Alvarado Street Brewery is throwing open the doors to its newest taproom this Saturday, Nov. 7, with a celebration running from 1 to 9 p.m. that includes a food truck, a DJ and plenty of beer. The new spot, dubbed The Plant, sits at 11440 Commercial Parkway in Castroville and marks the brewery's biggest production move yet.
According to Monterey County Now, Alvarado Street has dubbed the combination of bar and brewery as The Plant, and the taproom will shift into a regular five-day-a-week schedule once the grand-opening weekend wraps. Starting Nov. 7, the bar will be open Wednesday through Sunday, giving Castroville a steady new drinking destination rather than a one-off event space. The bar itself features 18 taps plus a separate sharp pour system, and the production facility behind it has quietly been in operation since August.
A Production Powerhouse Behind the Bar
Per Edible Monterey Bay, the Castroville brewery is set up as the company's primary production facility and newest tasting room, a notable shift in how Alvarado Street organizes its operations. Opening day will include roughly 15 different house beers on tap, giving visitors a wide sampling of what the new system can produce. The outlet also reported the facility could produce up to 45,000 barrels of beer annually, though that figure has not been independently confirmed by a primary record.
Alvarado Street Brewery itself described the project in a post on its own site, asb.beer, saying the plan includes a tasting room and beer garden with rotating food trucks. The brewery said the new 50-barrel BrauKon brewhouse would help increase capacity and improve efficiency, while more production and packaging moves to Castroville. Importantly, the brewery added that Salinas will continue to be a part of what we do moving forward, meaning the expansion is being framed as additive rather than a replacement for its existing site.
Brewing At a Different Scale
The ramp-up has already been dramatic behind the scenes. Owner J.C. Hill told the same food blog that the team had brewed more in one week than it typically brews in a month, a jump attributed directly to the new BrauKon system's ability to move operations along in almost one motion with dramatically increased capacity. That kind of output is exactly what the brewery says it needs to support both a packed tasting room calendar and continued distribution.
Not every detail of the expansion is fully settled on paper. KSBW reported that an application for a Type 23 small beer manufacturer license tied to the Castroville site was listed as pending as of Dec. 10, 2025, and no primary Alcoholic Beverage Control record was available to confirm the license's current status or final approval date. That reporting predates the planned opening weekend, and the available evidence does not establish how the license situation has evolved since.
What Saturday Looks Like
For now, the plan is straightforward: show up Saturday between 1 and 9 p.m. for food truck fare, a DJ set and a lineup of roughly 15 house beers poured fresh from the new system. Anyone curious about hours, the tap list or future events can check the brewery's own site at asb.beer. Castroville's beer scene just got a lot bigger, and Alvarado Street is betting the new production muscle keeps both the taproom and its Salinas roots running side by side.
