Congregation Ale House

Reviews 4

ES

Esther Kim

I came here with my friend JL to undo everything we had just done at the Rose Bowl Loop Track on a Friday night. The parking lot is a bit wonky; there is only one entrance, off of Raymond, and the parking spaces are actually quite limited. Luckily for us someone was leaving when we pulled into the lot; otherwise we would have had to try to find street parking or parked at the public parking garage up the street. You order at the counter by the bar, and they will give you a number. Then you find a seat and eventually they will bring your order out to you. This place is packed on Friday nights! We had to wander around for several rounds before we were finally able to grab two seats at a long table. My friend got a glass of their Urban riesling, which she liked, while I went for their Reverend Nats "Revival" apple cider. I thought it was pretty good. They have an extensive beer list here so there are always new drinks to try out. We decided to share two orders of fries. All fries come with two dipping sauces, which I thought was cool. We got the following: -- SWEET POTATO FRIES Cant go wrong with these. The sweet potato fries were really good, and paired especially well with the Sweet Chili & Sour Cream dipping sauce. I would definitely recommend that combination. -- GARLIC FRIES: Our house cut fries are fried to perfection then tossed on a house mixture of salt, cilantro and fresh garlic. Served with Saison cheddar sauce on the side. They gave us regular fries instead of garlic fries when they brought out our order, so I had to flag down the server to tell her the mistake. It took a while but eventually they brought out the garlic fries, except there was barely any garlic in the fries. They were just fries with some cilantro and maybe a couple pieces of garlic on them. We felt misled by these fries and would not recommend them. -- DIPPING SAUCES: Chipotle Mayo, Pesto Ranch, Sweet Chili & Sour Cream, Rosemary Garlic Mayo Like I mentioned before, I really liked the Sweet Chili and Sour Cream sauce with the sweet potato fries. The dipping sauce itself is really good, but that pairing is great. The Rosemary Garlic Mayo was also pretty good and I would definitely get that as my second dipping sauce next time. The Chipotle Mayo was just okay and the Pesto Ranch barely had any flavour so I will not be getting either of those again. Congregation has a decent menu and I would not mind coming back to try some of their other food items. A couple at our table got one of their pizzas and it looked pretty good. My disappointment in the garlic fries does give me pause, however, and this venue is not a great place for conversation since it is so loud inside. It is a nice place however to just chill and drink (responsibly) with friends in the area. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

SH

Shanon Yu

Happy hour all day Mondays! After hanging around Pasadena during the day, my friends and I dropped by Congregation Ale House for their all day happy hour. I was surprised to find out that they had a nice big lot for us to park in, which is quite rare for most restaurants in the area. The best part was that we had a friend coming from the West side and it was a breeze for her to take the metro since there was a metro station walking distance in front of the restaurant! Upon entering Congregation Ale House I immediately felt like I was in a cozy little cabin! Theres stained glass windows behind the bar and cute beer handles decorated around the room. The menu itself lists all of the food items and a number of their beer, but for the full listing theres a board with each of the beers clearly listed. For happy hour they have food items from $2-$6 and selected beer at $3. We went with three giant pretzels ($2/each) and sweet potato fries ($2) to share. I also ordered an IPA bratwurst ($6) served with peppers and onions. The food itself was probably the BEST happy hour food Ive ever had. The giant pretzel was baked fresh from the oven and tasted great with the dijon mustard dipping sauce that it came with. The sweet potato fries were crispy and not overly fried, and the sriracha ketchup dipping sauce was absolutely addicting! The IPA bratwurst was tasty and I really could have ate another one of these before I left! As for drinks, we ordered about 5 different types of beers throughout the night and I was able to sample all of them, including tastings of the pear cider and a pumpkin flavored beer. By the end of our night we couldnt stop raving about this place! Theres really not many restaurants that serves such good affordable happy hour food and drinks, with excellent service! Our servers were quick with bringing our food and they consistently checked up on us throughout the night. I also found out that theres a Congregation Ale House about 15 minutes from my house, so it looks like I know where Ill be spending most of my happy hours at now!

AL

Alec Fredericks

My family (2 adults and 2 under 5) went here today for the first time. The selection of sausage sandwiches and flat breads was pretty good, although finding something without spice for the kids was a little difficult. I like to sneak the spice into my kids food, though, so it wasnt that big of a deal. My wife ended up having the duck sausage and she liked it quite a bit. For $8 she got the sausage sandwich, fries and one of the dipping sauces. She chose sririacha ketchup for her sauce. The kids split a breakfast flat bread, which had egg, bacon and sun-dried tomatoes on it, and they ate it all up except for the greens on top. The milks were huge, so next time theyll just split one cup. I ended up having a pulled-pork and brie sandwich with a side of sweet potato fries and curry ketchup. I liked it quite a bit. I almost wish I could have chosen a sharper cheese to counter the subtle sweetness of the pork. As it was, the pork flavoring overwhelmed the brie except one bite where I doubled the thickness of the brie. I liked the curry ketchup with the fries, too. A nice flavor that my kids liked, too. Just enough spice to introduce the toddler to food with heat without overwhelming her. The only potential problem I saw was that, even though I saw plenty of servers pass by us, not one stopped to ask us how we were doing, whether I wanted a refill on my beer or coffee. Nothing until we were finished and they quietly cleared the table. Other than that, though, everyone had a good time and enjoyed the food. Full bellies all.

JR

JR C

==-Happy Hour! Runs till 7pm T-F. Mondays all day. I will have to crash a Monday lunch someday. Theres a random beer that will be 3 bucks. Luck be with you that its a good one. There is another Congregation Ale House in Long Beach. This one in Pasadena is not exactly in the Old Town strip, but its nearby enough to be walkable. The biggest problem here is that during the beginning of happy hours, its usually so crowded that theres no place to sit - inside or outside. Also, the parking lot keeps shrinking in favor of the other businesses here. Luckily theres time limited free parking in the adjacent metro lot. -=-Grilled rib eye white cheddar burger-=- During happy hour, all burgers are just 6 bucks. For a rib eye patty, it wasnt the tastiest, but it certainly hit the burger spot. Its decent especially with all that white cheddar that they put on it. -=-Sweet potato fries-=- It really seems that french fries is not enough just golden fried. The other iterations that restaurants usually have are parmesaned, truffled, or sweet potato. These are served with your choice of dips which are always welcomed from the usual ketchup. I chose garlic mayo and chipotle mayo. Free free to explore the others. Seems hard to get it wrong anyway.