Drink up

Watering holes: With all this Sacramento Cocktail Week coverage, we do not need to tell you again to get your drink on. But if you’re not so interested in Midtown bars and crowded events, there are a couple of other new options for you.

Twelve Rounds Brewing Co. is now open at 866 57th Street in East Sacramento. The long-awaited spot is currently just serving two beers—a pale ale and a hefeweizen—but plans to build up to five or six before a grand opening celebration later this month. Eventually, there will be 12 beers on tap, as well as a full-fledged kitchen run by John Bays of the Red Rabbit. But again, for now it’s just those two beers.

Further north, the Cinders is also now open at 5340 Auburn Boulevard. This is the bar-in-former-strip-club in part opened by prominent Oakland restaurateur Tom Schnetz. Schnetz’s Oakland bar team trained the Cinders’ bartenders, so expect simple cocktails made with precision, along with an outdoorsy decor, fireplaces, pool tables and darts.

And by the end of the year, we should have another brewery and another bar to try. That brewery is Big Sexy Brewing Co., which was supposed to open in Auburn last year. Clearly that didn’t happen. Now, according to Sactown Magazine, the brewery will open in a south Sacramento warehouse at 5861 88th Street. Find the new bar Rum Rok, meanwhile, at 15th and H streets. From the same owner as Pour House and Republic, Rum Rok will be a tiki-themed, tropical cocktail-focused destination.

Menu overhaul: We’ve been waiting for a big menu change from Block Butcher Bar ever since chef Allyson Harvie settled into her role as culinary director over Block, Lowbrau and, eventually, the Barn in West Sacramento. It’s finally here and it is quite different. The organization is much more intuitive and clear-cut, with separate sections for snacks, salads, sandwiches and fixed boards. No more jargony terms like “planks” and “presses.” I do appreciate the preselected meat and cheese boards by region (Spain, Italy, France, local), but also that Block hasn’t taken away the option to build your own. Sadly, the nostalgic almond butter and bacon jam sandwich is gone. New sandwiches sound much more, well, normal: meatball sub with peppers; pastrami with pickled beets; tuna salad with egg. You get the idea. Many meats are still smoked and cured in-house, though, and the photos still do look awfully delicious.