Alvarado Street Brewery: Monterey, CA

After leaving Yosemite, Matt and I turned our attention south and headed for Monterey. We were eager to get there before the aquarium closed at 5 and fortunately arrived with plenty of time. While the aquarium was a bit of a dud (having just been to the incredible aquarium at National Harbor, Baltimore), we were able to take some time to explore the surrounding sites of Cannery Row. Although this post will primarily focus on the delicious dinner we had that evening, it's worth taking a minute to mention this historic area.

Made famous by John Steinbeck in his Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday novels, Cannery Row is the name given to a stretch of Ocean View Avenue that was home to a vibrant canning industry from 1908 to the mid-1950s. After the first major cannery opened in 1908, an explosion in the local sardine population meant the industry grew exponentially. The local canneries were particularly famous for producing canned sardines to feed the American war efforts during World War I. While the Great Depression put a damper on production, World War II swiftly brought another uptick in fortunes for the area. However, this upswing was sadly short lived and following the war, the sardines disappeared from the Monterey Bay coast and the local canning industry quickly followed.

Today, the area is a haven for tourists with souvenir shops and restaurants galore. While the area feels very inauthentic now, it's still worth a visit to see the remnants of the canneries. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, checked out the aquarium, and then headed to our hotel. After getting settled in, we decided to walk down to Alvarado Street to find some dinner. Along the way we found an option where Matt would have probably felt quite at home but we decided to give it a pass since we have lots of pubs in London!

Instead, we settled in at the bar of Alvarado Street Brewery to wait for a table while sampling two of the over twenty house beers they offer. I started with the Citraveza (on the left below), which was "inspired by a San Diego garage homebrew recipe from 2011". Described as "light and crisp" with a hop aroma and flavor, this was a lovely way to start the evening. Matt went for the Haze of Our Lives - an IPA with "a fruity yeast strain and gorgeous New Zealand nelson hops". We were both pretty impressed and I'm not usually a beer fan!

After about ten minutes, we were led to our table in the back half of the restaurant. The atmosphere was lovely - it really maintained the brewery feeling while still providing a comfortable dining space. Although we didn't check it out there was apparently also a beer garden at the back of the restaurant that would probably have been lovely on a warmer night.

We were starving so we jumped straight into ordering nibbles. First up was the vegetable dip with house chorizo. Made with local sweet corn, roasted peppers and three cheeses, it was a delicious way to start our meal. The tortilla chips also seemed to be homemade since they were sturdier and less uniform than the ones you get from the store. When we saw the option for adding chorizo, we naturally had to go for it. The saltiness really rounded out the rest of the dish so we highly recommend it!

Next we shared the carnitas street tacos appetizer. I love street food options since they're usually the perfect size and not to intense. These tacos came with cabbage, avocado crema, salsa and extra lime. While they were delicious, my favorite was still the vegetable dip because whats not to like about a vat of melted cheese?!

While waiting on our final dish, we decided to try more from the beer menu. Matt went with a flight of some of the beers our server recommended: the Peninsula Pilsner ("a decidedly hoppy pilsner brewed with traditional Czech Saaz and saphir), the Pit Master Blaster ("Hazy IPA brewed with an expressive yeast strain for extra juice, hit hard with Citra and El Dorado hops"), the Imperial International Style Juice ("all the glorious Mosaic, Citra and Amarillo oily goodness in tandem with a fruity fermentation courtesy of an expressive yeast strain"), and the Playa Del Dauv (a very hard to describe beer!).

Meanwhile, I went for a punchy 10% option for my second round: the Triple Haole Punch. The description of a passion fruit, orange and guava flavored kettle sour drew me in as a result of my inability to resist passion fruit but I have to admit this was a little too intense for me. When it arrived, we laughed at the smaller glass and then I quickly learned the error of our ways. While delicious, I think this option would have been better at the very end of the night and I quickly switched back to my original Citraveza.

Our final dish of the night was the Sicilian Sausage Pizza, served with house IPA sausage, tomato conserve, mozzarella and broccoli rabe. While we had debated whether to include this in our order, we were very glad we had when it arrived piping hot and smelling delicious. I found the pizza just slightly on the salty side but still devoured my half. It had just the right amount of toppings to dough and was just the right size - somewhere between a small and a medium delivery pizza.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and got ready for our drive to Santa Barbara. Along the way, we took a two hour detour to see some of Big Sur but unfortunately we were mostly in the clouds. The photo below was the best of the bunch and I highly recommend checking out Highway 1 if you're in the area. Normally you can take it the whole length of the coast in Southern California but mudslides in 2017 meant we were forced to turn around after an hour. Still, well worth the drive and we found it actually didn't add as much time to our journey as we expected.