Brewpubs are supposed to be a dying form, as their young fans age out of their marketing niche and into the next generation, which reportedly prefers mixed drinks in retro-swank bars. In accordance with this conventional wisdom, the ambitious Brew Moon chain started at this location, worked its way up to 27 restaurants, and then sold the chain. The buyer was Rock Bottom Restaurants, which is defying the rules by amassing 35 brewery/restaurants to go with its 50 Old Chicago restaurants, which also feature 110 beers in bottles or on tap. Fans of restaurant-chain logic will not be surprised that the first Old Chicago was actually located in Boulder, Colorado — or that there’s still no such establishment in Chicago, the nearest being in Rockford, Illinois. An organization built on selling Chicago pizza and beer in places not named Chicago isn’t going to worry about little things like brewpub demographics. However, it does brew excellent beer and ale, even in the difficult lighter styles. As is generally the rule, good ale means weak food (or vice versa, which was initially the case at Brew Moon), but Rock Bottom compensates by serving mountain-high portions. It also gets things on the table in good time, even at the 16 metal tables out front — a valuable concept in the Theater District, where diners are either rushing to eat before a show, or famished because they waited until after one.

Rock Bottom is especially good at getting you your first beer, so let’s start there. A pint of its Liquid Sun wheat beer ($3.75) is impressively clean and fresh, served German-style with a slice of lemon. The " Lumpy Dog Light Lager " ($3.75) is equally clean, with a nice aroma of hops. The " Double Barrel IPA " ($3.75), a stronger style, is even hoppier, with a fresh-malt aroma. Oatmeal stout, the darkest ale, is rich and fully successful. It’s more like Guinness than like traditional English " oatmeal stout, " but " more like Guinness " is never a criticism. The stronger beers and ales generally cover the flaws of the lighter brews in brewpubs. However, if all brewpubs had the cold-brewing technology to make light lagers as good as these, those martinis and thin neckties might have stayed in the closet for another decade.

Food at Rock Bottom isn’t innovative, but it is competent and served in very large amounts. Brewery nachos ($6.95) represent perhaps the most ridiculous portion: a basketball-size mound of blue and yellow tortilla chips with melted mild cheese, a lot of canned-tasting salsa, the odd tomato, and hidden reserves of refried beans, jalapeño slices, and sliced red onions. The beans were thin and undercooked on my visit, but it was no problem to eat around them. Fried calamari ($8.95) are served with cocktail sauce and Rus-sian dressing — a weirdly un-Italian Midwestern touch — but again, the basic fried squid are crunchy, salty, and reasonably fresh, and there are lots of them.

Asiago-cheese dip ($6.95) is a featured appetizer. It’s not clear why. The aged cheese is not especially evident in the dip, which is dominated by scallions and served hot and creamy, with green and orange bread (a subliminal appeal to the Irish?) that is rather sweet. It’s the kind of appetizer you’d eat on the buffet table at someone’s house, and wish you hadn’t wasted the calories. A Tuscan smoked-chicken salad ($9.75) is Tuscan because it has Gorgonzola cheese. There is a little smoke to the chicken, but the general impression created by the cheese and chopped apples, walnuts, croutons, and brown, starchy balsamic " vinaigrette " is salty and sweet.

Santa Fe lasagna ($9.75) is the vegetarian choice, made with tortillas instead of pasta, lots of cheese, lots of spicy red sauce, scatterings of corn kernels, black beans, onions, and decorations of spicy mayonnaise. For some reason, pasta entrées at Rock Bottom are served with a half-loaf of garlic bread, since you obviously like starch. This won’t kill you, especially with beer to wash it down, but I wouldn’t try to sell it in Santa Fe, where the spicy food has more focus. The Santa Fe lasagna tastes a lot like the smoked-chicken enchiladas ($9.95), although you do get the smoke flavor, and the four enchiladas are rolled in blue tortillas. The enchiladas come with fair Spanish rice and salty black beans, as well as a rather good potato salad with corn kernels. You can see how ingredients tend to repeat themselves.

The more expensive entrées, such as adobo-crusted pork loin ($14.50) and Alder smoked salmon ($14.95), made a better impression. The former is served in firm, white, spicy-crusted slices over cheese mashed potatoes with a mustardy cream sauce, and garnished with fried tortilla strips. The latter is more grilled than smoked, but very good, also with the mashed potatoes, a mango salsa, and garlicky sautéed broccoli and carrots.

By the time dessert rolls around, no one is hungry, but in case you come in just for dessert, the pick is probably the Key-lime pie ($4.95). It has a powerful Key-lime sourness, offset by a lot of raspberry sauce and real whipped cream, on a crumb crust I liked. I wasn’t as fond of the lardy crust on " chocolate derby pie " ($5.25), as the brownie layer would have been a fine crust for this ice-cream monstrosity with punctuations of brickle and nuts. Stout mud pie ($5.50) features lots of chocolate and coffee ice cream scalloped with Oreos. The stout is neither a problem nor an advantage, to my taste. Carrot cake ($4.95) is a large wedge, gooey with caramel sauce, that makes a modest dessert for three or four carrot-cake lovers.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com