Walk into the alley behind Ohana Yoga on a Tuesday at 9 a.m. these days and you'll find a laptop crowd nursing cold brew where, not long ago, the only people awake were the ones restocking kegs. That's Alley Brews, the brewery tucked off Tennyson Street that used to open in the afternoon and close when the tap list ran dry. Up the street, the taproom that used to anchor the other end of that same stretch poured its last beer on December 23, 2025, after ten years in business.
Those two facts, sitting next to each other, tell you more about Berkeley this fall than the festival flyers do. A brewery that couldn't survive on evenings alone just closed for good. A brewery that added an espresso machine and cut the beer-only menu is still standing, and busier than it's been in years. If you live on or near Tennyson, that's the actual story of the corridor right now: the businesses making it are the ones that stopped depending on a single window of foot traffic, and the ones that didn't adapt are gone.
The Taproom That Didn't Make It to Eleven
Call to Arms Brewing Company opened at 4526 Tennyson Street in July 2015, founded by three friends who'd met brewing at Avery in Boulder. For a decade it was the kind of place locals pointed to when they described what made Tennyson feel like Tennyson: a wooden bar, a rotating tap list built on traditional styles, and enough goodwill that the founders won a gold medal at the 2018 World Beer Cup for a wet-hopped IPA.
Co-founder Chris Bell announced the closure with a video of a clown on a unicycle, which tells you something about the brewery's sense of humor even at the end. In the more serious version of that announcement, he pointed to rising costs and a broader shift in how people drink rather than any single misstep. The brewery kept its regular hours through the holidays and closed its doors for good on December 23.
A Denverite reporter who visited during the final week of brewing described the block outside as barely recognizable from the one Call to Arms opened on in 2015, noting that the stretch is "now a canyon of condos and luxury apartments." That line does more work than any market stat. Call to Arms didn't lose to a bad location. It lost to a location that changed shape around it faster than a single-purpose taproom could.
What Filled In Around It
The condos and apartments that reporter described aren't a one-off. The Vesper on Tennyson, a 34-unit building at 4345 N. Tennyson Street from First Stone Development, is the newest concrete example, and it opened this past summer just a few blocks from where Call to Arms poured its last pint. The building was already close to 60 percent leased within weeks of opening. Rents start at $1,695 a month for a one-bedroom and $2,747 for a two-bedroom, with quartz counters, in-unit laundry, and a handful of lofted units with double-height ceilings on the upper floors.
A single 34-unit building doesn't rewrite a corridor's math by itself. But it puts a number on what the Denverite reporter could only gesture at: more people are living on this stretch of Tennyson full time than a taproom built around Friday-night traffic ever had to serve. Those residents are home during the day, working from a kitchen table or a coffee shop, not just passing through on a weekend.
The Bar Two Doors Down Bet on Mornings
Alley Brews carries the DNA of three different businesses. It started as De Steeg Brewing in 2013, became Berkeley Alley Beer Co. in 2021, and changed hands again in 2025 when longtime friends Chelsea Rhoads and Elizabeth Hess bought it. Rhoads had already helped open 4 Noses Brewing Company back in 2014 before a detour through real estate and a tech startup with Hess. When the two of them took over the Tennyson alleyway spot, they didn't just refresh the tap list. They added a full espresso program, brought in a barbecue-focused food menu, and started opening at 11 a.m. daily instead of waiting for happy hour.
"There are people that have lived in this area for a decade and don't even know we exist," Rhoads told a Denver dining outlet earlier this year, describing regulars who'd walked past the alley entrance for years without knowing what was behind it. Her bet is that a wider menu and daytime hours will do what beer alone couldn't. Coffee brings in the work-from-home crowd on a Tuesday morning. Cocktails and a full kitchen keep the same space relevant on a Friday night. The dog-friendly patio and kid-friendly taproom mean a family can stop by on a Sunday afternoon without it feeling like a bar.
It's a real bet, not a guaranteed one. The brewery has changed ownership twice in four years, and the craft beer slump that closed Call to Arms has also taken down Jagged Mountain, Raices, and TRVE elsewhere in Denver, along with all three Sanitas locations by the end of 2025. Alley Brews is trying to out-menu a downturn that's claimed several longer-running names. So far, it's working.
Same Block, Two Different Bets
| Call to Arms (closed Dec. 23, 2025) | Alley Brews (open now) | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | 4526 Tennyson St | 4342 Tennyson St, entrance in the alley |
| Years on the street | 2015 to 2025 | Operating since 2013 under three names |
| Built around | Afternoon-to-close taproom hours, happy hour and late night | Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, coffee through dinner |
| What changed | The neighborhood around it, not the business itself | New owners added espresso, cocktails, and a full food menu |
| Status this fall | Closed | Open, courting the daytime and work-from-home crowd |
Your Actual Fall Calendar
None of this means Tennyson Street is losing its personality. It means the corridor's calendar still runs on the same rhythm it always has, just with a different set of businesses keeping the lights on between events. The Tennyson Berkeley Business Association's First Friday Cultural Walk wraps its 2026 season on October 2, with shops staying open late and live music on the sidewalks between Bakery Four, Hops & Pie, and the rest of the strip. The corridor's tenth annual Fall Fest follows on a Saturday in mid-October, a one-day spread of vendors and live music that runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the bigger, stage-and-vendor version of the monthly walks.
If you're looking for where to plant yourself that weekend, Hey Kiddo, chef Kelly Whitaker's third-floor concept led by chef Deuki Hong, still holds a Michelin recommendation, and Bakery Four is coming off a gold medal at the 2025 World Bread Awards for its sourdough. Parisi and Denver Biscuit Co. aren't going anywhere either. The names that built Tennyson's reputation are mostly still here. What's different is which of the newer or smaller operators are managing to stay open around them.
What It Means If This Is Already Your Street
None of this is a reason to worry about your block or start pricing your house, and that's not why I'm writing it. It's the kind of context that's useful simply because you live here and might wonder why your favorite Tuesday-night spot closed while a place you'd never noticed suddenly has a line for oat milk lattes. The pattern on Tennyson right now isn't retail turnover for its own sake. It's a corridor with more year-round residents than it used to have, and a set of small businesses figuring out in real time which of them can serve those residents at 9 a.m. as well as 9 p.m.
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually happening on your street rather than just what's on the events calendar, that's the same instinct I bring to the neighborhood work I do. I keep a close eye on Berkeley because I live and work in it, not because it's a line item on a market report. If you're ever curious what any of this shift in the corridor means for your own address, whether that's home value, timing, or just understanding what's changed since you bought, I'm always happy to talk it through. You can reach out through Kimber Ward any time, or start with a free home valuation to see where things stand.
