Hopmonk Tavern

This has an ample courtyard biergarten that seems to provide most of the seating. They are mainly a tap room and they have some good local brewery beers, including Russian River Brewing. Had their Kellerbier and it was just fine. The interior is really dark with the wood tint and the lighting level, which is good for watching one of the quality, large televisions. Don't know what the food is like, though it is also a restaurant.

When we arrived it was pretty busy but we were able to get a booth without any wait (this was right after Christmas but not a live music night). Great. Beer menu plus a hanging board listing offerings--Pliny, Alpine Nelson, Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada... Nothing crazy or "rare" but decent selection. Great. I asked about half pours so I could try a few things. Yes! Great. We ordered food and I ordered a half pour of the HopMonk IPA. Beer was fine, nothing earth-shattering but a solid West Coast IPA. Waited a bit for food but not excessively long. Shortly after food landed (not by our server) I was ready for another beer but hadn't seen our waitress in awhile. Food was meh--a bit overpriced for what it was. To be expected though, beer is the emphasis right? Saw waitress a couple times, tried to get her attention with no success. Finally just stopped another server and asked for a beer--she said she couldn't place the order but would relay to our server. Ok, thanks. Food is done now. Still no second beer. More waiting. Finally get attention of our waitress and say we'd like to close out, she was like "do you want me to cancel that beer?" Uh, yes.

Long and short of it, I came to have a few beers and definitely could have with the convenient half pour size and the time we had but unfortunately, that did not seem to be a priority to our server. It wasn't a secret, my empty glass was sitting there on the table... For a long time. And isn't this how these places make money? On the beer and booze? It did look like she was hustling all over the place, wasn't like she was just hanging out on her phone or anything--maybe an issue with how servers' tables are grouped (or spread out) that they need to be covering that much territory. I also tried to see what was going on behind the bar--looked like one bartender but not positive (maybe getting backed up making cocktails)... Not sure but not impressed. "HopMonk" definitely suggests that they take their beer seriously but in my experience they did not take it remotely seriously, far from anything "special."

Food 2 stars/service 2 stars. The one half pour I had... 3 stars.

 

Good sized brewpub/gastropub in downtown Sebastopol. Large well decorated outdoor seating area with small tables, large benches, fire pits, etc. Food menu has good variety, and isn't too steep for what it is - good quality bar food. Tap list rotates with lots of local favorites (and some from abroad), as well as always having a handful of "HopMonk" (Gordon Biersch pet project) beers on draft. Indoor seating has some decent sized tables, and half circle lounge/booths. Great spot to drop by if in the area.

I’ve heard good things about this place but rarely venture in their neck of the woods. So I was looking forward to my visit. What can I say? There was some poor table service—on a slow Sunday afternoon their wait times felt like a busy Friday night, and then some. No silverware, no dishes, and by the time the server returned twice (first, so we could ask for utensils, and then with the actual utensils) the food had cooled off considerably. Between this and their beer I’m inclined to pass in the future.

 

Good food and good beer, what else does a man need?

 

 

 

A good place, that is California nice, California friendly, located in a land of plenty good places. Several minutes to the west of Santa Rosa.
A good number of taps, with a number of interesting beers, the most noteable by Moonlight. A large location with 275 capacity including all rooms and the outside patio.
Up and coming small chain. House beers, a basic and competent lineup, is made by Gordon Bierch, whom the owner sold his old chain too (Gordon Bierch).
Policy oriented staff for the most part.

My wife and I stopped in here for lunch one day during our honeymoon. Lunch quickly turned into an entire afternoon. This place is great. Their beer list is extensive. They had about 16 taps including Pliny The Elder and Lagunitas Lil Sumpin Sumpin. Their bottle list was about 80 deep including Anchor Old Foghorn, Russian River Redemption, and just about everything from North Coast and Lost Coast. They also have three beers of their own which were not bad. They have a kellerbier, a pale ale, and a dunkelwiezen which I sampled in a flight. The food was also good. We had the calamari which was out of this world. I had some brats and garlic mashed potatoes which I absolutely loved. Inside they offer dining room seating and bar seating, and outdoors they have a beer garden which seemed pretty popular when we were there. They also have a back area where bands perform on weekends. For a beer lover from across the country, this was a great place to stop to try some beers and great food.

The service was fine. The selection was reasonable, no better than whole foods in santa rosa though. I was certainly expecting better. I will never return, but i suppose that doesn't really have as much to do with the service/selection/atmosphere as it does with the prices. The pricing wasn't clearly displayed anywhere and a glass of Pliny was 6.50. Considering how close they are to RR i thought this was pretty steep. My friend got a Moonlight Death and Taxes and it was the same price, which leads me to believe this is their standard price for a beer.

I'm glad to see some ownership stability in this building since it has rotated ownership for a while. Hop Monk has a good location with some local historic value that is evident upon arrival (check next door at the historic museum). Aside from all that, I think their beer is "ok". Actually,...I've stopped drinking their brew and seem to just focus on beers that are brought in from other places. Sometimes I'll slip in one of their Ales which can be nice from time to time but their style simply doesn't suite mine. Knowing that I make the appropriate adjustments as to maintain a pleasant beer drinking experience.

I believe their food is "good" but if you frequent the place enough times you'll start hoping for mods to the menu as to mix things up a bit. I think their service is pretty good but I'm beginning to think its only because most of them are familiar with me by now & I make good conversation.

Been here a few times now and really enjoy it. I have always found a great selection of beers on tap, and friendly service. I don't eat meat, so I cannot give a great review on the food, but the grilled cheese is fantastic! haha. Friends and family that I have brought here who do eat meat, say their food was also really good. They always have pliny on tap, and you can't complain about that. They also carry death and taxes and a good number of other brews. The atmosphere is really cool as it is an old train depot, and the outside area with a beer garden that has a lot of room to chill out and relax. I always look forward to going there, and would definitely recommend it if you are in the area.

Nice old building in downtown Sebastopol that looks like an old train station, but could be an old powerhouse. Dark interior with nice old windows, wide floor boards and high ceilings. It has a lot of potential to be a cool place, but they really messed it up with large 50's diner style pink upholstery seating booths that fill up the center of the room. Something about those seats really turned me off, and maybe it had to do with the teen aged-looking kids drinking Cokes in one booth. Another atmosphere faux-pas for me was a very controlled, almost air-conditioned quality to the air. Luckily there is a large outdoor seating area that is fairly pleasant. Overall the atmosphere was a miss for me-- too sterile and an odd mix of styles.
The house beer is very good to excellent. The Gordon Biersch influence is apparent, with two German styles and one American style available. I tried them all and they were all solid, but the Dunkelweisse was excellent. Authentic Bavarian yeast complexity. The Kellerbier was good too, but not quite as outstanding. The American style was a pale ale with an IPA hop profile, lots of dry hop flavor. Very fresh, and nice and clean. The house beers are a pretty good deal at $4/half liter. The guest beers were well chosen locals, including PtE and Old No. 38 stout, one of my favorite dry stouts. Overall some nice beers here, worth a try for the dunkelweisse, but I won't make a special effort to return.
Service wasn't beer-geek oriented but it wasn't bad.
I didn't try the food.

A - This is a really old stone building. Maybe a Train Depot? Awkward front entrance as it didn't really look like one. Beautiful on the inside. Nice hardwood floors and impressive bar. Outside seating is pleasant but I wish they had gone with something other than gravel.

Q - The two house beers I tried were very tasty. The Unfiltered Pilsner is quite a treat as well as the Amber.

S - I have been twice and both time my server seemed uninterested in my table.

S - OK. Nothing that I cant find anywhere else in the North Bay. The cask was nice as it was Lagunitas IPA and I had never had that before.

F - Is decent but overpriced. Pub fare with a Sebastopol twist.

V - Seems pricey. The food is highly priced. Pliny the Elder was exceptionally high as you could drive 10 miles to RR and get it dollars cheaper. The cask beer was high too. Only good value is their house beer.

We have visited Hopmonk twice since it opened - first in September and on December 6, 2008. Both times were for lunch, and we sat outside in September in a lovely garden with live music (too cold in December but I think you can still go out there - they have live music and it might be heated). It's a little confusing to find it as CA 116 kind of goes one-way around the building - no big deal. It's a very pretty space and they are kid-friendly.

We have found the food to be creative and tasty. The menu changes seasonally. I had a warm spinach salad that was delicious, they have good sweet potato fries, the pulled pork is good, altogether a very satisfying meal both times.

Service has been great both times - fast and friendly.

The beer selection was impressive in September and outstanding in December. Duchesse de Bourgogne in the proper glass, Anderson Valley Winter Solstice, SN Celebration, Alaskan Smoked Porter, RRBC Pliny the Elder, Bear Republic ESB and Lagunitas Maximus on cask - I was very happy. Their house-made beers are great (and inexpensive for the 500 ml glass). My only complaint - and this is minor - is that the beer list on the menu isn't up to date. No big deal when you're inside, because the list hangs above the bar and is easy to see, but I had to walk inside when we sat outside to see what was on tap that day. I can walk 10 feet, though, and I certainly drank more calories than I burned off walking inside for those 10 seconds...

I'd recommend Hopmonk in a second. It's a great addition to what I would argue is the best county as far as beer goes in the country, especially for a county with less than 500,000 inhabitants.

After having gone here a few times, I originally gave this place a mixed, but generally positive, review. Continually hoping that it would improve once it had been open longer, I gave it more tries. Unfortunately, my experiences have simply gotten worse every time.

The food has detiorated markedly. The last time, it was absolutely awful. Every dish we ordered differed significantly from the menu descriptions (I mean this seriously: many of the primary ingredients in our salad, for example, were completely different from the specific description in themenu and prepared in an entirely different manner than promised). Each dish was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. On top of that, they got part of the order completely wrong and took a long time to correct it, by which time we were about done with everything else.

Service, always inefficient and spotty, is even slower now than it was before and less friendly. The people running the whole thing and those doing the cooking appear completely incompetent and I mean that in all earnestness. Our food the last time was prepared by someone who clearly had no idea how to cook. The waitress was clueless about the nature of both the food and beer. Although she had been there since the first time we went, she still knew nothing about any of the beers and could not even tell which was which when bringing them to us, a mistake she had made on a previous visit.

The beer availability problem has actually become laughable. They continue to list some good, interesting, and unusual beers but these are few and always (and I mean always) out. They sometimes have a few somewhat interesting ones still on tap but mostly just beer that may be very good but is otherwise widely available in this area (they have Pliny the Elder often, a great beer hard to find elsewhere, but for this area it's fairly standard and nothing special -Santa Rosa and Russian River Brewing are just a few miles away). Otherwise, they have nothing but mediocre, very standard stuff available everywhere.

My prior review follows:

I have been to this place several times now and
This is a pretty good place with promise, but as yet, after being open for the better part of a year, it still has not achieved its potential due to spotty service, inconsistencies, and inability to keep good beers on tap.

The range of beers on tap is potentially good, but only a few are unusual or hard to find and every time I go all the best or more unusual beers are "out" and unavailable. This leaves only the standard styles,, run-of-the-mill and uninteresting beers, standard examples widely available. That said, the number is pretty good and the rotating range potentially can be good, at least if you're lucky enough to be there when they haven't run out of the good stuff. The beers of their own that are on tap are decidedly unimpressive.

The food is for the most part very good, with really good variety and character for a brew-pub-type place, but a little inconsistent. It has a good children's menu with unusual, intelligent choices to cover the bases of a range of picky children, not just the usual "kid-friendly" food.

The service is always friendly, but slow and not very knowledgeable or skilled.
The place itself is nice, in a converted old stone powerhouse for the local electric railway that ran between Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma. It is also right in cute downtown Sebastopol.

Checked out this new place owned by one of the guys that started Gordon Biersch. Kind of in the middle of nowhere, and the GPS had a little trouble with it...should just stick to google maps.

Nice place. Couldn't find a parking spot in the lot and parked across the street. They said the wait was 45+ so we went and stood by the bar, but we had a table within 20 minutes or less. Booths are nice, but the setup is kind of a waste of space. They could fit more people if they had regular tables. Outdoor patio area seemed nice, with heaters at night.

Maybe around 16 taps with great beer, and Lagunitas on cask. Extensive bottle list. I enjoyed the Dunkleweizen quite a bit. Very liberal with tasters to make sure you get a beer you'll enjoy.

Food is a large variety and I had the pulled pork. It was a little plain, but nothing especially wrong with it. Pork quality was good. The other food looked fine too. Mussels seemed to be popular, so I assume those are good there.

I would say definitely stop in if you're near Santa Rosa/Sebastopol or in the general area.