Congregation Ale House, Downtown Long Beach’s staple independent beer pourer and pub, is officially no longer. Its owners, who purchased the brand during the pandemic, are converting the space to an entirely different concept. (They already altered Congregation into “Congregation Brewing & Cocina,” leaning into a Mexican concept, after purchasing the brand and brewert.) Its signage? Removed. Its outdoor awning? Wholly uninstalled. And now, new signage for “El Viejón” has gone up, with workers on site saying it will be a sushi and seafood concept. (And it is not to be confused with the small chain in San Diego with the same name.)
While we patiently await for an opening—some are saying as soon as early next year—it is worth looking back on Congregation’s influence on Downtown and the entirety of the city’s beer scene.
How Congregation Ale House uplifted Long Beach’s role in serving great beer.
Before Beachwood moved onto the Promenade (in what is now ISM Brewing). And definitely before The Blendery. Before it was common to find Belgian brews, IPAs, proper hefeweizens and stouts, there was Travis Ensling’s Congregation Ale House.
Opening in the late summer of 2010, Congregation had a distinct blending of kitsch paired with taste. Servers cheekily wore Catholic school outfits. They had what were then the best burgers and beers in town. And it all proved a hit. Lines went down the Promenade on the daily when before it would open to join its stone church-like interior, complete with a stained-glass window of its logo behind the bar, and medieval-looking chandeliers.
It was a space that, at the time, felt inherently cool and perfectly themed.
The beer tap list in 2010? Dogfish Palo Santo Marron. Unibroue Éphémère Pomme. Birrificio Strada San Fèlice. Strand’s 24th Street Pale. Chimay White. New Belgium’s Imperial Berliner Weisse. Ballast Point Sculpin (before they turned messy).
These were just a few of the stellar brews that were offered nearly 15 years ago. A list that, for the most part, would stand strong today. And this is when all the signs for beer and food were on chalkboards and handwritten. When servers, were you loyal enough, would message you online to let you know about a newly tapped brew.
It was, indeed, glorious.
How Congregation altered beer culture in Long Beach.
In 2010 and throughout its early years—especially when Beachwood Brewing opened just yards away on The Promenade—Congregation proved to be the place for beer drinkers. These were the days when, eschewing a loud announcement, they would quietly tap Russian River’s Pliny the Younger. And for $8 for a full pint, you could have as many as your heart’s desire.
These were the days you would find then-server, now-journalism professor Sarah Bennett dissecting people’s beer tastes. “Unfortunately, we do not have Blue Moon. But it seems like you like hefs or wheat beers—let me give you a sample of Craftsman’s Heaveny Hefe. I think you’re gonna like it.”
In its essence, Congregation taught Long Beach how to drink good beer. And even more, they ushered in the Downtown beer (and eventually, Long Beach-wide) renaissance.
But long before Congregation Ale House…
There were the liquor stores and ma’n’pa markets that, long before it was cool and profitable, carried odd cases of unknown brews. From Benson’s Liquor to Stearns Liquor, each reminds its patrons of how Long Beach was ahead of the craft beer curve (and reminds me personally of how friend and beer writer Aaron Carroll told me about Stearns being the sole place to score Sierra Nevada in the entire city back in the early 1990s).
These were the institutions—paired with the rich history of oversize schooners filled with watery American lagers at Joe Jost’s for nearly a century to the many-decades-old dive bars offering cheap drafts along Retro Row—that puts Long Beach in a cemented but overlooked place in the history of independent beer.
And perhaps, there would be no other bigger influence than the Belmont Brewing Company, pouring brews that were crafted locally and offering selections that were outright baffling during the 1990s, the decade before “craft beer” became synonymous with Southern California drinking.
…there was the Belmont Brewing Company.
Long before Congregation taught Downtowners how to drink beer in Long Beach… Long before Beachwood was named the world’s best gastropub and definitely before ISM moved in to start taking medals of its own… Before The Blendery, Ambitious Ales, Ten Mile, Syncopated, and all the splendor of what we currently have as local beer.
The BBC in Belmont Shore, founded by David Lott and David Hansen, came alive in 1990—one year after Karl Strauss opened in San Diego, just over a decade after New Albion became the nation’s first formal microbrewery in Sonoma, and nearly a century after Anchor set up shop in San Francisco in 1896—and with a quarter of a century in operation, it has the distinction of being the oldest brewpub in the region.
“Back then, as was the case with a lot of the early brewpubs, most brewers tended to brew colors, rather than distinct styles—a blonde, a golden, a red, a pale, a brown, and maybe a stout or a hefeweizen—all of them ales,” wrote beer historian and writer Tomm Carroll in one of the first editions of Beer Paper LA. “It was fresh beer, and it wasn’t thin, yellowish liquid like the ubiquitous Budweiser and Coors, so it was a welcome respite from the then-norm.”
Particularly then, craft beer was something that was oddly looked upon.
In its beginnings, BBC went through brewmasters quite quickly but didn’t find a true grounding until it brought on its third brewer, Kevin Day. According to Carroll, Day was experimenting with Belgian Tripels and English barleywine styles on the seven-barrel system, marking BBC as one of the most forward-thinking breweries at the time.
However, by the end of his run, BBC returned to what it still offers today, including its famed Strawberry Blonde that can be found everywhere from Total Wine & More to local restaurants—though you’ll find its longtime current brewmaster, who goes mononymously by Blackwell (and whose first name is David) and takes to the beer lines every day at 4AM, taking on more contemporary styles like West Coast IPAs under the BBC’s Ale of the Month selection.
And it is here where we lament what Congregation—in the very tradition of Belmont Brewing Company, Yard House (before Olive Garden bought it and whose first location was its Long Beach location), and countless others have that have gone before—had done for our beer culture. Long live not just the ribeye burger. Or its pretzel. Or its absurdly knowledgeable staff. Long live the way in which it looked at how beer is as culinary as it is worth far more than a Bud Light.
