Downtown Joe’s American Bar & Grill

You don’t visit Napa for great beers. The town is all about wine, of course. But when I saw this brewpub, nicely located at the riverfront promenade and Veterans Memorial Park, I had to try a beer. I chose Tantric IPA, not really good but acceptable. Small pours are 10oz. The brewpub was well attended at lunch time and service was efficient. Worth a visit if you are downtown Napa. (Visited July 1st 2016)

Visited on the afternoon of Monday 01/02/15. Welcome to 1995 ! Old Skool with a capital O and S ! Three or four locals lurking at the bar who stared at us as we entered. 6 beers on tap and boy were they bad ... highest was 2.8 for me and a few sub 2’s ... the average over the 6 was a paltry 2.25. Service was a little frumpy at first but was fine in the end when the lady (I think) appreciated our ticking game. Strange thing though is there was a solid Russian River sour available in the small bottle section ! And this at the home of the guys who give you not just one wheat ale in their line up of six but TWO and a red wheat at that ! Scroll past really ... unless you are a desparate ticker !

Yeah, pretty bad brewpub with pretty bad beer. The waitress was quite friendly though, so that made the visit nice. I wouldn’t return though.

A rather mediocre brewpub that fits right in with its mediocre peers in the area. The beers here ranged from just tolerable to quite, quite poor. Thankfully, our server was friendly to a fault, and the place itself has the feel of a pretty decent neighbourhood bar. Probably not worth going out of your way to visit here.

A deliciously outdated 90s brewpub that pumps out homebrew quality beer. Visitors will find things like red ale and fruited hefeweizen at reasonable prices. The highlight of the trip was our genuinely kind waitress, who was more than happy to accommodate our group’s strange requests. It seems that they consistently have a Russian River beer on tap. Overall, I can’t really recommend this place’s beer. However, the service is kind, and you can probably score something like Consecration on tap, so it might be an option if you feel like visiting an unpretentious place for beer in wine country.

Oh, Downtown Joe’s. This place became the stand-in for "dated place with sub-par beer" on our whirlwind trip of the area. Which is a shame, because there’s nothing really *bad* about it. The beer is certainly below average but not like CIB or Area 51-level shitty. Just dull and a little off, like uninspired homebrew. The bartender was super sweet and made the unfortunate move of asking us, "What do you guys think?" and we just watched each other squirm while saying things like, "The Red is my favorite." The atmosphere and styles suggest your typical leftover Western US 90s-era brewpub, which you can still find in places like Denver. It’s wood-paneled, a bit dusty and low lit, with a lineup along the lines of APA-IPA-Red-Wheat-Stout. The beers are a bit chalky or mineralic, keeping them a little below average for the already dull styles. She said they normally have between 6 and 12 on tap, but I’m not sure we needed more (the Raspberry Wheat in particular sounded dangerous). We didn’t eat but that doesn’t seem to be a problem. So if you’re in the right mood and not with a group of beer snobs, this place at least has beer, which is more than most places in Napa can say. Hopefully it has some guest taps when you visit to keep things interesting.

Welcome to the ’90s. Where the beers are horrible and the interior cliché. Probably the second or worst quality brewpub we visited in our 15ish visits during our trip. Ticks are ticks, but it’s just not worth the trip. Service was nice though. Prices along normal brewpub level. Other patrons seemed to be local alcoholics. They had Consecration on draft though. I’d choose that over the Red Wheat Ale any day of the week.

An old dated brewpub that is like an old shoe. Service was very friendly and accommodating, giving advice on other craft beer destinations. Beer was pretty average. Not worth a specific trip.

Convenient location in downtown Napa and a pretty large location as well. Plus, it’s open both early and late, so you can pop in pretty much any time.

Pretty much your typical mid-1990s brewpub here. A dozen or so beers on, though not all house beers. Most of those house beers are pretty much meh, but some are at least okay.

Service was okay on a Sunday morning, though I felt like we were being kind of glossed over due to not ordering food. Looks like pretty typical brewpub fare, burgers and such. Normal $10-15 for most things, it seemed.

There’s really nothing about this place that really makes me want to go back, but it’s there for some ticks and some mediocre beer.

Nice place to take a break from all the vino. Decent food menu, live music on weekends, decent beer selection and good service.