On the East Coast, bibliophiles have Strand; art-lovers The Met; baseball aficionados Fenway. Beer nerds? Beer nerds have Monk's Cafe. For decades, owners Tom Peters and Fergus Carey have operated what is widely considered one of the single finest beer-drinking destinations in the country.
Monk's impeccably curated and extraordinarily deep Belgian-centric bottle list complements two bars' worth of rotating taps that feature a fantastic cross section of American, Dutch, British, and even more Belgian brews. Of particular note is that Monk's routinely features Russian River's beer on tap, something that no other bar outside of parts of California and Denver can boast of. When I queried the staff on how this was possible, one of them informed me that Tom had first met Russian River's founder and master brewer, Vinnie Cilurzo, "back when he owned the Blind Pig in Temecula [ie early 90s]." They had bonded over a shared affection for the storied brewing culture of Belgium, something both drew upon as inspiration for their work. Apparently, the friendship has not only survived, but thrived - ergo, the regularly occurring Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig, and Damnation on tap.
