Floodcraft Brewery and Taproom

Adjacent to Whole Foods market on a little second floor patio with several umbrellaed picnic tables, looking at a little bit of downtown and over to the Sharks hockey arena, a block away. There is no atmosphere to speak of since there is no interior. People bring take out food from the grocery store, across the entry way and get a yummy beer to go with their lunch or snack. Half of their tap list is of mainly east bay craft breweries.

 

 

Odd 2nd floor bar. The place is very active but their selection is very good. It can be very hard to find a place to sit but nevertheless can be worth it.

This place is an outdoor, rooftop, open air brew pub. They offer many other beer options, mostly from California microbreweries. Very casual and mellow.

Simple, but flavorful pub offerings. Cheese boards, pizzas, etc. But you can also bring up food from the Whole Foods downstairs.

The service was friendly and laid back. Great story telling.

The day (Friday) was rainy and cool. Therefore, few patrons, but I could see a potential home run on warmer and sunnier days.

(#28 of 49) This place is located in a second floor area of a Whole Foods store. This is a busy retail area and parking in the store's lot was tight on a Friday at lunchtime. We stopped here to try their beers and to have lunch. An outdoor stairway near the food court will get you up to the pub which is essentially an outdoor bar on a roof-top covered deck.

There were only 5 of the brewery's beers on tap, but they offered about 15 guest beers (including a cider) also on tap, plus some in bottles or cans. Wine by the glass and a Mimosa were also listed on the beer menu. We ordered two sampler flights so that we could try all 5 of their beers plus 3 from the guest taps. All 5 of their beers were brewed very well to their respective style, and each went beyond style so that we scored them from a B-minus to a B grade. Growlers and howlers are available for carry-out.

Food and beer are ordered at the bar, and the food is delivered from the kitchen, which I think was the Whole Foods deli. It was very good. This was a nice outdoor setting on a nice day, so its hard not to like the vibe here even though it not a standard brewpub vibe. This place is worthy of a return visit if we are in the area again.

 

 

 

Above a whole foods where you can take food in... Cool view above downtown San Jose. Only 4 house brews. Many others to choose from though

 

I'm a semi-regular here and a big fan of this place. Their head brewer used to work at Russian River and is an active participant in one of the local homebrew clubs. Very cool guy and he makes great beer too.

This is an upstairs bar/brewpub on a building built alongside Whole Foods. My understanding is this is one of the first times Whole foods is venturing into brewing to go with all the taprooms that have been popping up at their locations lately. It's outdoors with heat lamps, so mind the weather (lol, what weather? It's CA!). If its raining, might not be a good destination. Decent sized patio area with limited seating, so on a busy night you'll have to fight for a table or drink standing up. Usually they have some funky tunes playing and a TV or two showing the latest sportsball game.

Quality is very good, they serve up in proper glassware and they take care of issues immediately if you let them know what the problem is. The beers are always pouring great, never had any issues with dirty taplines or anything like that.

Service is pretty good, they're usually very helpful if you ask. If it's busy, be ready to order as they often seem overworked relative to staffing, so help them out a bit. If it's slow they'll strike up a conversation with you, generally very friendly.

Selection: Before anything else, this is very important, you can purchase beer inside and bring it up to the bar. Meaning the entire Whole Foods cooler is fair game to drink there. What's more, there is no corking fee. So if you're hitting up a Sharks game, you can buy a $15 sixer of Ballast Point and drink down at $2.50 a beer for pre-gaming. Not bad at all. In addition to this, they have 16 taps with 2-6 house beers on at any time. They usually carry a few imports/sours then a handful of other craft beers, usually from California, especially Bay Area breweries.

Food can be ordered up there or brought up. It's all the usual Whole Foods goodies. Just like with the beer, anything you purchase in the store can be brought up for consumption.

 

Great new brewery in San Jose. Very small runs -- 14 kegs or so -- so they run out of their house brews quickly, but they have lots of other craft brews on tap.

Their Pale Ale is insanely delicious.
Their IPA is very, very good.
Their Porter is very good as well.

Cool spot. Check it out for sure.