’ Bakery Station, began classes at the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association this January. Learning to grow hops commercially, she says, was one of the main reasons she enrolled in the nine-month farmer education program.
“Beer is like liquid bread,” she says. “There’s a shortage in organic hops nationally, and it intrigued me.”
When her initial search to find local hops growers proved fruitless, Garcia’s intrigue grew.
When she finishes her program this fall, Garcia plans to grow organic vegetables on a small piece of land southeast of Salinas, where she will devote two acres to growing organic hops.
“I’m going to start small and build it up,” she says.
If all goes well, Garcia hopes to sell her hops to brewmasters, but first she has to decide which of the many varieties to plant. Beer, she says, will guide her. “I like ales,” she says.
DANK GETS HOTTER.
Just when it feels like our love affair with hop-heavy beers can only wane, it heats up. But the hops that launched IPA, “C-hops” like Cascade and Chinook, are no longer on the edge of flavor exploration. That honor goes to dank hops, which carry pungent, tropical notes that might resemble guava and papaya, onion, garlic or even gasoline. In his online brewer’s log, Alvarado Street brewer J.C. Hill writes the popularity and demand for dank hops is ever on the rise, and drops this proclamation:
“The craft beer consumer will likely remember 2015 as ‘Year of the Dank.’”
INDIA PALE LAGERS COMBINE BIG FLAVORS WITH CRISP FINISH.
IPLs are fermented like lagers and then hopped with a pungent hop varietal, and the result is a beer that dances two directions on the palate. The flavors, less assertive than IPAs, have an overall lightness that allows subtler hop flavors to come through without the full-bodied IPA blast. So far, many IPLs are only produced for limited release, but given that it fills a new niche in our hop-obsessed times, expect that to change. Clark at Peter B’s thinks IPLs are only the beginning. “As palates get fatigued on IPAs, I think lagers in general will pick up,” he says. “There are so many different styles of lager out there. It’s still untouched.”
Leave it to the most progressive breweries to do a progressive dinner. June 11, 40 lucky beer-swilling souls dive into a four-course meal – at three restaurants – with prime pairings: Think ale and fennel sausage stuffed chicken wings and mini prawn tacos with 40 Acre Pale Ale and Pacific Street Raspberry Wheat at Peter B’s, in the brand new barrel room; hoisin-braised short rib banh mi with Minespeeper at Alvarado Street Brewing; and boudin noir-stuffed pork tenderloin wrapped in Baker’s double-smoked bacon with Scotch Ale by both ASB and Peter B’s at Montrio Bistro. And that’s just a partial menu.
For a complete list of beer week events, check out the Monterey Beer Week insert.
Life at the humble heart of Monterey County DIY beer-making has turned sour. And that’s just fine with the man that pumps that heart, homebrew sage Duane Shimabukuro. He doesn’t love increasingly popular sour beers, but he’s more than happy to study up on how to make them so he can do what he does better than anyone in the area: troubleshoot homebrew hiccups. He’s also seeing more women interested in brewing so he’s ramping up his class schedule to match. To hang at his store is to know what a cross between a microbio seminar, a specialized hardware store and a shrink’s office would be like. Talk turns from cellaring to original gravity to pilgrimages to Russian River. Deliciously geeky stuff. Shimabukuro answers the phone and it continues. A winemaker stocks up on obscure hops and it flows on; no matter where the rising local homebrew tide takes people, the starting point remains the same. “I was dealing with challenges of online buying,” Shimabukuro says. “I was thinking, ‘People barbecue and do normal things in life. In my mind there had to be other people like me. I crunched the numbers, got permission from my wife, signed the lease and s*** my pants.” Now scores of panicked would-be brewers, knowing they have Shimabukuro and Bottoms Up to help them out, can avoid a similar fate.
Bottoms Up Homebrew Supply is located at 1143 Echo Ave., Suite C-2, Seaside •10am-6pm Tue-Fri; 10am-5pm Sat-Sun; closed Mon. •899-BREW (2739) www.bottomsuphomebrew.com
The T-shirt slogan is baked into our Homer Simpson-loving brains: SAVE WATER, DRINK BEER.
The deepening drought makes the punchline more meaningful for people like forward-thinking brewer J.C. Hill of Alvarado Street Brewery, but water-savvy was part of the plan from the jump, given Monterey’s tight water constraints.
“We were aware of water restrictions from the get go, and planned the brewery around saving as much water as possible,” he says. Here are a few techniques Hill and his team have employed:
• A brewery’s heat exchange cools boiling wort – malty liquid that becomes beer once yeast is introduced – from 212 degrees to under 70. About 420 gallons of water are used to cool 360 gallons of beer. That water is routed to cooling areas and later another batch, or to hot holding tanks to run cleaning cycles.
• Municipal water runs through a “prechiller” (caused by running glycol through the surrounding temperature plates) before it goes through the heat exchange and cools the wort. The colder the water is, the faster the wort can be run through the heat exchange, and considerably less water is used.
• The keg washer has a reservoir built in, where ASB can re-use the same 15 gallons of chemical solution to clean the substantial keg supply in a single session – whether it’s 10 kegs or 40. A heating element in the reservoir keeps the chemicals hot, so hot water doesn’t demand replenishing.
• ASB buys reverse-osmosis water from Clarita Water in Salinas to brew with rather than use more city water, which was also a way to experiment with different water profiles to match styles of beer. For the first beer, Bixby Blonde, Hill and company hoped to find a Belgian Trappist Brewery’s water profile, and needed RO water to construct the profile from the start, adding salts and minerals for precise ion and pH levels.
- Daniel DeCamp
Craft brewing has become a $20 billion dollar industry accounting for 20 percent of the entire American beer market in dollars. Playing their part in the local beer culture are three bars located on the same block in Oldtown Salinas, though they rarely get the spotlight of their Peninsula siblings: Monterey Coast Brewing, XL Public House and Dubber’s.
Monterey Coast Brewing
165 Main St., Salinas758-2337
Monterey Coast Brewing crafts their beers on the premises (sold exclusively there) in small batches, unfiltered, using premium malt, hops and yeast. Currently there are nine classics to choose from, including a wheat, pilsner, hefeweizen, pale ale, red ale, IPA, porter and the two seasonal brews – a nut brown and a Belgian dubbel ($3.75/10 ounce, $5.50/16). Three guest beers are also on the current list – Old Rasputin Stout, Hoegarden Wit and Crispin Hard Apple Cider (each $6). All 12 can be sampled for $13.95. Or plan your own flight for $1.50 each.
Brewing beer is big but there’s some serious cooking going on there too. The Works Burger ($11.50) – bacon, cheddar, mushrooms and grilled onions – works wonders, and pairs especially well with the cider. Lunch menu: grilled meats, pastas, pizza, sandwiches and burgers ($8.95-$14.95). Dinner: many of the same choices plus entrees like the New York strip ($22.95), grilled sea bass ($19.95), fresh ravioli ($13.95) and baby back ribs ($17.95).
Appetizers go all day and feature fried artichoke hearts, spring rolls, crab cakes, spicy prawns, nachos and cheese quesadillas ($7.95-$8.95). Salads: simple organic mixed greens ($5.75), grilled shrimp salad ($11.95) and classic caesar ($7.95). The shrimp one rules.
XL Public House
127 Main St., Salinas 754-2337
XL doesn’t do food, but they offer 18 craft beers (Lagunitas, Firestone, Lost Abbey and more) on tap ranging $7-$10. Over 100 more in bottles (starting at $5) run all the way up to $45 for a Bois from The Bruery in Placentia, California. Malty and sweet, it’s aged for up to one and a half years in whisky barrels.
This is a casual place for beer lovers to hang out, talk and play board games. Since there’s no kitchen, management allows and even encourages patrons to bring in carry out, preferably from Oldtown establishments.
It’s all about hanging out, enjoying craft beer, talking and playing board games. They’ve got Jenga, Clue, Monopoly, chess, backgammon and many others.
The establishment also exercises a bit of craft beer protectionism, charging $100 per can of Coors Light or Budweiser. They do keep a few on hand just in case, but I’m guessing there have been no takers.
Dubber’s
172 Main St., Salinas 676-0256
Dubber’s, just down the street, carries Guinness, Angry Orchard, Lagunitas IPA, Stella Artois, Firestone Walker 805, Firestone Pivo and Hoegarden and more ($4-$6), plus a variety of bottled beer too ($4-$10). It’s a great place to watch sports on any of the seven large-screen TVs while gnawing on some chicken wings ($9), homemade chili ($5), any of the five burger selections ($8-$11), four styles of hot dog ($5-$7) or the five sandwiches, including the skirt steak ($15), chicken pesto ($11) or bacon-avocado-tomato grilled cheese ($9).
ALVARADO STREET BREWERY
426 Alvarado St., Monterey 655-2337 www.alvaradostreetbrewery.com
The area newcomer has quickly become the jalapeño cream ale rising to the top, with as many as 11 fast-rotating house beers that have been crushing it on the festival awards circuit, to go with 12 more curated taps and crab mac ‘n’ cheese, stylish flatbreads and short-rib poutine in a slick, high-ceiling setting.
CANNERY ROW BREWING COMPANY
95 Prescott Ave., Monterey 643-2722 www.canneryrowbrewingcompany.com
A popular readers pick for the Best of Monterey County® vote in Best Selection of Beers because of 75 on tap, a handful of specially made house drafts, plus superior smoked ribs, slow-braised pork belly and breakfast burgers on a robust menu.
CARMEL VALLEY BREWING COMPANY
659-4341 • www.carmelvalleybrewing.com
Dean Hatfield digs down to basics to produce Carmel Valley’s flagship Pale Ale – down into the Valley ranch’s well water to produce Pale Ale, Blonde Ale and an IPA in the German style of simplicity and mild doses of bitterness.
CRAFT ARTISAN ALES*
717-7543 • www.craftartisanales.com
Dave Olsen is a beer afficionado who tracks down obscure hops to give to a brewmaster along with a recipe for what he wants. The results – Doc Ricketts Lab IPA, Nebulous Imperial IPA and two more coming in June – are damn good, and available at an increasing number of spots like Post No Bills and Grove Market. Lalla Grill even has it on draft.
ENGLISH ALES
223A Reindollar Ave., Marina • 883-3000 • www.englishalesbrewery.com
The venerable and most ubiquitous local brewer produces 11 popular flagship beers like Fat Lip Amber, 1066 Pale Ale, Monk’s Brown and Black Prince Porter. Those pour at their community-hub pub in Marina (which also serves hearty English-leaning fare) and at restaurants from San Francisco to Big Sur. They also do a range of house brews for restaurants under those places’ own label.
MAD OTTER ALES*
2965 Highway 68, Monterey (distribution/tasting room) 869-0764 www.madotterale.com
For Monterey’s Mark Fitch and Scott Coming, the dream of running a craft beer brand has come true. They have day jobs, but they find the time to tap a passion by contract brewing with a partner to produce cans and kegs of a balanced and floral ale that’s starting to find local traction through tastings and pairing events. The brewery’s out of county, but every drop is circulated within it, at spots including Tarpy’s, Ellie’s and Big Sur Tap House.
MONTEREY COAST BREWING
165 Main St., Salinas 758-2337 www.montereycoastbrewing.com
Oldtown Salinas fixture does seven classic styles, from wheat to porter, two seasonals, solid grill-style burgers, sandwiches, salads and steaks, with the on-site brew tanks furnishing ambiance.
PETER B’S BREWPUB
2 Portola Plaza, Monterey 649-2699 www.portolahotel.com/dining/brewpub
Four house styles are always on tap (including Belly-Up Blonde and Legend of Laguna IPA), plus as many as seven seasonals (like the just-finished Extra Special Bitter) to go with superb beer-centric food, mug deals and sports watching.
*Note: Contract brewers often decide recipes, but partner with third parties to have the beer made under their own label.
The nexus of beer week can be traced back 14 years to the first Monterey Bay Beer Fest, which was, for those who don’t dig sunburn, seagull feces and Portalet lines, a disaster.
But over a decade founder Jeff Moses built it into the biggest brew-vintage rock party for three counties, and one that poured out upwards of 57,600 ounces of 150 different creations from as many as 80 breweries. When he sold to the Fairgrounds, Sierra Nevada came on board in force, taking up VIP duties, and this spring Fairgrounds leadership collaborated with the Weekly and other local brew makers to create a week-long affair.
The lineup of brewers at this year’s festival has its share of heavy hitters – Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas and Ninkasi among them – but is also filled with a heady mix of smaller, more local operators. There’s Craft Artisan Ales from Pacific Grove, Mavericks Brewing out of Half Moon Bay and Aleworks from Santa Cruz.
English Ales, Firestone, Peter B’s and Alvarado Street will be on hand, as will beers that hail from the southern and northernmost reaches of the state.
The 2015 fest also features the second annual tournament of what some people call beer pong, others call “Beirut”; two-player teams can register for $20 at the website.
An eclectic set of musical acts help fuel this year’s festivities, and kicks off with 30-year-old Santa Cruz bluesman Jake Nielsen at 11:45am. In the afternoon, things get Steve Perry-saucy with cover act Journey Revisited, and the day finishes with Cover Me Badd, a costume – and choreography-driven group that bills itself “California’s premier party band.”
It’s going to be a big day, and has all the makings of the best Monterey Beer Festivals yet.
MONTEREY BEER FEST June 13, 12:30pm-5pm (11:30am VIP admission). $45/presale, $50/door; VIP $70/pre-sale, $80/door; $10/on-site parking. Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairground Road, Monterey. www.montereybeerfestival.com
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The revolution isn’t just happening at Post No Bills Craft Beer House in Sand City. It’s happening in all sorts of unconventional outposts:
Downtown Monterey Coffee Shops
Cafe Lumiere (365 Calle Principal 920-2451, www.cafelumieremonterey.com) is known for their homemade lunch specials (fresh pho!), fine breakfasts and high-quality caffeine, but they also keep smart beers on draft, including Old Rasputin, and craft cans. A few blocks away, East Village Coffee Lounge (498 Washington St., 373-5601) serves four drafts – Boont Amber Ale and Coronado IPA among them – and a range of bottles.
Food Corner Market
1800 Noche Buena St., Seaside 394-5910
They have a wide craft beer selection, with hard-to-find bottles of Dogfish Head and Clown Shoes, refrigerated and on the shelf in singles and six-packs. And the owner/operator claims he can get anything you ask for.
Grocery Outlet
Marina Village Shopping Center, 215 Reservation Road, Marina
1548 Calaveras St., Seaside
While each locally owned Grocery Outlet is known for weird and cheap groceries, both the Marina and Seaside locations throw out a nice selection of craft beers, often a few bucks cheaper than other spots. The stock rotates often, but sixers of Green Flash, Stone, Firestone and Oskar Blues, even in cans, are common.
La Piccola Casa
212 17th St., Pacific Grove 373-0129
While the Rombi’s restaurant next door continues its fine dining with new owners, former owner/founder Joe Rombi’s classic Italian tastes live on in this upstairs converted cottage with handmade pastas and pizzas like the Famous Mauro (prosciutto, red onions and arugula). They rotate three microbrews and half a dozen bottles to wash it down with while you watch the Warriors or Giants on a 60-inch television.
Lokal
13750 Center St., Carmel Valley 659-5886
The six drafts rotate regularly and include things like Mendocino Brew’s Eye of the Hawk, Peter B’s IPA, Lagunitas Lil’ Sumpin, 21st Amendment’s Back in Black IPA and even rare majesty like Chesebro Winery’s Dry Apple Cider.
Roger Food & Liquor
Marina Village Shopping Center, 215 Reservation Road, Marina 384-0700
The locals’ go-to runs a wide assortment of novelty and regional beers like Ballast Point’s Sculpin IPA and Lost Coast Brewery’s Sharkinator. It’s an underappreciated place to pick up a hostess gift on the way to a party.
Salinas City BBQ
700 W. Market St., Salinas 758-2227
Barbecue goes well with beer. Great barbecue goes great with great beer. On tap at press time: Society Brewing’s Publican Pale Ale, Alvarado Street’s Finest City, Fieldwork’s Chocolate Milk Brown, Mike Hess Brewing’s Jucundus, Boont’s Amber Ale and Continental Drift IPA.
Taste of Vietnam
1868 Fremont Blvd, Seaside 394-8855
The excellent noodle, beef pho and stir fry spot enjoys 18 – yes, 18 – draft taps that recently included Deschutes Fresh-Squeezed IPA (one please), Big Daddy IPA, Arrogant Bastard Ale, Elusive Traveler Grapefruit Ale and Ninkasi Triceratops double IPA. Almost every single one runs a fair $4.50 per, and only $3.50 5-7pm daily for happy hour.
Valley Greens Gallery
16e E. Carmel Valley Road, Carmel Valley 620-2985
The art trends urban, edgy and awesome. The movie nights, bring-your-own-vinyl evenings, June 26’s Green Flash tap takeover and June 27’s burlesque night are damn cool too. So is the uniquely high-gravity craft beer selection behind the cute seven-stool bar, with knock-you-on-your-coaster pops like Boulevard’s The Calling Double IPA (8.5 pecent) and Discretion Foggy Forest IPA (7.7), plus Alpine Pale Ale, Lagunitas IPA and seven hard ciders in bottles.
Whole Enchilada Marketplace
7990 Highway 1, Moss Landing 632-2628
The small shop sells deep-fried artichoke hearts and tri-tip sandwiches next to two big produce stands, but inside at a modest bar they have $4 draft beers all the time, including three local brews from Peter B’s and English Ales.
The Soviet Union may have been the first to put a human in space, but the United States is dominating the only Space Race that matters: launching brewer’s yeast toward the stars.
Oregon-based Ninkasi Brewing Company spearheaded the operation, loftily-titled the Ninkasi Space Program. After an initial launch failed last July, Ninkasi redoubled its efforts last October and successfully recovered six vials of brewer’s yeast that flew nearly 80 miles from earth and spent four minutes of weightlessness in the exosphere before the rocket carrying it, SpaceLoft-9, coasted back down to the New Mexico desert.
Ninkasi’s website states the aim of the mission: to “brew delicious craft beer.”
Ground Control is the result, a limited-release imperial stout brewed with Oregon hazelnuts, star anise, cocoa nibs and ale yeast sent into space. The brew hit stores April 13, and according to Post No Bills bartender Kye Ricks, mission accomplished.
“It was nice and chocolaty, very rich and had a slight roasted flavor,” he says.
If you want to pick up Ground Control at Post No Bills, too late: Their two cases sold out in less than two weeks. Locals looking to slake their thirst with space suds should shoot to Roger Food and Liquor in Marina, which still had 10 22-oz. bottles (at $21.99 a pop) in stock May 26.
At a dollar an ounce, space brew isn’t likely to take off anytime soon, but there are other beer trends afoot to keep an eye on in 2015:
THE CAN REVOLUTION CONTINUES.
Canned beer first hit U.S markets on Jan. 24, 1935, when canned Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia. By the end of the year, 37 breweries followed Krueger’s lead. But early cans didn’t have the liners cans have today, often creating a slight metallic flavor in the beer. The old days created a stigma, but an increasing number of craft brewers are beginning to see the light. Colorado’s Oskar Blues Brewery began canning their beer in 2002, and since then a slew of other breweries have entered the aluminum fray: Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Anderson Valley Brewing, Santa Cruz’s Uncommon Brewers and San Francisco’s 21st Amendment among them.
The benefits flow: Cans come lighter and cheaper to ship, and don’t let in light that can turn beer south. Plus, you can’t drink from glass on the beach.
GROWING YOUR OWN HOPS IS GROWING.
Carmel Valley’s Chris Nelson, aka the Beer Geek, doesn’t brew his own beer. But he does grow hops.
“I think they look nice, and they’re just fun,” he says.
Nelson has been growing hops on and off for years – first in Seaside, now in Carmel Valley – and gives them to friends when the harvest is good. Marina homebrewer Steve Zmak is among the recipients.
“Being able to say the beer’s made with a local hop is a nice little feature,” Zmak says.
Zmak has tried growing his own hops in Marina, with little success.
“It was almost a complete failure,” he says. “There’s just not enough sun.”
But when conditions are right, Nelson says it’s incredible to watch.
“They’re like a weed,” he says. “Sometimes they grow a foot a day. They go crazy.”
Locally-grown hops have also turned up in more than just homebrews.
Peter B’s brewmaster Kevin Clark harvests hops grown at Rancho Cielo, which he uses to make Otto Ale, a beer named after the dog of Rancho Cielo founder and County Supervisor John Phillips.
Ana Melissa Garcia, former co-owner of Salinas’ Bakery Station, began classes at the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association this January. Learning to grow hops commercially, she says, was one of the main reasons she enrolled in the nine-month farmer education program.
“Beer is like liquid bread,” she says. “There’s a shortage in organic hops nationally, and it intrigued me.”
When her initial search to find local hops growers proved fruitless, Garcia’s intrigue grew.
When she finishes her program this fall, Garcia plans to grow organic vegetables on a small piece of land southeast of Salinas, where she will devote two acres to growing organic hops.
“I’m going to start small and build it up,” she says.
If all goes well, Garcia hopes to sell her hops to brewmasters, but first she has to decide which of the many varieties to plant. Beer, she says, will guide her. “I like ales,” she says.
DANK GETS HOTTER.
Just when it feels like our love affair with hop-heavy beers can only wane, it heats up. But the hops that launched IPA, “C-hops” like Cascade and Chinook, are no longer on the edge of flavor exploration. That honor goes to dank hops, which carry pungent, tropical notes that might resemble guava and papaya, onion, garlic or even gasoline. In his online brewer’s log, Alvarado Street brewer J.C. Hill writes the popularity and demand for dank hops is ever on the rise, and drops this proclamation:
“The craft beer consumer will likely remember 2015 as ‘Year of the Dank.’”
INDIA PALE LAGERS COMBINE BIG FLAVORS WITH CRISP FINISH.
IPLs are fermented like lagers and then hopped with a pungent hop varietal, and the result is a beer that dances two directions on the palate. The flavors, less assertive than IPAs, have an overall lightness that allows subtler hop flavors to come through without the full-bodied IPA blast. So far, many IPLs are only produced for limited release, but given that it fills a new niche in our hop-obsessed times, expect that to change. Clark at Peter B’s thinks IPLs are only the beginning. “As palates get fatigued on IPAs, I think lagers in general will pick up,” he says. “There are so many different styles of lager out there. It’s still untouched.”
Leave it to the most progressive breweries to do a progressive dinner. June 11, 40 lucky beer-swilling souls dive into a four-course meal – at three restaurants – with prime pairings: Think ale and fennel sausage stuffed chicken wings and mini prawn tacos with 40 Acre Pale Ale and Pacific Street Raspberry Wheat at Peter B’s, in the brand new barrel room; hoisin-braised short rib banh mi with Minespeeper at Alvarado Street Brewing; and boudin noir-stuffed pork tenderloin wrapped in Baker’s double-smoked bacon with Scotch Ale by both ASB and Peter B’s at Montrio Bistro. And that’s just a partial menu.
For a complete list of beer week events, check out the Monterey Beer Week insert.
Life at the humble heart of Monterey County DIY beer-making has turned sour. And that’s just fine with the man that pumps that heart, homebrew sage Duane Shimabukuro. He doesn’t love increasingly popular sour beers, but he’s more than happy to study up on how to make them so he can do what he does better than anyone in the area: troubleshoot homebrew hiccups. He’s also seeing more women interested in brewing so he’s ramping up his class schedule to match. To hang at his store is to know what a cross between a microbio seminar, a specialized hardware store and a shrink’s office would be like. Talk turns from cellaring to original gravity to pilgrimages to Russian River. Deliciously geeky stuff. Shimabukuro answers the phone and it continues. A winemaker stocks up on obscure hops and it flows on; no matter where the rising local homebrew tide takes people, the starting point remains the same. “I was dealing with challenges of online buying,” Shimabukuro says. “I was thinking, ‘People barbecue and do normal things in life. In my mind there had to be other people like me. I crunched the numbers, got permission from my wife, signed the lease and s*** my pants.” Now scores of panicked would-be brewers, knowing they have Shimabukuro and Bottoms Up to help them out, can avoid a similar fate.
Bottoms Up Homebrew Supply is located at 1143 Echo Ave., Suite C-2, Seaside •10am-6pm Tue-Fri; 10am-5pm Sat-Sun; closed Mon. •899-BREW (2739) www.bottomsuphomebrew.com
The T-shirt slogan is baked into our Homer Simpson-loving brains: SAVE WATER, DRINK BEER.
The deepening drought makes the punchline more meaningful for people like forward-thinking brewer J.C. Hill of Alvarado Street Brewery, but water-savvy was part of the plan from the jump, given Monterey’s tight water constraints.
“We were aware of water restrictions from the get go, and planned the brewery around saving as much water as possible,” he says. Here are a few techniques Hill and his team have employed:
• A brewery’s heat exchange cools boiling wort – malty liquid that becomes beer once yeast is introduced – from 212 degrees to under 70. About 420 gallons of water are used to cool 360 gallons of beer. That water is routed to cooling areas and later another batch, or to hot holding tanks to run cleaning cycles.
• Municipal water runs through a “prechiller” (caused by running glycol through the surrounding temperature plates) before it goes through the heat exchange and cools the wort. The colder the water is, the faster the wort can be run through the heat exchange, and considerably less water is used.
• The keg washer has a reservoir built in, where ASB can re-use the same 15 gallons of chemical solution to clean the substantial keg supply in a single session – whether it’s 10 kegs or 40. A heating element in the reservoir keeps the chemicals hot, so hot water doesn’t demand replenishing.
• ASB buys reverse-osmosis water from Clarita Water in Salinas to brew with rather than use more city water, which was also a way to experiment with different water profiles to match styles of beer. For the first beer, Bixby Blonde, Hill and company hoped to find a Belgian Trappist Brewery’s water profile, and needed RO water to construct the profile from the start, adding salts and minerals for precise ion and pH levels.
- Daniel DeCamp
Craft brewing has become a $20 billion dollar industry accounting for 20 percent of the entire American beer market in dollars. Playing their part in the local beer culture are three bars located on the same block in Oldtown Salinas, though they rarely get the spotlight of their Peninsula siblings: Monterey Coast Brewing, XL Public House and Dubber’s.
Monterey Coast Brewing
165 Main St., Salinas758-2337
Monterey Coast Brewing crafts their beers on the premises (sold exclusively there) in small batches, unfiltered, using premium malt, hops and yeast. Currently there are nine classics to choose from, including a wheat, pilsner, hefeweizen, pale ale, red ale, IPA, porter and the two seasonal brews – a nut brown and a Belgian dubbel ($3.75/10 ounce, $5.50/16). Three guest beers are also on the current list – Old Rasputin Stout, Hoegarden Wit and Crispin Hard Apple Cider (each $6). All 12 can be sampled for $13.95. Or plan your own flight for $1.50 each.
Brewing beer is big but there’s some serious cooking going on there too. The Works Burger ($11.50) – bacon, cheddar, mushrooms and grilled onions – works wonders, and pairs especially well with the cider. Lunch menu: grilled meats, pastas, pizza, sandwiches and burgers ($8.95-$14.95). Dinner: many of the same choices plus entrees like the New York strip ($22.95), grilled sea bass ($19.95), fresh ravioli ($13.95) and baby back ribs ($17.95).
Appetizers go all day and feature fried artichoke hearts, spring rolls, crab cakes, spicy prawns, nachos and cheese quesadillas ($7.95-$8.95). Salads: simple organic mixed greens ($5.75), grilled shrimp salad ($11.95) and classic caesar ($7.95). The shrimp one rules.
XL Public House
127 Main St., Salinas 754-2337
XL doesn’t do food, but they offer 18 craft beers (Lagunitas, Firestone, Lost Abbey and more) on tap ranging $7-$10. Over 100 more in bottles (starting at $5) run all the way up to $45 for a Bois from The Bruery in Placentia, California. Malty and sweet, it’s aged for up to one and a half years in whisky barrels.
This is a casual place for beer lovers to hang out, talk and play board games. Since there’s no kitchen, management allows and even encourages patrons to bring in carry out, preferably from Oldtown establishments.
It’s all about hanging out, enjoying craft beer, talking and playing board games. They’ve got Jenga, Clue, Monopoly, chess, backgammon and many others.
The establishment also exercises a bit of craft beer protectionism, charging $100 per can of Coors Light or Budweiser. They do keep a few on hand just in case, but I’m guessing there have been no takers.
Dubber’s
172 Main St., Salinas 676-0256
Dubber’s, just down the street, carries Guinness, Angry Orchard, Lagunitas IPA, Stella Artois, Firestone Walker 805, Firestone Pivo and Hoegarden and more ($4-$6), plus a variety of bottled beer too ($4-$10). It’s a great place to watch sports on any of the seven large-screen TVs while gnawing on some chicken wings ($9), homemade chili ($5), any of the five burger selections ($8-$11), four styles of hot dog ($5-$7) or the five sandwiches, including the skirt steak ($15), chicken pesto ($11) or bacon-avocado-tomato grilled cheese ($9).
ALVARADO STREET BREWERY
426 Alvarado St., Monterey 655-2337 www.alvaradostreetbrewery.com
The area newcomer has quickly become the jalapeño cream ale rising to the top, with as many as 11 fast-rotating house beers that have been crushing it on the festival awards circuit, to go with 12 more curated taps and crab mac ‘n’ cheese, stylish flatbreads and short-rib poutine in a slick, high-ceiling setting.
CANNERY ROW BREWING COMPANY
95 Prescott Ave., Monterey 643-2722 www.canneryrowbrewingcompany.com
A popular readers pick for the Best of Monterey County® vote in Best Selection of Beers because of 75 on tap, a handful of specially made house drafts, plus superior smoked ribs, slow-braised pork belly and breakfast burgers on a robust menu.
CARMEL VALLEY BREWING COMPANY
659-4341 • www.carmelvalleybrewing.com
Dean Hatfield digs down to basics to produce Carmel Valley’s flagship Pale Ale – down into the Valley ranch’s well water to produce Pale Ale, Blonde Ale and an IPA in the German style of simplicity and mild doses of bitterness.
CRAFT ARTISAN ALES*
717-7543 • www.craftartisanales.com
Dave Olsen is a beer afficionado who tracks down obscure hops to give to a brewmaster along with a recipe for what he wants. The results – Doc Ricketts Lab IPA, Nebulous Imperial IPA and two more coming in June – are damn good, and available at an increasing number of spots like Post No Bills and Grove Market. Lalla Grill even has it on draft.
ENGLISH ALES
223A Reindollar Ave., Marina • 883-3000 • www.englishalesbrewery.com
The venerable and most ubiquitous local brewer produces 11 popular flagship beers like Fat Lip Amber, 1066 Pale Ale, Monk’s Brown and Black Prince Porter. Those pour at their community-hub pub in Marina (which also serves hearty English-leaning fare) and at restaurants from San Francisco to Big Sur. They also do a range of house brews for restaurants under those places’ own label.
MAD OTTER ALES*
2965 Highway 68, Monterey (distribution/tasting room) 869-0764 www.madotterale.com
For Monterey’s Mark Fitch and Scott Coming, the dream of running a craft beer brand has come true. They have day jobs, but they find the time to tap a passion by contract brewing with a partner to produce cans and kegs of a balanced and floral ale that’s starting to find local traction through tastings and pairing events. The brewery’s out of county, but every drop is circulated within it, at spots including Tarpy’s, Ellie’s and Big Sur Tap House.
MONTEREY COAST BREWING
165 Main St., Salinas 758-2337 www.montereycoastbrewing.com
Oldtown Salinas fixture does seven classic styles, from wheat to porter, two seasonals, solid grill-style burgers, sandwiches, salads and steaks, with the on-site brew tanks furnishing ambiance.
PETER B’S BREWPUB
2 Portola Plaza, Monterey 649-2699 www.portolahotel.com/dining/brewpub
Four house styles are always on tap (including Belly-Up Blonde and Legend of Laguna IPA), plus as many as seven seasonals (like the just-finished Extra Special Bitter) to go with superb beer-centric food, mug deals and sports watching.
*Note: Contract brewers often decide recipes, but partner with third parties to have the beer made under their own label.
The nexus of beer week can be traced back 14 years to the first Monterey Bay Beer Fest, which was, for those who don’t dig sunburn, seagull feces and Portalet lines, a disaster.
But over a decade founder Jeff Moses built it into the biggest brew-vintage rock party for three counties, and one that poured out upwards of 57,600 ounces of 150 different creations from as many as 80 breweries. When he sold to the Fairgrounds, Sierra Nevada came on board in force, taking up VIP duties, and this spring Fairgrounds leadership collaborated with the Weekly and other local brew makers to create a week-long affair.
The lineup of brewers at this year’s festival has its share of heavy hitters – Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas and Ninkasi among them – but is also filled with a heady mix of smaller, more local operators. There’s Craft Artisan Ales from Pacific Grove, Mavericks Brewing out of Half Moon Bay and Aleworks from Santa Cruz.
English Ales, Firestone, Peter B’s and Alvarado Street will be on hand, as will beers that hail from the southern and northernmost reaches of the state.
The 2015 fest also features the second annual tournament of what some people call beer pong, others call “Beirut”; two-player teams can register for $20 at the website.
An eclectic set of musical acts help fuel this year’s festivities, and kicks off with 30-year-old Santa Cruz bluesman Jake Nielsen at 11:45am. In the afternoon, things get Steve Perry-saucy with cover act Journey Revisited, and the day finishes with Cover Me Badd, a costume – and choreography-driven group that bills itself “California’s premier party band.”
It’s going to be a big day, and has all the makings of the best Monterey Beer Festivals yet.
MONTEREY BEER FEST June 13, 12:30pm-5pm (11:30am VIP admission). $45/presale, $50/door; VIP $70/pre-sale, $80/door; $10/on-site parking. Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairground Road, Monterey. www.montereybeerfestival.com
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