AI Taproom

Layed back vibe. Located in an industrial area. The taproom is next to the brewery. A long bar with a few seats. Tables scattered around. They have 6 pinball machines. Good beer.

Cool location, plenty of seating and live music when I came once. 10 taps isn't terrible, and no real bottle selection kinda sucks. Decent prices for the east bay. It's alright.

Located in an industrial area, about an 8-10 mins drive from Oakland’s downtown. This place is modern, yet warehouse-y in feel. 10 beers on tap. You can order custom flights of 6, priced according to the beer. Some are $4 / 4 oz - that’s too steep. Service was super friendly and helpful. Recommended stop when on the east side of the Bay.

Big open warehouse, where they brew beer on one side and serve it on the other. When I was there they had a cool band playing.

Ok, this was really an industrial area. Street parking available. Total warehouse feel once you enter. Long bar with no seats and a few tables scattered about. They had a lot more than six taps when I was there, but it was SFBW; they were running five of their own beers and another half dozen entries from local breweries. I ended up trying something from Diving Dog. Service was solid, staff was friendly. I can’t see this being a regular stop for me, but its worth a visit.

Had kind of a mediocre experience here. I walked in and there were a group of people standing in the brewhouse area not far from the entrance. Okay, cool. I walk over to the bar and survey the tap list. No one at the bar. Alright, I’ll wait a second... well, I ended up waiting several minutes and then someone came over when she saw another couple walk in to the brewery. I got kind of annoyed by this as I found it difficult to believe she had totally missed me walking in, but whatever.

Anyway, we hugged and made up. They don’t do flights here, but the woman was nice enough to give me a taste of a couple things before I settled on a glass of their Oud Bruin/Flanders Red sort of beer which was pretty decent. They have some seasonal/special releases on tap, which is nice. They also have all the normal beers you see around the bay area. Prices are pretty decent on the pours, which is good.

Not a terribly interesting place to hang out, as it’s just a random warehouse in Oakland, but worth a stop.

Visited November 7, 2014.

This is about a quarter mile from the Fruitvale BART station so that’s pretty convenient. It’s in a nondescript industrial warehouse beyond a Mexican restaurant. As I learned from the bartender, this is the one and only brewery for Ale Industries now. They moved all the equipment from Concord and shut that location down. They still have a bar/restaurant in Concord but all the brewing and barrel aging is happening here now.

The first thing I discovered (before learning that they moved the brewery) is that they do NOT do tasters/flights here. This has something to do with their license and they’re working on it. The good news is that of the six taps, three of them are regular beers that you can get around town and probably already HAVE tried. Rye’d Piper, Uncle Jesse, and Golden State of Mind are pretty common. The other bit of good news is that they’ll give you a little taste of something if you want to try it. The "Keep Sailing, Bob" was somewhat similar to a Flemish red. My brother had a glass of the Cherry Kush, which is just the Golden State of Mind with cherries in it. This was the best thing on the board in my opinion. I went with the glass of the "La Niña Fresa" which is a spontaneously (allegedly) fermented farmhouse ale. Couldn’t pass that up. Not bad but very odd.

We met some interesting people at the bar, one of which turned out to be the owner of a bottle shop in Alameda. He joined us in bar hopping around Oakland. Good times, good people. And they played Soul Man on the radio during our visit. Don’t remember who actually wrote that song but I need to watch Blues Brothers again now.