Next Door Brewing Company

In a word: Adjacent.

The specs: #00987  
2439 Atwood Ave., 53704
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JM ate the cubano with a lemonade.
Nichole ate the grilled cheese with a ginger beer.
The bill was like $22, or $11/person, plus tip.
JM and Nichole gave Next Door Brewing Company a B (see our grading rubric).

Next Door Brewing is a nice simple venue.  The focus is naturally on the beer, and the menu seems likely to be playing off those associations. Indeed, JM thought he may have detected a little ale zinger in the ketchup.

We arrived on a night when Next Door was unveiling a new menu and, as such, the server very competently explained all of the things that were new or updated.  Throughout the meal, the server was attentive, though the check took a little longer than expected.

If there is a word of the Next Door food aesthetic, it would be "fine".  JM's cubano was bright and clean tasting -- though it was not pressed, and it was served on a roll instead of any sort of flattenable bread. Nichole's grilled cheese was noteworthy for its dearth of cheese. It came with tarragon mayo (instead of pesto, a menu hiccup?) and was loaded with fried onions and bacon (which had spent a little too long on the griddle). The chips and bun were also toasted beyond what might normally be considered acceptable, and some of the chips were just too dark to even eat.

Next Door is going to have a hard time standing out as a small brewpub on Atwood.  Ale Asylum and Dexter's will draw the foodier beer enthusiasts, while Malt House will draw the hardcore beer snobs, and nothing that we had would make Next Door preferable to Alchemy or Harmony Bar for near east side bar food. But there's always room in Madison for another beer, and we hope that they get their menu kinks worked out, and maybe turn down the heat on some of their cooking surfaces.