Prepare your bottle openers, hops heads, it’s Nosh’s Beer Week 2024. All week long we are celebrating local brewers, taprooms and bottle shops, and the latest trends in beer. Check back each day this week for new stories on the East Bay’s unique, innovative and growing beer scene.
Let us pause for a moment to appreciate beer in the Bay Area. In the East Bay alone there are dozens of breweries with beers honoring the area’s diverse cultures and rich history. The proliferation of area breweries in the past decade is proof that this is an area of doers, DIY folks, backyard brewers who have turned their hobbies into viable businesses, and people who want to share the fruits of their labor with their community.
Let us also pause for a moment to appreciate public transit. While every citizen in the area has valid gripes against BART and AC Transit, isn’t it incredible that for less than $5, you can travel from Antioch to Millbrae? From North San Jose to Richmond? And complaining about public transit is a great way to bond with strangers.
Which brings us back to beer, perhaps the best way to bond with strangers ever invented.
Below you’ll find Nosh’s East Bay Public Transit Beer Trail, from San Leandro to Richmond, including a map with all of the breweries along the way. So, break out your Clipper Card, gather up some friends, or even some strangers. It’s time to ride, to drink beer, to bond.
The Trail Head: San Leandro
This particular beer trail by transit begins in San Leandro, at Drake’s Brewing Company (1933 Davis St., San Leandro), aka Drake’s Industrial Park. The brewery is the perfect spot to begin a long day of beer drinking. This oasis behind a Walmart has a festive atmosphere, with lots and lots of seating, both indoors and out. Outside you can play some cornhole or a game of oversized Connect Four. Venture inside to find Skee Ball and a Combo Boxer machine to test both your boxing and soccer skills.
Walls of barrels abound, giving the joint a nice ambience and several zones of privacy. The bar features some 22 taps, pouring not just Drake’s beers, but also cider, hard seltzer, and hard iced tea, as well as Bear Republic Brewing Company’s Racer 5 IPA and Racer 7 Hazy IPA. Of course there’s Drake’s Denogginizer Imperial IPA, which at 9.75% alcohol by volume (ABV) at this point in the game is either a great idea, or a really bad one. But the first public transit phase of this adventure is the longest, so go ahead, tie one on.
San Leandro to Jack London Square
Walk four minutes to the corner of Davis Street and Westgate Parkway and catch the 34 or 35 Bus to San Leandro BART station. Ride the Orange or Blue Line train to Lake Merritt Station. Walk 10 minutes to the corner of Harrison and 4th streets
One could do an entire beer tour of the Jack London Square area alone. Notice the wayfinder arrows spray painted on the sidewalk throughout the neighborhood, pointing travelers in the direction of coffee, wine, art, and of course, beer. Any direction you go, you’ll find beer it seems.
I suggest a zigzag approach, starting at Original Pattern (292 4th St., Oakland), a worker-owner brewery featuring a bevy of award-winning beers. They even have the medals behind the bar to prove it. Also behind the bar are several gleaming vats of stainless steel, where future versions of the beers you’re about to drink are busy fermenting. The beer flights come with six 5 oz. glasses, perfect for sharing. Try the Can’t Win ‘Em All Pale Ale, which was at least good enough to win the 2023 Brewers Cup of California Gold Medal. The interior is a welcoming mix of British pub and San Francisco Mission bar. There’s also plenty of shaded sidewalk seating.
Next, head south on Harrison Street to 2nd Street and grab a pint at Oakland United Beerworks (262 2nd St., Oakland). This brewery began its life as Linden Street Brewery in 2009, which has the claim of being “the first community-based production brewery in Oakland since Golden West Brewery closed in the 1950s.” The brewery currently has 14 beers on tap, including the Bay Area themed New Oakland Glow Pilsner, Bay Shore Fog Hazy IPA, and East Bay Nights Black Lager. The barroom is cozy with 10 seats at the bar and more seating in a loft above the taps, where you can view the production space. There’s also sail-shaded seating on the sidewalk.
Head back up to Harrison Street and hang a left on 3rd Street, where you’ll pass by Cellarmaker Brewing Company (300 Webster St., Oakland). You may get lured in to try its One Foot in the Grave West Coast IPA, or its Nitro Coffee and Cigarettes — a smoked coffee porter.
A block down on 3rd Street is Dokkaebier (420 3rd St., Oakland), a spot you will not want to miss. The brewery’s name is a play on “dokkaebi,” a mythical, mischievous, shape-shifting creature found in Korean folklore, a perfect spirit animal for this beer-fueled hero’s journey.
Dokkaebier’s $14 flights come with four 3 oz. glasses, a pretty perfect amount to sample its Korean-inspired beer offerings. (Or for $36, you can try them all!). Its “Classics” menu includes Yuza Blonde, Rice Kolsch, Milk Stout, and Kimchi Sour, the latter brewed with Dokkaebier’s kimchi culture and spiced with the sneaky heat of gochugaru chili powder. There are also several seasonal and limited releases on tap, including the lime-infused Kalo Mexican Lager, and a selection of beer cocktails.
Dokkaebier is really two breweries in one. Hella Coastal, the first Black-owned brewery in Oakland, also brews at the facility. Try the Ice City, with notes of “white gummy bears, stone fruit and a touch of diesel.”
If your timing is right, you can also pick up some Yangnyeom Chicken: beer-battered Korean fried chicken. The Dokkaebier Korner Store also sells a variety of Korean pre-packaged snacks, like Gochujang Shrimp Crackers, Nonshim’s Banana Kick puffs, and Roasted Butter Squid jerky, plus Lay’s Lamb Skewer Flavor chips. As the price tag next to this last offering states: “Need I say more?”
A little further afield, down 3rd Street, is Line 51 Brewing Company (303 Castro St., Oakland), a family-owned brewery, named after the Line 51 Bus that the owner used to take on research jaunts across the East Bay before his brewery got going. There’s even an old city bus in the taproom. A fitting stop for this transit-minded beer crawl.
Choose your own adventure
Option 1: Take the bus to West Oakland
Walk to the corner of 3rd Street and Broadway and catch the 72, 72R, or 72M Bus to the corner of San Pablo Avenue and 25th Street. Walk 15 minutes to 21st and Adeline streets.
Option 2: Take the Capitol Corridor train to Emeryville/Berkeley
Walk to 2nd and Alice streets to Oakland Jack London train station and catch the northbound train to Emeryville. Walk 15 minutes to 65th Street near Hollis Street.
There are still so many breweries in Oakland. In West Oakland, Ghost Town Brewing (1960 Adeline St., Oakland) offers low ABV beers, which at this point in the journey is a great idea. Indeed, Ghost Town’s beers are priced according to their ABV: the lower the alcohol, the lower the price. The lowest of the low is its Scumbag Cream Ale. At 4.6% ABV, it is a smooth character. The brewery was formed by a heavy metal band who started making beer in their practice space. The band never took off, but the beer sure did. The brewery’s coffin logo, as well as the ambience of the brewery itself, pays homage not only to the founder’s heavy metal roots, but also to the rumor that the space used to be a coffin factory — a story too good to fact check. (Spoiler alert: it was fact-checked and while there used to be two coffin factories in the area, no one knows for sure if Ghost Town’s spot was one of them).
West Oakland to Emeryville
If you took the West Oakland excursion, take a 10 minute walk to W. Grand Avenue and Mandela Parkway and catch the 29 Bus. Get off at Hollis and 65th streets. Your destination is a mere half block away.
Wondrous Brewing Company (1306 65th St., Emeryville) is a hip little outpost in E-ville. The vibe is more fourth-wave coffee shop (blonde wood paneling, minimal signage, modern furniture, no TV) than brew pub. It’s a delightful spot to spend a warm afternoon. A window into its production space offers a view of Kentucky bourbon barrels, where Wondrous’ Dark Head Imperial Stout and Hope & Despair Barleywine are being barrel aged. There are also a variety of lighter beer offerings, like Wondrous Hell, a Munich-style Helles lager, and Pools of Love, a Czech-style amber lager.
Emeryville to South Berkeley
Head east on 65th Street towards San Pablo Avenue and catch the 72 Line Bus to Allston Way. Walk for 10 minutes to the corner of Addison and Fourth streets.
Great Notion Brewing (2031 Fourth St., Berkeley), housed inside the former Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s Torpedo Room, is a cozy beer-packed bar down the street from Berkeley’s Fourth Street shopping zone. Given the brewery’s lumberjack logo and Pacific Northwest decor, it’s clear the brewery takes its name from Ken Kesey’s novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, which took its title from Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene,” specifically the line, “Sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown.” It’s an apt metaphor for this beer trip. At Great Notion you can drown yourself in a selection of sour beers including Blueberry Muffin, made with Oregon blueberries, or Orange Creamsicle Fruit in the Can, a 6% ABV smoothie.
South Berkeley to Northwest Berkeley
The quickest way to the next destination is on foot. Walk north on Fourth Street for 15 minutes to Camelia Street.
Northwest Berkeley, a spot that Berkeleyside co-founder Frances Dinkelspiel tried unsuccessfully to dub Berkeley’s “Drinks District,” sports a plethora of wineries (Donkey & Goat, Broc Cellars, Hammerling, to name a few), plus a handful of breweries, most notably the Trumer Brewery (1404 Fourth St., Berkeley), a sister brewery to the Trumer Brauerei in Salzburg, Austria, which has called Berkeley home for 20 years.
Head north again on Fourth Street to Harrison Street and hang a right and walk for two blocks to Fieldwork Brewing Company.
Fieldwork (1160 Sixth St., Berkeley) began in Berkeley in 2014 and has since expanded to Corte Madera, Monterey, Napa, Sacramento, San Leandro, San Mateo, and San Ramon. The place is often crawling with kids, fresh from the soccer field. And their parents, of course, many of whom may have signed the kids up for soccer precisely because of the field’s proximity to Fieldwork. It offers dozens of beers on tap, with the menu organized by type for ease of use: Light & Lager, Sour, Belgian, West Coast, etc. Fieldwork also offers a variety of non-alcoholic beers, not a bad idea at this point in the game.
Walk south on Sixth Street and turn left on Gilman Street.
Gilman Brewing Company (912 Gilman St., Berkeley), housed in a former auto repair shop, across the street from the former Gordon Biersch brewery (now the Ripple factory, turning yellow peas into “milk”), features an IPA-heavy tap list including Frog on Bicycle West Coast Juicy IPA (6.5% ABV), Freedom Hazy IPA (7.3% ABV), Banjo Cat West Coast Double IPA (8.3% ABV), and the Missouri Lean Triple IPA (a whopping 10% ABV). The tap room is cool and cave-like, but is adjoined by a warehouse-like sitting room with high ceilings and rolling doors that open onto the street letting in lots of light. There is also plenty of sidewalk seating along the exterior.
The real joy of Gilman Brewing Company is Joyride Pizza, the Detroit-style pizza company that shares space with the brewery. Joyride’s crispy, cushiony, gooey flavor bombs seem to be made with beer-drinking in mind. And if “Pestoriffic Chick ‘n Ranch” doesn’t strike you as particularly Detroit-like, just wait until you try it. You won’t care.
Northwest Berkeley to Richmond
Walk to the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Gilman Street and take the 52 Bus to North Berkeley BART station. Take the Orange Line train to Richmond station. Catch the 74 Bus to Marina Bay Parkway and Meeker Ave. Walk three minutes to Armistice Brewing Company.
We have reached the end of the line. And Armistice Brewing Company (845 Marina Bay Pkwy., Richmond) is the perfect terminus for this beer transit journey. The brewery’s tagline is “ales and allies,” and after drinking its tasty beers and meeting its friendly staff, you’ll understand why.
Many area breweries feature “buy a friend a pint” offerings, where customers can purchase a brew for a pal, who can come in later to collect it. Armistice takes this practice to another level. The barroom walls are painted in chalkboard paint and covered in numbered messages. If a friend sends word that they’ve bought you a beer, tell the bartender your name and number when you arrive, grab your pint, and find your friend’s message on the wall. Some recent notes include:
228: Congrats on winning
238: The boy will miss you! Good luck in Kansas!
419: Give em Hell
607: Where is my blankie?
The chalkboard wall also includes a list of board games available: Monopoly, Battleship, Pictionary, Uno, Trivial Pursuit, Cards Against Humanity, and many more.
The brewery features gluten-free hard seltzers like Try Harder Mango Margarita and Try Harder Piña Colada, which are both brewed and fermented like beer — we’re not talking spiked La Croix here. They are light and refreshing, but as this is a beer tour, and this is the last stop, might I suggest the Party Mix Hazy IPA, which is called “the beer equivalent of a mix tape your BFF made just for you.” Raise a glass, toast your friends.
Also notice the “Access Restricted” beer, only available to members of The Armi, Armistice’s annual beer club. Memberships can only be bought on Black Friday each year, and gives members access to these Access Restricted beers, along with quarterly four-pack offerings, free tastings each release day, a free birthday beer, and custom Armi dog tags. After spending time here, chances are you’ll want to enlist.
Now, get home safe. See you on the beer trail.
I would recommend a slight change after the stop at Gilman. Take the 72 north on San Pablo to Central. There you can stop at Elevation 66 for their excellent beer and food. Four block walk to El Cerrito Plaza BART to continue on to Armistice.
Would’ve been nice to see the smaller Ocean View Brew Works in Albany included on this list! It’s accessible with AC Transit (72 bus) and is walk-able to the El Cerrito Plaza BART stop (< 1 mile).