USA, CA: Over Town Brewing holds grand opening in Monrovia
Over Town Brewing founders Carlos Plazola and Ryan McKay were brewing the last batches, tasting the suds and finalizing beer names for the grand opening on March 15 — or as McKay phrased it: “Putting on the last shiny touches.”
Upon entry, it’s clear that they put their degrees in design, multimedia and marketing fields at Woodbury University, where they met, to good use. The decor is reminiscent of Route 66 with picnic-style bench tables and a USA board where people can pop beer bottle caps into holes in each state.
The name hails from the vernacular of McKay’s hometown, Catalina Island, where residents call the mainland, or Los Angeles, “over town.”
As a wood-crafter, McKay said he and Plazola basically hand-built the place from the ground up. They tore out all the old furnishings and repainted, built the bars, railings, installed the cabinets, doors and assembled the brew house area.
“It’s very much our place,” McKay said.
With a 46-person capacity, intimate tap room and open brewing facility, customers are not cordoned off by a huge window; they can sit right in front of the equipment and see how the beer got into their glass.
Over Town offers a cross section of beer: IPAs, browns, stouts and Belgians, McKay said. They’ve chosen localized names for some of their craft beers, such as Samson Brown Ale, named after the bear that used to hang out in Jacuzzis in Monrovia, and the Catalina-based Buffaloat Stout.
McKay said they have 10 taps, a somewhat small tap list with some localized names and will rotate offerings pretty often. “I’d say we’re swapping out probably one every couple days, so by the end of the week there are two or three new ones,” McKay said. “We’re going to try to get three or four flagship beers that can always be here, and we can make over and over again,” he added.
“I think after opening, we’ll find out what the crowd really likes around here and then we’ll tailor that according to what sells the most,” Plazola said.
With the city’s culture, time will tell how Monrovians will react to the menu.
“A lot of people around here are kind of like, ‘Eh, I just want (something) real plain; don’t you just have an amber ale or something?’” McKay said. “They don’t want it over-hopped or flavored with this and that,” he added.
“It’s older and conservative around here, but it seems like the city is interested in getting to the next level,” McKay said. Plazola said Monrovia is modernizing, or “bringing in new kids and bringing new life into the area.”
Plazola said they chose the spot, one block from Route 66 and two blocks from Myrtle Avenue in Old Town, to not get lost in the sea — and bureaucratic red tape — of Los Angeles breweries.
“We read an article about Pacific Plate Brewing and how they wanted Monrovia to be an incubator for breweries, so we felt like the city is welcoming; we wanted to find a small city where we could talk to the development department,” McKay said.
McKay has committed the past year to dedicate himself solely to the brewery, but Plazola is still working his day job, making movie posters. McKay said once they’re off the ground, they plan to both run Over Town full time.
Although Over Town is next to Wingwalker Brewing, which opened last month, Plazola said the owners all good friends and they plan to collaborate rather than compete.
“With this eastward movement of places in Pasadena and Arcadia, we’re just joining this microbrewery family here in Monrovia,” McKay said. “We pay attention to everybody else, but we also do our own thing in a lot of ways,” he added.
They’ve vowed to make customer service a priority: “The one thing I can promise is we’re always looking to get better,” McKay said. “A lot of places sit on their laurels, but we’re not gonna take feedback in a bad way,” McKay said. He said that if someone says they messed up, then they’ll change it, try something else.
The effort is a family affair. McKay said his mom does most of the accounting and some cleaning; his dad painted much of the building. Opening a brewery is “a very time-consuming thing and (our families) have been very supportive,” McKay said. “They’re as much of a part of it as we are,” McKay said.
17 March, 2019
