Beer is pretty cool. Gardens are pretty cool. And when they come together with relaxing outdoor vibes for everyone to enjoy, there’s not much cooler than that. The trendy food explosion enhancing downtown Monterey just got a new addition, Fieldwork Brewing Company’s beer garden, and cool is the name of the game.
Fieldwork took a place at the top of the Northern California beer chain when Barry Braden and Alex Tweet opened the flagship brewpub in Berkeley two years ago. With Braden’s experience as the owner of a restaurant with a focus on beer and Tweet’s experience at Modern Times Beer and helping develop the Grapefruit Sculpin IPA at Ballast Point Brewery, the power team found success and quickly added taprooms in Sacramento, Napa and San Mateo. And now Monterey. Their business model involves the production of many creative beers crafted in a huge and hip facility and trucked to the taprooms, plus some popular brews in limited-edition cans.
Speaking of cool, such was the weather one breezy Friday evening, but that didn’t stop dozens of people from filling up the community-size wooden picnic tables. Luckily Monterey’s weather doesn’t usually dip too low past “cool” since the garden is only covered by hanging lights, an inviting and beautiful touch. Besides, heat lamps, a fire pit and the warming effects of beer help. (There are also plans for a winter canvas roof.)
The fenced-in lot that was deserted only a couple months ago has quickly become a popular hangout spot. A contemporary and efficient design revolves around using shipping containers: one as a bar, one as a bathroom, one for storage. The rest of the space is an airy garden that can seat about 75. There’s no kitchen, but the invitation is open to bring your own food.
I like variety, and my favorite way to get that is flights, so I was happy when our friendly server explained: Pick up to six from the ample list of about 15-25 that rotates rapidly as the kegs empty.
We followed the menu’s theme of starting light and ending heavy. One of the more interesting (and delectable) beers was the Churro Cream Ale, a nod to the fried food with a sweet, cinnamony element ($6). It’s not every day you taste a beer that reminds you of a soda float or donut, but with golden sugar added to the boil, this one is definitely original, and definitely good.
The drinkable farmhouse Textbook Ale came full-bodied with a hint of sourness in the grainy effervescence ($6). The “Field Trial” single hop blonde brought pleasantly balanced hops in a simple and pleasant brew ($6). With its tempting name, I had to try the Finer Things, a mosaic light lager that was so light it elicited agreeable commentary from my drinking companions, like “a lager for people who don’t like lager” ($6).
Getting slightly heavier, the Green Stripe Dank Lager ($6) is the brewery’s funky and earthy take on merging bitter hops with approachability and a pungent aroma, or as they put it on the website (where one can find extensive notes on every beer), “smelling like a freshly harvested kilo of cannabis with hints of tangerine and lime zest.” More green traits come in the Hazy Train ($6), a heady IPA with an equally fun descriptor: melon, grapefruit, “and a ziplock freezer bag of the highest grade weed your roadies could score.” I found it crispy and refreshing, one of my favorites on the list.
As the night went on, the place stayed crowded and the service stayed attentive.
Being a chocolate lover, I found myself lost in the Chocolate Thunder God imperial milk stout ($6/half pour, not available as a full), a 9.6-percent solid beauty with deep and lasting tones of cocoa and espresso. It was a great beer to illustrate different tastes, as my cousin-in-law found it awful while I found it heavenly.
Other mentionables include the King Citra double IPA ($7), a grapefruity brew with a welcoming and agreeable balance, and the Destination Unknown double IPA ($6), predictable and traditional for its name but fun and fruity enough.
Another beer pilgrimage occurred one Thursday evening. Again, the spot was lively. My brother, a beer fanatic, recommended Fieldwork’s sour ales, so I decided to start there. The Caribbean Queen tropical sour ale ($8) instantly became my favorite item on the menu, delivering a tantalizingly tart bite with the fruity flavors of an entire island. The balance of sweet produce and zesty acidity is nailed on the head here, hard.
On a totally different note, I had to sample a few darker beers like the American and Baltic stouts (both $6). Though Shoot the Moon American is described as a classic stout with hints of milk chocolate and orange peel, it tasted like rye liquor to me. Shadow Skills, the Baltic, arrived with roasted coffee bean tastiness in a nice, foamy thickness and heap of comfort and complexity.
Comfort and complexity are a great way to sum up everything going on at Fieldwork. The beers are nothing but carefully crafted, unique and delicious. Oh yeah, and very cool.
FIELDWORK BREWING COMPANY
560 Munras Ave., Monterey.
11am-10pm Sun-Thu; 11am-11pm Fri-Sat
324-0658, fieldworkbrewing.com