ISO: Beers

Incredible bottle shop/bar in downtown San Jose. Approximately 35 taps of all styles includes sours and barrel aged beers. 6oz pours for $4 or glass or $8 for full glass. Huge approximately 400 bottle selection.

... how on earth is this place not 90+? Around 40 taps, every beer style, some local rarities (had a great New Glory RIS), some vintages (had a 2013 Bruery which was my best beer of the night), all well curated. One wall of bottles (for here or to go) - they have a cellar and that fills up about 1/5 of the wall of bottles which had like 2011 Hair of the Dog, 2010 Goose BCBS - tons of other stuff. Apparently there is a lot more in the cellar. Modern urban indoor space, outdoor beer garden right off Santa Clara Ave (it's acceptable for outdoor drinking). No food, but tons of food options around. I would expect to pay quite a bit more for the stuff I got given its quality. I don't know if I would take Good Karma or this place but they're within a 5 minute walk of each other so you can do both so long as you arrange transportation home. But this is a spectacular beer bar - like world class - and people need to rate this place to get it up where it belongs. This is better than Original Gravity and from a beer perspective in this area, would compare it to Gourmet Haus in Redwood City. Need to check it out if in this end of Silicon Valley.

This is my happy place in San Jose. Friendly staff, great beer.

Dark, boxy room, a bit noisy. Huge range of bottled beers - a whole wall of fridges and maybe 40 taps. Service is friendly but slow. No obvious food. Reasonable value.

Dark and cool, grey everywhere. And whatever isn’t grey, is likely black, stainless steel grey, or wood. The only actual color in the place is from some potted plants. Tap list is pretty hefty at roughly 40 beers (or other beverages), organized on the menu in an easy to read grouping by general styles (lighter, pale, sour, Belgian, dark, cider/mead). Downside for me as an out of towner is that in spite of some of the beers coming in smaller pours of 10oz, there’s no flights. With the volume of people they might be seeing and the one bartender in the place on a Friday at 5:30, I can understand that, but I can also be disappointed because there’s a lot of things that will go untasted, which seems to go against the beer geeky cheesy name of the venue. Fortunately, the super chill bartender guy was willing to do halves, which when many things are 10-13oz, is something that looks like it will allow me to survive the night. In spite of the decent crowd (80+% of which went and sat outside in the nice weather, unlike me who sat at the bar and charged devices while typing this very rating) my server was quick, courteous, and friendly. Ended up spending a few hours here, bartenders (as they changed shifts) turned out to be super cool and very much interested in beers. They shared a few bottles with me and some others, and were very beer focused. Certainly one of the places that stands out from San Jose as being a great place to hang out, and one I’d like to revisit at some point. Definitely recommended.

Big tap room with 40 or so taps and big bottles choice. Overal excellent beers range.

Well, I wasn’t really planning on coming here but I sort of just stumbled upon it when walking to Smoke Eaters. I had to kind of roll my eyes at the name, though.

Kind of dark inside. Another combo bottle shop/bar. An impressive tap list overall, but I settled for a glass of the Santa Clara Valley Berliner Weisse (meh) while I browsed the bottles. Should have gone for a good beer, like something from Altamont or Ivan the Terrible, but I’m a dumbass. Bottle selection was pretty nice. They have a number of meads (largely Moonlight and B Nektar) as well as some ciders. Beers from all over including a handful of actual lambics, some stuff from Alesmith, Bruery, Logsdon, Lost Abbey, Prairie...plenty of Belgian beers. Only knock here is that stuff is kind of spendy.

A quality shop and one I’d recommend over most of the other places I stopped in the city (even if it has a goofy name).

I have been talking to Dee about this place for a couple of years, and it finally happened! Brand new and not really advertising yet, so not particularly busy, but they have a good space with a bar and a ton of taps (50+, I think), with a really nice selection of beers, including several aged kegs Some inside table seating as well, and a pretty large outdoor patio that is still barren at the moment, but they are working on it. The place is also a bottle shop, and has a full row of coolers along one wall. At the moment they are still working distribution and it is fairly empty, but Dee knows beer and I am guessing it will be full soon. Prices are on the high side of reasonable. Hard to tell what this place will evolve into, but I have pretty high hopes.