Congregation Ale House Entices Hopheads to Take a Sip at Their Altar

The California beer scene has seen a meteoric rise in popularity over the past few years as evidenced by the various gastropubs and bars that have recently popped up across town. Beer enthusiasts have fueled demand for beer dens such as the fast-rising Congregation Ale House.

“We started in 2010,” said Congregation owner and Chief Operating Officer Travis Ensling. “We opened in September, and after our first year, we were already named in the top 100 beer bars in the entire country in Draft magazine. In less than 2 years, there’s already three locations, so we’re really excited about the reception that we had for it so far.”

The Pasadena place – located at 300 South Raymond Avenue where Crown City Brewery once stood – features long wooden communal tables, much like you would expect from a monastery mess hall.

“We really enjoy the fact that anytime anyone comes in here, they’ll usually gravitate towards someone they can relate to, or share a story to, or feel comfortable sitting next to because it’s all communal tables and they don’t really have a choice,” said Ensling of the pub’s arrangement.

“In most restaurants, one party will own the table. At Congregation, if the seat is available, the seat is available – even if at someone’s table. It’s a little awkward at first, ‘cause it’s a little bit different, not a lot of places are doing that in LA, but I’ve seen the model across the world, and I think it’s absolutely tremendous,” he said.

Their menu showcases simple food that pair perfectly with their beer offerings.

“Everything here has been marked on complete simplicity – as simple as we can possibly make things,” said Ensling. “The menu is very short, but there’s a lot of thought gone into everything:  simple burgers, turkey burgers, fine selection of exotic sausages, different French fries, potato chips, a couple salads, and a small assortment of a flat-bread pizza style item that we have in the back.”

“If it’s a budget issue, our happy hours are called ‘mass’,” said Ensling. “We have all-day Monday mass, where our $8 burger comes down to $6, it’s $1 off everything by the glass, our well drinks are $3. We also do a midday mass and a midnight mass most days as well. At lunch we have a $7 combo, which is a wonderful ground rib eye burger, set on our house-baked buns with a side of Belgian double-dip fries, and a special dipping sauce. “

“It’s almost fast-food prices. Because of the volume that we’re able to do, we just try to really focus on the guest experience and offer that savings to them.”

Of course, the highlight of any beer joint such as Congregation lies with their beers. According to Ensling, the model for Congregation’s beer selection is to represent as many styles as possible.

“Pasadena and Long Beach have 32 taps each, Azusa has 27. Within that realm, we try to stay half domestic and half imported, and within that realm, we try to represent every style possible reflective of the seasons, availabilities, and whatever might be coming down our way.”

With the booming beer brewing industry, there’s no shortage of options for beer bars like Congregation as well. “There’s so many new breweries opening this year,” said Ensling. “I think the last I heard was over a thousand breweries opening, and we still only have 32 taps here so the selection just keeps getting easier and easier for us to procure some really good beers.”

“I’m currently doing all the beer-buying now, but when we opened the doors, we had wonderful amazing contributions from a gentleman named Eli Wilson – a certified cicerone and through him we kinda set the concept and the model for what we’d be doing for all the locations,” said Ensling.

To step things up a notch, Congregation has also announced the opening of their very own microbrewery at their Azusa location.

“It’s coming the end of the year in Azusa, it’ll be supplying all three of our restaurants – not exclusively, we’re only putting two handles,” said Ensling. “The concept of the brewery – to match the concept of the restaurant – is we’re doing a white ale and a dark ale. It’s gonna be a lot of fun,  we just hired on a brewer from Rogue Brewery out of Portland, he has two gold medals under his belt at the GABF (Great American Beer Festival) contest they do in Denver.

When asked how he was able to reach such success with Congregation in such a short amount of time, Ensling said that it was more about his team and the people that helped along the way
“It’s very little about me, I work with an amazing team,” said Ensling. “The kids that work here, the students that all come in and contributed from their vast experiences and the touches they think that the concept needed to bring it over to the top . “

“We’re still growing it, we’re still building it, so if I stop and figure out what made us successful, I might mess something up. I’m just gonna keep doing what we’ve been doing,” added Ensling, who prior to Congregation had owned and operated Cafe Mundial in Monrovia for ten years, and was former manager at the original Lucky Baldwin’s.

“If you’re looking for specialty beers, we pride ourselves in being a company to some of the top places in Los Angeles for special beers,” invited Ensling. “The selection, the maintenance, the reverence we give to the glassware, the reverence we give to the service standards of serving the beers and talking to the guests, definitely make the product worth being a target to see.”

Congregation Ale House is located at 300 S Raymond Ave, Pasadena. Their Azusa location can be found on 619 N Azusa Ave, Azusa, while their Long Beach location is on 201 E Broadway Ave. For more information, visit their website at www.congregationalehouse.com