San Jose Visit

Lots of good info here regarding San Jose and the surrounding area: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/moving-to-san-jose.359919/

SARA is about half the distance of RR (1 hour or so, depending on traffic). You normally can get 0-6 500ML bottles to-go any given day due to bottle limits. The selections vary day to day. They post their wares on facebook everyday, so if you look at what they have the day before, usually the next day is very similar. They have 10ish beers on tap. @billf is right down there and can probably give you more details than I can. You can also get some of their beers on draft and even some bottles if you check out Original Gravity, Good Karma and/or Winchester BBQ.

For Russian River, the drive from San Jose is 90-150 minutes on average. Most days, especially weekends there will be a line, however it is worth the wait. Normally they have Pliny the Elder available (limit 6-12), Blind Pig (6-12), Row 2 Hill 56 (6-12), STS Pils, Consecration (limit varies), Supplication (limit varies), and a few random ones like Damnation. They have 20-25 beers on tap, almost all of which are above average to world class. They have the craziest sampler you'll ever have, all 20+ beers poured out for you. In the area there's also Bear Republic and Lagunitas, both worth a stop if you have time.

I'd suggest a third thing to consider: Cellarmaker in SF. Honestly, I have no idea how they aren't incredibly coveted all over the trading forums. If they were in Vermont they'd be one of the "it" breweries.

You can't really go wrong here, lots of great options. I'd say Russian River due to the sheer volume of amazing beers you'd be able to try and take to-go.

 

I've not been to Rare Barrel yet. It's on my shortlist right now. What I do know is that their website seems to maintain good information on their current taps (sours) and guest taps (non-sours). I'm not sure what the deal is with beer to-go there. It's not that far out of your way on the way to Russian River, so those could be both hit in the same trip if you time it right.

I should have clarified in my earlier posts, OG, Good Karma and Winchester BBQ are right in San Jose and should be less than 20 minutes away from just about anywhere you might be staying. They often have Sante on tap and in bottles to go. OG maintains an up to date taplist on their website, Good Karma and Winchester BBQ keep up their taps and bottles on beermenus.com and are pretty consistent about it. In general, beermenus is a great resource in San Jose which hasn't been true for a lot of cities I've visited.

 

ISO Beers downtown is solid as well. Very short walking distance from both Good Karma and OG. I haven't been to any in a year since moving away but Good Karma and ISO typically had more sought after stuff than OG on tap. ISO's tap list can be seen on their website.

 

An alternative to downtown would be to stay along the light rail line just north of downtown. There's a good handful of hotels by the airport on the lightrail line including a residence inn that just opened in the last year. Santa Clara also has tons of hotels as well. I imagine you'd be able to find something with the gov't rate.

ISO Beers is good, honestly though they've fallen behind in the last year or so. They sit on too many IPAs and they often charge $1-3 more on a pour of a beer you can also find down the street at good karma or OG ($10 for a 8oz pour of W00tstout? You kidding me?). They did jump ahead of OG for awhile, but OG added space and taps and since then I think they're the better of the two. Just my opinion though.

 

As far as beer-to-go at The Rare Barrel, their beer club members (Ambassadors of Sour) get growlers which can be filled to-go, other than that they do not fill any other growlers (past Ambassador growlers are fine too of course). On their tasting menu part of their site, they state which bottles they have to-go (if any). So far this year it's been Map of the Sun (which fell off the menu 3 weeks ago I think), and No Salt which is the current to-go with a bottle limit of 3 @ $25 each.

 

if in the campbell area liquid bread is pretty solid..... they do 40% off bottles to go which brings the bottles to almost retail...... your able to find firestone stuff and other good stuff every once n a while. Hermitage brewery if your looking for something local.

 

Dude don't let them stick you out in Pleasanton. The commute into San Jose would be brutal.

 

Another option is to stay somewhere near a caltrain stop. Could be halfway up the peninsula and the trip wouldn't be much longer than taking light rail from Santa Clara.

 

Down there, not much that I know of. You're by a Lucky's where their craft beer selection is average at best. You're less than 20 minutes from Trail Dust BBQ where they generally have a great bottle/tap selection including SARA stuff.

 

Check out the Moving to San Jose thread I posted above, that'll give you a good idea of who the locals are. If you post an IP thread in the trade forum I think it's fine to draw our attention to it. My FT list is generally up to date, so feel free to hit me up on PM if there's something there you're interested in getting.

 

If you haven't been to RR, then spend your time making sure you go to RR. Cheers

 

Yeah, they happened to put you as far away in San Jose as it gets from any action. Trail Dust (in Morgan Hill) is great. The closest liquor store with any decent selection that l know of is The Wine Rack at Santa Teresa Blvd. and Cahalan, just a couple of miles from your hotel. But, if you're going that far, you might as well hit up Whole Foods another mile or two from there. They have a great selection of bottles and now have a beer and wine bar that usually has a nice selection of taps. When will you be here?