Like many brewers of contemporary hazy and sour styles, Alvarado Street Brewery cofounder and brewer J.C. Hill is more enthusiastic about the Pilsner they brew than you might expect. His approach to brewing is less focused on iconoclasm, and more driven by an uncalculated love of the vast array of beer styles.
Hill caught the brewing bug in a roundabout way. His plan was always to work in the hotel or restaurant business, and a stint at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration put him on the professional career path. Fate intervened when his wife purchased him a beer kit, setting in motion a string of events that would lead to him opening a craft beer-centric sandwich shop, then the 3-barrel brewhouse of Amplified Aleworks (with then-partner Alex Pierson) in San Diego, and finally a return to central California to launch Alvarado Street Brewery with his dad (also a veteran of the hospitality industry).
“I just wanted to come up here, run my own brewpub, be the brewer, and make beer. But I got caught up in the love of it, and ended up driving a bunch of kegs up to Santa Cruz in my truck to places like Aptos Street, Beer Thirty, and Lupulo, and demand just went up from there,” said Hill. The brewery’s reputation quickly skyrocketed and demand has shown no signs of abating.