Latest reviews from Sunnyvale

“Laughing Monk took over Faultline the past week or so in December 2023. It looks like 90% of the beers are Laughing Monk beers and 10% are Faultline. Just a guess. One of the few places with small 3oz tasters for $2 each. Food is high, like most of Silicon Valley in late 2023 at $19 an entre. Beers are mediocre with a 1-2 nice ones. Easy drinking styles. The highlight of the location is of course the beautiful huge koi pond in the back, and interior wooded piers and high ceilings. Easy parking. Quiet on this Saturday night at 8PM, or an illusion from the huge space.“

wetherel 186 days ago

“Good tap list. They only sell pints, no tasters or half pints. The Fish and Chips was very good. Busy and noisy for aTue night. Prices were pretty high. Fast and friendly service.“

Sledutah 253 days ago

“Pours your own, 40 taps. Many styles, mostly N. CA breweries. They have pizza, it looks like frozen pizza but I don't know, I didn't eat. Great ticker place.“

Sledutah 253 days ago

“Another place in the downtown Sunnyvale tick trail. Only probably the second pour-your-own taproom sort of place that I have been to. You get set up with a key fob at the counter and then can go to town pouring your beers. The pricing is kind of high for full pours ($0.625/oz), but if you just want to get a bunch of 1-2 ounce ticks, it’s tough to beat the pricing in these parts. Unfortunately you’re not going to get the best breweries and hype releases here, but most of the beers are pretty decent and from reputable breweries. They also have a lot of beers (36 beer taps). A cool concept, but I’m not sure how much this will ever really catch on in the craft beer world.“

brokensail 1010 days ago

“Almost didn’t stop in because of my many poor experiences with “Irish” bars over the years, especially when it comes to beer. But after checking their list online, I gave it a shot. A surprising amount of Russian River beers on, including DDH Pliny. Also some other cool stuff around the Bay from Barebottle, Del Cielo, and others. Everything comes in a pint and the prices are a bit wowza ($9.50 for a pint of Elder is kind of LOL). Service was really good and super friendly. Could see this place being full of obnoxious drunks on a weekend night, but found it to be a nice stop on a Tuesday afternoon.“

brokensail 1010 days ago

“Apparently these guys took over what used to be Firehouse Brewing. I guess that shows how much I pay attention to things in this neck of the woods. Feels more open and brighter than I remember, but otherwise generally a similar layout with a big bar area that features some high tops and standard dining tables. They’ve also got a COVID-patio outside as Murphy is closed to traffic. Also a more permanent back patio. Service was friendly on a weekday afternoon just a bit after opening. Some blues music playing on the sound system, so I liked that. They had nine beers available during my visit and I did a flight of four. Two were enjoyable and two were pretty bad, so I guess the beer quality isn’t much better than Firehouse. Might make a stop again, if I was in the area, but not making it a priority.“

brokensail 1010 days ago

“A ton of taps. Maybe 36. Lots of easy drinking styles. Great for rating. Works out to $10/16oz pint, but I got 2-3oz pours and get 6 ratings for the price of a pint. Great deal. One hard to find local brewery, Umunhum, is always on tap here.“

wetherel 1028 days ago

“Left side of Murphy as you cross Washington. Large space inside, plus a few outside tables. British Pub stylings with an ok tap list including a couple of their own beers (not sure whether they are actually brewed on site, however). Hefe was pretty solid. Lots of Indian styled dishes, including a pretty solid Tikka Masala, and apparently a good spicy goat curry. Prices as expected for downtown Sunnyvale post pandemic.“

bytemesis 1070 days ago

“Dropped by on Friday to pick up a mixed 4 pack I purchased online for $20. You can purchase there as well. No tasting room. Brewery is super clean and simple about the size of a garage: maybe a 1-2 barrel fermenters. Super friendly. Excited to see them grow.“

wetherel 1097 days ago

“This is a true garage operation. They have a single unit in an industrial strip in Sunnyvale. The unit houses their brewing equipment, which his beyond the 5 gallon pail level (I still remember the early days of Clandestine!), but not a lot. Tiniest little stainless fermenters I have ever seen :). At this time there is no onsite activity, but you can buy beer on their website and pick it up on Friday afternoons, or Saturday by appt. Everything is 16oz cans sold by the four pack. Haven't tried the product yet, but I will!“

bytemesis 1192 days ago

“Dropped by to try Pliney for President on tap. I see lots of people having tasters here, but today, Nov 2020 during Covid, there is no Happy hour, or tasters or flights or half pours. The tap list is pretty big, and of great quality. Sitting outside is quite nice, though the atmosphere inside is even better. Great place to eat and try great beers in Sunnyvale.“

wetherel 1328 days ago

“Really nice location in downtown Sunnyvale. Perfect mid October weather for eating outside during Covid. Great British pub fare. They brew their own beers, but only a few: a hefe, an ipa, and a lager. Best time to visit is during happy hours. They also hav 7 guest taps and 9 bottles.“

wetherel 1341 days ago

“Dropped in during Covid. They have the entire street blocked off, with the restaurants setting up tables outside on the street. No heaters, so it is a chilly early September evening. 9 of their own beers on tap, 3 guest taps, with taster flights of 4 x 6oz? Tasty happy hour menu.“

wetherel 1387 days ago

“Haven't been here in years. This is a much more open layout than fire house, brewing equipment visible in back, sizable bar, separate food ordering area. Three rooms and a back patio. Bar food with an Indian flair; didn't try it, but it smelled good. Seven taps. Silicon valley prices. Prompt service. Decent Baltic porter. Would try again.“

bytemesis 1574 days ago

“These guys have really updated their beer selection in the past couple of years. They are still crowded and noisy, par for the course on Murphy street, but they now run about 30 taps with a variety of nice selections, including alvarado street, ghost town, etc. Didn't try the food, but kudos on the beer.“

bytemesis 1587 days ago

“What a great idea...40 taps available to pour your own beers...“

Wirralbeerveg 1596 days ago

“Big open plan brewpub.. 10 taps on ..service was very slow though...“

Wirralbeerveg 1596 days ago

“Fun place where you pour your own beers. Selection was good, and the beers were also. The only complaints were that the price per once was a bit high, and you could not see how much you poured until after you stopped. Otherwise, great value if you want to tick a lot of beers.“

KyotoLefty 1879 days ago

“Stopped in for a lunch. Beer selection was fine - some good stuff. Burger was decent. It's basically a perfectly acceptable beer bar next to a bunch of other perfectly acceptable beer bars. Fine by Valley standards.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2156 days ago

“Thanks to Matt for clueing me in to this place. Murphy Ave in downtown Sunnyvale, which truly needs more good beer destinations, finally has one. River Rock is a you-pour place in the vein of the Pour Taproom in Santa Cruz; in fact they even have the same three pre-selected amounts that are apparently a product of some stupid regulation, rather than the much more flexible measurement by the tenth of an ounce system. Anyway, the place is a typical bar setup, dominated by the wall of taps. You give them a credit card to get a wrist band that lets you pour up to 32 oz of beer of your choice. Sizes are 3, 8 or 12 oz sized as I recall, each priced accordingly. The system here is a little slow and flaky, patience is key. You get a printed taplist, but in my experience that was fairly out of date and you needed to rely on just walking the wall and seeing what they had out. Service was helpful not necessarily super knowledgeable, but friendly. They have some food, we had an order of Bruscheta which was fine, but did not dig deeper than that. Taplist was interesting and included a mead, a few ciders and four wines within the 36 served. As mentioned, a number of taps were different than stated in the printed menu, but none were empty - I seems like turnover is fairly high here. I ticked my way through 32 oz of beer and paid $12; that qualifies as a tickers paradise IMO.“

bytemesis 2359 days ago

“Decent beer store. Okay selection of CA beers in bombers and 6-packs/cases. No singles, which is disappointing as an out-of-towner. Otherwise, it looks like a fairly average Bev Mo / warehouse-type beer store. Plenty of stuff to drink here, that’s for sure.“

ben4321 2955 days ago

“In one of the shopping centers that populate this particular intersection near the pizza place. As with many of the BevMos in the Bay Area, the selection here is pretty decent.

Good selection of beers from down south (San Diego, Orange County, etc.) and local stuff, along with the typical imports and distributed offerings from other states--you can get your Deschutes seasonals/"limited’ releases and all that jazz.

Seems like they have some good offerings here and if you come in when beers are released, you can probably get your Bourbon County or Sierra Beer Camp pack or whatever without much of an issue.“

brokensail 2964 days ago

“I actually went here to pick up some snacks before heading to bytemesis’s house for a tasting when I realized that it’s (for some reason) listed on the ratebeer database.

I guess it’s maybe not as bad as it was three years ago (per Bobby and Mike’s ratings), but in general grocery store beer selections in the Bay Area (and much of metropolitan California in general) have improved significantly.

You still shouldn’t expect to find anything great here, but you can at least get some seasonal releases from the likes of Lagunitas, Firestone, Sierra, Stone, etc. It’s a fine enough place to grab a sixer if you’re headed to a BBQ and you just want to get some beers, but I wouldn’t come here just for beer.“

brokensail 2964 days ago

“This place is notable mainly because the food is solid and they get a keg of Pliny (Elder) on Thursdays at 11AM. We arrived about 11:40 to a line winding out the door and into the parking lot. By the time we got to the point of ordering we were told the Pliny was sold out in 22 minutes. Fortunately the food WAS good, they had plenty of seating, and they had other nice Cali locals on tap. Solid place overall. Good place to go for not-too-hard-to-find IPAs.“

bytemesis 3416 days ago

“Visited May 14, 2014.

This is a small liquor store in a strip mall in Sunnyvale. The outside is probably the most interesting aspect of the place. It looks like it hasn’t changed since the 60s. There is a large Visa / MasterCard sign on the wall, a prominent lotto sign, and a Bud Light sign above the door with logos for all the NFL teams around it. Mostly cheap macros found here but as the previous reviewer mentioned there is one fridge door with a couple of decent options. I did not know about nor did I look for a Nepalese beer but I would have bought it if I had known.“

t0rin0 3541 days ago

“Really not much here. They have one cooler with west coast craft. Some good stuff, but available at nearly every liquor store in the south bay (and there are hundreds of them). Another case of "not sure why this is in the database at all."“

bytemesis 3806 days ago

“Agreed with t0rin0. Pushing it down baby, pushing it down. The bet part about this Safeway is that I can walk there. But I can also walk to the Bevmo across the street.“

bytemesis 3899 days ago

“Visited September 23, 2013.

This is right across the street from a Safeway that is here in the database and next door to a place called Slice of New York, if you need some more place ratings. This Bevmo is fairly large, even for a Bevmo. Despite that, there isn’t a lot of good beer. The usual imports (German, English, and Belgian) and big name US beers are present but they only have a limited selection of California-made beers. Service was friendly and prices were good.“

t0rin0 3922 days ago

“Visited September 23, 2013.

Why do people keep adding grocery stores to the database? Aside from malt liquor about the only beer they have is a couple of Sierra Nevada, Gordon Biersch, and Redhook products along with some oddball beers that I think are Safeway house beers. Also, the pharmacy sucks. This is actually why I stopped here but I got into it with the pharmacist over his ridiculous prices. Three times the price of the Walmart pharmacy. Garbage.“

t0rin0 3922 days ago

“6th person ever to 666 place ratings. Maybe I should have saved Kuma’s or Three Floyds or something for this occasion. But then again, its just a place rating, so meh. Besides, who’s to say that Bob isn’t metal?

Visited September 23, 2013.

Yet another unassuming liquor store in a strip mall. This one however was on the way to the freeway from where I was working. Anyway, there are a couple of fridges with some good beer in them and another for macros. Firestone, Stone, Ballast Point, Devils Canyon, Bear Republic, and Knee Deep among others. Mostly good stuff but just not very much of it. Aside from that there is the usual selection of liquors and snacks. The guys behind the counter were friendly and prices were reasonable. “

t0rin0 3922 days ago

“I am kind of a pizza snob. Super small hole in the wall. Rave reviews! Unlike my friend I didn’t care for the pizza. It;s one of those heat up a slice places. I’ll have to try it again at a later date.“

mrhoppy 3980 days ago

“My tastes in beer are moving up and I find that I rarely visit a BevMo anymore.“

mrhoppy 3981 days ago

“This BevMo definitely seems to be a bit better than most of the others. Worth a visit!“

JesseLara 4103 days ago

“Really good pizza and a few decent taps. Nuff said. Update. Ok, so perhaps I got a little carried away with place adds in my early RateBeer days, so before he says it - so shoot me t0rin0!“

bytemesis 4299 days ago

“OK, this is just your run of the mill liquor mart that is about every two blocks all across the bay area, EXCEPT for two things - they have about a dozen decent 22 oz bottles in the fridge, and the owners are Nepalese, so they stock beers from Nepal. I havent seen Nepalese beer anywhere else in my (domestic) travels. That makes it worth recording on ratebeer IMHO.“

bytemesis 4371 days ago

“Nothing wrong with your local BevMo! for a good selection of not-too-hard to find beers. Update: after checking many of them out, this BevMo is certainly among the best in the bay area. You can certainly find more interesting things at some of the dedicated beer stores, but if you are looking to stock up, bevmo is fine. And they do get some of the semi rare stuff as well, such as BCS, Abyss, and Old Stock Brandy.“

bytemesis 4397 days ago

“One of the better beer places in the area - above average selection and prices are good. Jaye is truly passionate about craft beer and is willing to take the time to help and educate customers.“

Dixonian 4427 days ago

“This BevMo is quickly becoming the best BevMo Beer stop in the Bay Area. Large selection of stuff and more showing up every time I go in there. Remember it is a BevMo so they are operating under some severe restrictions (no singles, somewhat limited on what they can purchase etc) but they are head and shoulders, leaps and bounds? better than most other BevMos.“

beerguy101 5344 days ago