Matt Coelho and Jim Woods have opened Cervecería de MateVeza on the corner of 18th and Church. The little beer shop is as authentically Argentinean as anything I’ve experienced since moving away from Buenos Aires at the end of 2008.

Tucked away behind Dolores Park.

In addition to bottled beers and beers on tap, Cervecería de MateVeza serves empanadas, small savory pastry pockets similar to Italian calzones. The empanadas are made by the Argentine-run company El Porteño, and are muy auténticas. Cervecería de MateVeza serves savory and sweet empanadas that pair well with the beers.

An empanada and draught beers.

Sweet empanadas and alfajores.

The three MateVeza beers on tap are:

1) IPA. Floral, Citrusy, not bitter or hoppy-tasting like a traditional IPA. It’s lighter-bodied than I’d expected and absolutely delicious. Recommended pairing: Fuggazzetta empanada, with aged cheddar cheese, organic onions, and oregano.

2) Morpho Herbal Ale. “This is the most unique thing we do,” explains Woods of the collaboration beer he created with the brewmeister of Mill Valley Beerworks. “In beer, the sweetness of malt is usually balanced by the bitterness of hops, but in this case we decided to use bay leaves and mate for the bitter component,” says Woods. “After the first batch, it was still lacking in something, so we added hibiscus to give it a little tartness, with the ascorbic acid–Vitamin C naturally found in hibiscus flowers.” The hibiscus also gives the brew a pretty, light ruby color. The essence of the bay leaves is one of the dominant flavors, and this beer would be great for the adventurous drinker. Luckily, the “beertenders” will pour a small flight gratis for any customer unsure of what they’d like to order. Recommended pairing: Pollo empanada, with Fulton Valley chicken, chicken chorizo, raisins, and olives.

3) My unabashed favorite of the three beers Cervecería de MateVeza has on tap was the Black Lager. It’s a dark, black beer, with ingredients similar to a porter or a stout, but it’s light bodied because it’s brewed with yeast normally reserved for lagers, making the taste crisp and easily drinkable, and belying the rich, dark color of the beer and its foam. Recommended pairing: Champiñones empanada, which contains fresh, seasonal, local, organic mushrooms by Far West Fungi, shallots, Parmesan cheese, and crème fraîche.

The draught beers also come in bottles.

Woods enjoying a yerba mate.

In addition to a changing selection of the MateVeza beers that are brewed at the Mendocino Brewing Company on tap, there is a carefully curated selection of bottled beers from Europe and the US, which ranges from the hard-to-find like “Rigor Mortis” to more “sessionable” beers, which is brewmaster speak for beers with lighter body and less alcohol that can be drunk with…less moderation. Think Scrimshaw.

“We will typically have three MateVeza beers on tap, two beers brewed in house on our 20-gallon system which will change weekly, and two or three rotating guest beers,” says Woods.

Regarding the brewing process, Woods says, “I provide the recipe, the ingredients, and the packaging materials. We also have a very detailed process for each beer. I go up on most brew days. The system is pretty much automated and Mendocino’s brewers are overseeing the whole process.”

What Woods and Coelho are doing are ultimately trying to raise awareness for their own brand, MateVeza, but “I don’t drink it all day,” says Woods. “I drink it only every other beer,” he laughs. The slim Woods, who says he drinks about 4-5 beers a day on average (and Coelho admits to 2 or 3 beers daily), says “I’ve lost a lot of weight since we started. Hauling all of this beer around and being on our feet all day keeps us fit!”

“I started my morning with Bikram yoga,” says Coelho.

“And we’re like those monks, the ones that substituted beer for their bread. I eat smaller meals now because a lot of my carbs come from beer.”

Inside the cozy space, a “curiosity cabinet,” made of four salvaged windows, houses an extensive selection of mate gourds. Woods says that should a customer care to partake of yerba mate, the service costs $5. The “draft board,” or the list of beers available, is made from a vintage card game, Parker Brother’s “Probe,” which the duo describe as an odd, “Scrabble-like” game from the 1960′s. “I scored five sets on eBay,” says Woods proudly.

On the wall above a custom-made wrought-iron chandelier hang not one, but two giant velvet portraits of Elvis Presley. “When my girlfriend and I started dating three years ago,” says Woods, “we discovered straightaway that we both owned a ‘Velvis’.” Clearly, some pairings: like velvet and Elvis, and yerba mate and beer–were meant to be.

The rules are pretty simple at Cervecería.

Cervecería de MateVeza
Address: Map
3801 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Phone: (415) 273-9295
Hours: Tue-Sat: 12:00 pm-10:00 pm; Sun: 12:00 pm-6:00 pm
Facebook: Cervecería de MateVeza

Stepping through the doors of Bergamot Alley, the newest addition to Healdsburg’s food and wine scene, I’m greeted with a warm hug from the hostess. A long hug. Let me backtrack. I’m from Healdsburg, a fifth-generation rarity who moved to San Francisco almost 10 years ago and only travels back home sporadically. Every time I do, though, I find that another friend, or pair of friends, or group of friends, has opened up or is planning on opening up a cool new spot in my hometown. Bergamot Alley is one of them.

The brainchild of Kevin Wardell, formerly a sommelier at flour + water and A16, and his partner Sarah Johnson, Bergamot Alley looks like it was born of a machine shop and an artistic city-slicker. The lofty space on Healdsburg Avenue was formerly a jumbled antiques mall filled with woodstoves and tractor parts, and the original brick walls have been carefully exposed. The 17-foot ceilings are finished in their original tin from 1896. Because the building is one of Healdsburg’s oldest, Wardell says, it has a certain landmark status that inspired the décor. In the walls: a wooden brick here, a tin patch there, small iron bars jutting out at random angles. The “wallscape” somehow works together, with a collection of air gardens climbing the bricks and vending-machine bouncing balls shoved onto the ends of the iron bars to turn them into functional coat and purse racks. A plaster wall that divides Bergamot Alley from its next-door-neighbor sports decals by Telluride, CO-based artist Nathan Frerichs, the whimsical squid and octopus looking as at home here in the Dry Creek Valley as they would on a T-shirt sold on Haight Street.

Bergamot Alley owners Sarah Johnson and Kevin Wardell. Photo: Kena Frank

Bergamot Alley is intended to be a “bar without a bar,” says Wardell. “There’s no division between the customer and the people who work here,” he says.

“We wanted to have a space that really felt like a community room, where the flow of the people and the energy is uninterrupted by a bar.”

Large, community-style tables that can fit up to 10 people are hand-welded with kick-plates made from WWII-era hot-dog bun baking trays. The chairs are from elementary schools, with taller legs welded to them to elevate the drinker to barstool height. The vibe: all-encompassing and welcoming. Whether you’re a local, a tourist, or a “new local” with a chateau out in the valley and perfectly mucked designer Wellingtons, you’ll feel at home here.

“We wanted to avoid the ‘me versus you’ of the typical bar,” says Wardell.

“That works great for tasting rooms, but we’re inviting a community-based dynamic here.”

In Healdsburg, it’s rare for a wine bar to serve non-local wine; to not serve any Californian wine at all is practically sacrilege. Yet that’s what Bergamot Alley does! But because of Wardell and Johnson’s deep respect for, and involvement in, the local community, their decision to focus on interesting foreign wines is a welcome breath of fresh air through the old-growth Zinfandel vines–not an affront. Aside from an entirely Mediterranean wine list that offers a large selection by the glass, there’s a wide selection of microbrewed beers, the Alley’s concession to keeping the locavores happy. All draft beers are local, and a medical refrigerator full of eclectic American 750’s and Bombers like Allagash Curieux (Portland, ME), Brother Thelonious (Fort Bragg, CA), and Lagunitas’ Cappuccino Stout (Petaluma, CA) is designed to be self-serve.

Customers are encouraged to grab their own beers as servers bring around stacks of glasses, contributing to the general picnicking atmosphere. Completing the picnic vibe will be a snacking menu, due to debut on March 1.

Some of the best chefs in town, all friends of Wardell, will be contributing to Bergamot Alley’s menu. Expect offerings from the owners of Zazu, Scopa, and Diavola on the “jars and tins,” menu, which will feature items easily shared amongst friends at one of the Alley’s long tables or taken to go with a bottle of semi-sparkling Provenza “Turbiano” Rosato Groppello and enjoyed outdoors at one of the many surrounding wineries’ picnic areas.

The menu will include handmade pickles, pates, rillettes, cheeses, local flatbread crackers, and sweets, as well as imported Mediterranean items like olives and boquerones. The grab-and-go (or grab-and-stay!) menu is designed to be paired with the wines, all of which can be purchased by the bottle and taken with you. Bottles are stacked up eight feet tall on repurposed fitting shelves salvaged from a local machine shop. Wardell’s impressive wine list reflects his years of experience as one of San Francisco’s top Italian-wine sommeliers, showcasing wines from all over Italy, France, and “any country that touches the Mediterranean Sea.”

In the “porn room,” (the staff’s affectionate name for the rare & exotic wine room) the rules are not so strict. A repurposed barn door is counterweighted to slide upward on pulleys, leading the oenophile into a naturally-insulated space made from vintage sliding-glass doors. Ninety percent of the wines are sold at a relatively low cost (between $65-$120), a screaming deal for a wine geek who’s looking for an interesting bottle like a 1982 Casetta “Vigna Ausario” Barbaresco with some bottle age on it.

The proprietors’ enthusiasm for community, groovy art, and eclectic wines is expressed in every aspect of Bergamot Alley, from the collaborative efforts put into the funky interior design, the menu offering tastings from their well-known chef friends, and the hugs at the door from a local hostess who seems to know everyone who walks through the door—or will by the time you leave.

Peeking into the “Porn Room.” Photos: Kena Frank

Disclaimer: Ella Lawrence worked with Kevin Wardell at A16 restaurant and considers him a close friend.