Novel Brewing

I really like this brewpub. Walls lined with books gives a nice Berkeley feel. Six small fermenters line the wall. 15 taps. 11 cans to go. $3 for 5oz tasters. Great deal for Bay Area. Easy free parking. No BA beers in sight. Just a kettle sour. Pretty good quality beers.

Nice little tap room and brewery. The beers are all solid. 14 beers on tap. Good, friendly service. I'll be back. My only complaint is there prices are in the high side, but not too bad. $2/$3 tasters. I paid $10 for 4.

Small brewery in north Oakland (still seems like you’re in Berkeley). Was lucky to grab a parking spot across the street. Neat little spot, with everything (including the hollowed out taster trays) a play on novels. 10-12 taps, with a decent selection of styles, most well executed.

Small spot with plenty of street parking nearby. Book themed (novel, get it?) The place was pretty busy on a Saturday afternoon. Small bar and a few tables. Some games in the back, and several kids goofing around inside. All beers available as tasters, either $1.50 each or flights of four in a book for $6. Beers were generally fairly solid; I must have chosen better than Andrew I guess.

Another new brewery in Oakland, neat. It’s actually not too far away from my office, and pretty short walks to some other beer spots like Berkeley Bowl West and Moxy Beer Garden. Not a whole lot happening on this part of San Pablo during my visit, though Homegrown is a decent little cafe across the street for your stereotypical California hippie/healthy eating needs.

The brewery and tasting room are pretty small. There’s a bar with a handful of seats as well as some communal tables on the opposite wall. Order from the bar, of course. The flights come in what used to be books, so that’s kind of neat, I guess. When they did that, the name suddenly made a lot of sense...not sure why I didn’t get it before. A pretty wide array of styles--kolsch, bitter, black IPA, IPA, dubbel--unfortunately, the only one I really enjoyed at all was the black IPA.

The people here were very nice and the place seemed to already have a little neighborhood following. I’ll probably check it out periodically as they’re not really out of the way for me, but the beer will definitely need to improve if I am going to make this a frequent stop.