The Good Hop

So for the basics, you have around 20 taps (two ciders, mix of styles, all very west coast with some really good stuff there). 8-10 coolers covering all the styles, again with a focus on the west coast. They also have a cellar list which you have to ask for - had a few 3 Fontenein, a bunch of Firestone Walker and, most excitingly, 7 Bottle Logic imperial stouts. So yeah, I snatched those up. If you go and want the good stuff, ask for the cellar list. That makes this place worth a visit. Thought they were a bit stretched for service but no big complaints. As noted, neighborhood seems a bit rough. Maybe a 10 minute walk from BART so not too bad.

Yeah, I like this place. It isn't the cheapest, but it's Oakland and the prices are average. Decent service, good bottle selection, and I've found some pretty rare stuff on tap here from Dogfish Head and other great breweries.

Pretty spacious bottle shop/bar. Impressive bottle fridges, nine of them during my visit so probably few hundred bottles. 16 taps, some interesting beers on tap, but nothing super exciting. Worth visiting.

Great hybrid of a bar and bottle shop. Modern feeling interior. Small pours of anything available and decently priced. Great, well-curated taplist. Super friendly staff as well. Highly recommended when in the area.

Small-ish bar and bottle shop on Telegraph, not too far from Drakes Dealership and a few other solid beer spots. Street parking can be doable here, and is better than on Broadway, I guess, but can still be tough if you are driving.

The draft list tends to be my primary reason to visit as they have a good selection and good rotation. But the bottle selection is quite good as well. Lots of random beers and interesting things from all over the Bay Area, California in general, as well as from the rest of the US and some things from overseas. Pricing is pretty good and you can consume on premise or take-home.

Some of the drafts can be a little expensive, but they are happy to let you taste it first and decide if you like it. Overall, a good spot.

Beautiful spot with 8-10 doors of coolers and 16 beers on tap. Great bar tenders.

Visited November 7, 2014.

Never heard of this place until about a half hour before I ended up here. My brother and I were at the new Ale Industries tap room in Oakland (Jingletown Jazz Room) where we met a guy who runs a beer store in Alameda. He ended up splitting a cab with us and going bar hopping around Oakland with us. Glad he showed me this place. Also glad he split a bottle of Supplication with us. I had forgotten how much I liked that beer.

It turns out that this place is run by a former brewer of Drakes. I can’t remember her name now unfortunately. Sounds like some day she wants to open a brewery of her own but for now she’s doing the beer bar thing. Another random bit of trivia is that the street that this is on is a farmers market / street faire on the first Friday of the month. What that really means is that the bar was packed when we got there.

They had 16 taps going during my visit. Most of it eclectic and for the most part pretty good. This was my first sighting of Anchor OSA for the year. They also had some random stuff from Craftsman, Beltane, Almanac, Half Moon Bay, and Henhouse. I went with the Gallus Domesticus from Henhouse ("hoppy session ale") and got a taste of the Berliner from Beltane. The Anchor Zymaster #7 (sour porter) was surprisingly good. This place is similar to City Beer in that it’s really a bottle shop with a license to serve. The bottle selection is impressive and you can open the stuff in the fridge (the employees open it for a corkage fee, obviously).

My complaints are really only a couple: 1) it was packed, but I guess that means better turn over, and 2) the prices are bordering on stupid. $6-$8 for a 10oz glass? Wrong.

Amazing selection of bottles: local, rare & imported. Great events and takeovers. I think I might just annex this as my new living room.

Great new shop & bar in a semi-shit neighborhood past uptown, great owners. crazy cheap beer, where else can you drink a Drakes 1500 bottle at the bar for $3. ? I’m guessing they need to rethink pricing.

I visited here on a Tuesday morning. They opened up early for the USA World Cup match against Germany. The place is in a bit of a rough neighborhood, but it’s safe just outside downtown. Metered parking on the street. They have about 20 taps of mostly local beers. The owner used to be a brewer at Drakes years ago, and was very cool and nice to talk to. The decor was pretty minimal, but they just opened a few weeks ago. There’s a pretty nice wrap around bar with a couple small TV’s above. There’s several coolers in the back with probably 100+ beers, all very thoughtfully chosen. Nice selection. They had a cooler behind the bar with several Cantillon bottles, but I didn’t ask how much they were charging. Maybe I should have since the prices were great here, especially for downtown Oakland. There’s a $1 corkage fee tacked on for bottles consumed at the bar, but even then the prices are still a bit lower than most places in the area. I’ll definitely be stopping by again.