Floodcraft Brewing Company

Dropped by during Covid. Almost closed, but what they are doing now is filling crowlers and selling them at the attached Whole Foods. Normally they have a decent selection. Maybe 1/2 house and half guest taps, with small pour options.

Unusual place - open air on top of a whole food store. Pleasant ambience. Lively but not too loud or busy. Small bar with 15 or so beers on tap. Friendly staff.

Another cracking little place behind the railway station part of the food market...

My first stop in San Jose on a warm Friday afternoon at the end of May. Gorgeous day to sit up on what feels like a really classy rooftop and have some beers. I do wonder how this place fares in poor weather, but then again, maybe there isn’t much poor weather out here. Only three of their own beers on, but a nice assortment of others in different styles and from different locations, with a good chunk local. Place was about half full with a crowd of roughly 25 at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I had a monstrously large burrito for lunch so wasn’t really in the food mood, but they have food there, as well as being able to bring up anything from the Whole Foods downstairs. That seems to apply to beer as well, since there were a few people who came up with bottles and receipts, had the bartender open their beers and received some glassware for them. Their house beers were good, but not great.

New brewery that’s sort of attached to the San Jose Whole Foods, but still separate. Pretty easy location to get to and some street parking available as well (though I’m guessing in the evenings/weekends it’s not so easy). Pretty close to whatever they’re calling The Shark Tank these days as well.

They had five house beers on during my visit, which was a little annoying as they only do flights of four ($9), but they had some other things on I wanted to try so I ended up doing two flights. Service was a little lax, but just fine. House beers were pretty solid for the most part, too.

Selection outside of the house beers was pretty good, too. A couple interesting beers from Sierra Nevada and some other Northern California breweries, for instance.

Nice little balcony patio tasting area. But, it’s open air so I guess it could be not so nice depending on the weather.

This is an actual brewery, owned by Whole foods and adjacent to the Whole Foods on Alameda. The bar is physically a bit separated from the store - you need to cross a tiny courtyard and walk up a flight of stairs. When I was there it was pretty crowded on a Saturday afternoon. Seating is picnic style with a row of high bar around the perimeter. The entire place is open air. Bar itself is tiny, which creates a backlog at the register to order, and waitstaff are constantly squeezing past you while you are in line. Everybody is friendly, service is solid overall. 19 taps, which are mostly guest. When I was there they had a half dozen Oskar Blues beers (not sure if that is normal or not), some locals, and two of their own beers. Their beers were rock solid, which is good to see from a new place. Flights are available - $9 for a pick 4, with a couple taps not available in flights. Some food is available, but it is brought from the Whole Foods next door. You can also bring bottles from next door and open them w/o extra fee. All in all a nice setup, and one I will return to. Update: they are brewing more and more of their own beers, focus on hops, and they are really solid.