Cappin' the tap
Last call at Crown City Brewery
By Dan O'Heron 05/15/2008
Crown City Brewery’s last call for alcohol on Saturday night, May 31, may be choked up —just two months shy of its 20th anniversary, the brew pub is calling it quits.
The voice of the vanquished will belong to Mike Hansen, who as longtime general manager and bartender has helped host this home away from home for so many of us. The last words will be hard to come by as he’ll be the one shutting off the lights at the end of the night.
It’s too late for a drive to collect “Save Crown City” signatures or whining, wheedling protest or macho outrage: The building owner has refused to renew the lease. Unhappily, the rejection threatens to throw CC’s hundreds and hundreds of regular customers into a social desert.
Crown City Brewery
300 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena
(626) 577-5548
(Barbecue at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday)
mailto:ccbrew@earthlink.net
More than a brew pub, since 1988 CC has been a habitat for humanity in Pasadena, a stage for all walks of life — young, old, striving, stumbling — for experiences unlikely to be combined elsewhere: a place to drop in at any time with the certainty of meeting friends; where warm conversation, great beers and decent food are comforts you could count on.
To find out why this public-house tour de force is forced to tour —and what will take its place — I phoned the building management company. The rep seemed annoyed by the question and replied brusquely, “I will not reveal the owner’s intentions.” When I continued with “Will it be another wine bar?” the phone went dead.
At CC’s bar, I asked regular customer Troy Boyle, a Sierra Madre resident, if he would frequent a wine bar. “Are you kidding?” Boyle replied. “A blue-collar guy like me in a wine bar? Somebody asks me if I want to do pinot noir, I’d say ‘What the hell does that mean?’”
Said another regular, Dan Woodward, an Altadena resident (and the unofficial CC fix-it man who had just finished repairing the ice machine), “I’ve been coming here since it opened. I have no idea where I’ll be drinking now except that it will have to be a place that serves my beer on tap — Bitburger German pilsner.”
Also hard hit are the 1,065 individuals whose names are inscribed on plaques on CC’s Beer Wall of Fame. The honor comes from drinking 100 different beers from different parts of the world — and recording each drink on a “passport.”
Some former Pasadena Weekly writers are on that wall — former news writers Jaymee Cuti and Natalie Dunbar, along with former film critic John Esther.
Last week, several winners came by with screwdrivers in hand to take away mementos, making the wall look like the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame after steroids.
On another smaller wall, hidden from custom authorities, there are names of a few 100-round multiple passport holders. The leader: Mr. Steavers — 6,000 beers!
For all lost souls, general partners Jack Robinson and Mike Lanzarotta are staging a penultimate barbecue party Saturday and Sunday.
“Look for some good deals,” said Robinson, who indicated he would reveal plans for a new restaurant, “hopefully in Pasadena, but likely in Monrovia.”
Robinson said he’ll try to establish a neighborhood place like Crown City, but with a few changes. “It’s very tough to have a place like Crown City where old-timers are reliant and newcomers can feel welcome,” he said. “You need new blood but regulars take up the space. It’s a double-edged sword.”
At the barbecue, Lanzarotta, who’s getting out of the business to go into teaching, said he will compete with old customers in one-upmanship stories about the brewery’s whimsical history: like Larry Bird’s coming into the bar when Mike Hansen was on vacation; Angie Dickinson coming in without Earl Holliman; as an encore to St. Patrick’s, declaring a Guy Fawkes Day in memory of the English conspirator who tried to blow up Parliament; celebrating Mclean Stevenson’s death without incident and fooling me into printing in my column that Lanzarotta’s “3 Bean Bitter Ale” would compensate for the rising price of grain.
My memory of CC goes back to1988 and my first day at the office, then located on South Raymond Avenue. Like a good reporter from out of town, I went looking for the nearest bar. I was distracted by the sound of a lot of dogs barking: It was feeding time at the animal shelter across the street. I turned around — being careful where I stepped — and Glory Be! A few feet from my front door stood Crown City Brewery. Three years later, they were bottling “O’Heron’s Irish Ale.” That was my Pulitzer.
Still grateful to Robinson and Lanzarotta, my last words to them the other day were taken from an old Irish prayer: “I was thirsty and ye gave me drink.”
The partners’ last words back at me were short and rather sweet:
Lanzarotta: “No regrets. I would do it all over again if I had a chance.”
Robinson: “I will be doing it again.”
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