Bar pies are a unique regional pizza, and Alvarado Street dresses them up.

Many of the regional pizza styles have broken from their geographical bonds. New York, Chicago, even Detroit-style pies are familiar to diners everywhere.

But two types may still be a mystery. It’s unlikely that any parlor in Monterey County serves St. Louis-style pizza – where would they find provel, its processed cheese hallmark? And the tavern or bar pies found in the upper Midwest and a few northeastern states were also no-shows, at least until now.

At the beginning of the new year, Alvarado Street Brewery in Monterey recharged its menu, adding a line of five different bar pies. Scaled for one person, with a delicate crust, the pizzas represent the innovative impulse of the brewpub’s kitchen.

“We were just looking for a change,” explains Brian Parks, Alvarado Street’s culinary director. “Bar pies are a unique product – and that’s the idea.”

Cheese melts into and around the crust until they become almost one. There remains a whisper of distinction in the crispy, chewy bite. There’s a nutty, smoky savor scored into the bottom of a crust that wavers between golden, brown and the harrowing bay of darkness. Around the edges, the cheese and sauce crinkle into a Detroit signature frico.

“You look at it and it’s just a pie,” Parks observes. “But you have a lot of flavor in a little pie.”

Once upon a time, tavern pizzas played the same role as free popcorn – giveaways that led from one beer to another. But they caught on in cities like Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as pubs across New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts (the how and why of its travels are a little vague). They evolved into a distinct style. While the crust is thin, it has the character of a risen dough, with toppings spread to the very edge.

Perhaps the style was slow to catch on because turning it upscale puts chefs in contention with the pizza itself. The team at Alvarado Street began refining the recipe three months before adding bar pies to the menu. They even brought in master pizzaiolo Noel Brohner of L.A.’s Slow Rise Pizza for guidance.

The battle, according to Parks, is mainly with the dough. It rests for a day, but they don’t want it to rise until it begins to bake. The room and oven temperatures must be right, so too the weight of the toppings.

“It’s very finicky,” he says. “You have to be precise.”

There’s a vegetarian version, one dubbed “Gangnam Style” with the raspy, sweet Cantonese lap xoung cured sausage finding kinship with clams and ginger, another with husky salsa macha and a pairing of calabrese and pineapple where watercress makes a rare pizza appearance.

But even the familiar pepperoni version – “Old Town” on the menu – is deceitful. The pepperoni lends a rustic heat, rugged and unsophisticated, but it is soothed by a more tempered and steady spice. And then an earthy-sweet calm settles on the palate.

A drizzle of honey spiked with hot sauce proves to be a nice foil for the pepperoni, as well as a complement to the crust as it weaves through its nutty, smoky progression.

Parks says that Alvarado Street owner J.C. Hill knew of the style, probably from an East Coast venture. The pies are known by the tavern name in the Midwest, replaced by bar in the Northeast. Indeed, Hill explored both and settled on a version found in southern Massachusetts.

“He said, ‘Can you look into that?’” recalls Parks, who was unfamiliar with the style. “It was fun. It allows me to run with it.”

There is one departure from tradition that those aware of tavern pies in particular will spot immediately. Like St. Louis style, it’s common to slice the little round pies into square pegs. Alvarado Street opted to cut them into wedges – it’s pizza, after all.

For now, bar pies are only on the menu of Alvarado Street’s downtown Monterey location. Detroit and St. Louis? Sorry.

Bar pies are enough to explore for now. And as Parks says, “They’re killing it.”

ALVARADO STREET BREWERY, 426 Alvarado St., Monterey. 655-2337, asb.beer