Latest reviews from Redwood City

“12 taps. Right across the street from the great Gourmet Haus, which is far superior. Nice place. Local breweries. Pints and half pours. Nothing special on tap, but good quality, like Russian River IPAs, which you can find everywhere.“

wetherel 112 days ago

“So excited to Ghostwood open a tap room, after being so sparsely open during CoVid. 7 beers on tap: 5on the paper menu and 2 new, but all on barcode scan menu. Much more emphasis on food, and liquor, but they have some nice taps. I think my flight of 4 was $10. Beer quality is excellent. Interior is comfortable and beautiful. Parking is relatively easy“

wetherel 292 days ago

“GHS is on Broadway in Redwood City, a nice downtown strip. The front is a store with an international market and beer/wine store with a great selection. The back is a restaurant with 25 taps - half American craft, half traditional German. The restaurant space has low ceilings and long tables and a super friendly vibe, plus a patio. The food is very good. The bartender was the best I've had in some time. It's not cheap, but you get what you pay for. Too bad I was flying out that evening or I'd have done some damage in the bottle shop. This place rules. I'd be here weekly if I lived nearby.“

phaleslu 340 days ago

“Freewheel is in a compact, busy strip mall in Redwood City. There's a relaxed patio out front and the indoor space is relatively small and cozy and inviting. There are about a dozen taps, a third of which are actual beer engines for cask ales. There's a small food window, too, but I didn't eat here. The beer was mostly fine, with one I'd call pretty good and one really bad. Cask ales are definitely their wheelhouse. The bartenders were fine. It's fine to visit if you're nearby but not essential by any means.“

phaleslu 340 days ago

“A little better than a typical Whole Foods. 1/2 aisle of beer in coolers. About 6 individual cans from Original Pattern. Good selection, but most are in 4 packs or large bottles. Great food of course.“

wetherel 571 days ago

“Wow. Very impressive. I think the best non-brewery place to visit in the South Bay. 30 beers on tap: 15 German easy drinking across a range of styles. The other 15 are an awesome selection of local BA beers, sours, hazies, ipa, Pils, etc. I just love the 80’s packed music selection blaring. The bottle shop is top 5 in the South Bay. Today I saw 5 German spurs, 3F framboos, lots of Local IPA, German beers galore. Fantastic. Beautiful staff. Great decor. Great location.“

wetherel 872 days ago

“1. Dropped by during Covid. Online sales only, and you can pick up at the door. Ug. Lame. 1.5 2. Checkout website a few weeks later. Wow. I was totally wrong. Excellent selection, best prices in the Bay Area, and online ordering is wonderful, because it gives you time to choose.“

wetherel 1284 days ago

“6 taps. Flight of 6 for around $12. A couple cask conditioned beers. A bunch of different cans too. Good pub food: nachos, burgers, etc. Nice Octoberfest music playing this earlier October evening. Not to crowded, during Covid: lots of outdoor seating. Quite relaxing and enjoyable.“

wetherel 1300 days ago

“Came here on 12.8.2019. A German beer restaurant behind a beer shop. You have to enter through the parking area (at least when the shop has been closed). Nice beer garden outside with many German and Austrian brewery signs (Stiegl!!), wooden tables and benches (great warning sign that you should not sit on the end of the benches otherwise you fall). Inside a small bar a few antlers on the wall and dried hops on the ceiling. Really good beer selection. Two tapping areas, one for US beers: Modern Times, Russian River (Concegration) and one for German beers: Schlenkerla Helles, Koestritzer, Andechser. They serve beers in 1 liter Mass tankards. Of course they have Stiegl Radler in cans. Great food menu, a bit reduced on Monday (no Leberkäse) though. I had very good Bratwürste with Sauerkraut. Polish Ben would love the food and ambiance here !! Awesome place !!!“

Schlenkerla 1717 days ago

“Nice place. The food is tapa style, get a few plates and share. Good food but on the high side. A decent beer menu, not a big selection but a good selection. Parking is limited to street parking.“

Sledutah 1849 days ago

“So t0rin0 is right in that there's no real point in going here if GHS (which is literally across the street) is open - GHS is a world class beer bar and this place just has a ton of IPAs (and 1-2 other decent craft beers), only the very local of which are particularly rare. That said, if you're in from out of town and out late, there are worse places for a beer, especially if you're from out of town and want to hit some west coast IPAs.“

WestCoastHawkeye 1884 days ago

“Nothing really special. They have a few oddball things but this is mostly stuff you can get at other, cleaner stores nearby. Not really worth a trip unless you're really price-conscious.“

WestCoastHawkeye 1959 days ago

“Perfectly cromulent little brewpub close to work. Rather than going nuts on the stouts / IPAs / sours trend, they do English style with a focus on cask. Had a good bitter on cask and a solid golden ale. Food was decent, vibe was low key. Better out there but not within walking distance of work.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2024 days ago

“Really eclectic and well-curated little beer corner, including lots of stuff I personally have never seen elsewhere in the Valley. Not broad, but very good. Surprisingly good bottle shops in Redwood City and immediately nearby. Staff was very helpful in guiding me to everything as well.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2058 days ago

“So I went on a Wednesday evening and the place was crowded with lots of people who didn't seem to realize how great the beer here is. Just a ton of local stuff and the bottle shop is also hyper local with some international beer in the bottle shop that you don't see anywhere that's not a top flight beer bar (e.g., Pohjala, Baladin's Xyauyu, etc.) I'd likely rate them more highly on service and ambiance if this place weren't so great and, therefore, crowded. It's really a world class place. Worth the trip.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2072 days ago

“Really excellent place. Some of the best cafeteria-style food I've ever seen (probably the best) and some good rarities on their tap list (it was almost all local). The Valley is a bit of a dead zone for top end beer places but this is a pretty good one.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2073 days ago

“Beer selection at this whole foods is pretty mediocre by whole foods standards.“

WestCoastHawkeye 2074 days ago

“Wine shop with a nice beercorner as well. Good selection of mostly local craft, with some nice specials. Reasonable prices. Wish I lived closer by.“

MarcoDL 2442 days ago

“It should be clarified that this is a beer bar and eatery first and a bottle shop second. As a bar/eatery it excels and is very authentically German but with the very welcome and uncharacteristic half dozen odd American taps. No slouches either. As a bottle shop it never carries more than 30 varieties of beer, often less, all German, maybe some Austrian and sometimes bottles you can’t get anywhere else in the Bay Area. It’s one of the best beer bars on the Peninsula but it’s not a must-visit as a bottle shop.“

Mercutio 2539 days ago

“This BevMo is about two blocks from Harry’s, so I just decided to walk there for the tick. Sign in the window said Grand Re-Opening, FWIW. Clean, but quite small, with a correspondingly small beer collection. Mostly BevMo standard, a bit worse than average, I guess. An ass-ton of IPAa and IIPAs on room temperature shelves, which is a perpetual annoyance with this chain.“

bytemesis 2623 days ago

“Incredible rotating taps!“

klm1 2647 days ago

“Arguably my favorite place to drink beer in Redwood City (even over GHS). This place is a Time-Warp, Quantum Leap into Anywhere, USA. Cafeteria-style food up front, dimly lit bar in the back with an INCREDIBLE rotating tap and great bottle selection. I work from here nearly 1 day a week (Free WiFi).“

tightslice 2767 days ago

“Biased here as this is my local - but I choose it over some other fantastic beer bars. You would not know if from the outside, but this is THE BEST tap list in the peninsula. Kevin gets some rare stuff that you don’t find elsewhere, and it rotates at a fairly good clip. The food is basically a cafeteria...but they specialize in roasted turkey, and you can mess that up. Not your typical craft beer bar....which makes it that much better.“

Zymurgeist2 2863 days ago

“Terrific store! Stopped in here on vacation, left with a heavy box and a lighter wallet. Nice selection of local and regional singles. I thought the pricing was fair. Website was great and very helpful prior to arrival.“

BVery 3080 days ago

“I’m a fan of the Harry’s Hofbrau chain. This one is almost identical to the San Leandro location. Pretty similar tap list as far as quality and quantity goes and the food, of course, is identical. It’s pretty much a cafeteria style joint with a bar in the back. Plenty of seating inside and outside on a spacious patio. The staff is very friendly. The beer list is really top notch. Lot’s of interesting locals and regional brands that you don’t see at other places. I got a lambic style beer from Saint James and a Perennial Sump on my visit. Excellent as far as the beer goes. The food is pretty good too if you’re a meat and potato kind of person. They have a small and very well chosen selection of bottles to chose from as well. Overall, this place pretty much rocks. Totally old school and anti-hipster, but with all the beer perks of some of the best places in the area.“

joeneugs 3165 days ago

“Great gastropub. Leans more to the fancier side (ie. pricing is a little much). But awesome environment for getting good drinks and food. Definitely a go-to place.“

tightslice 3513 days ago

“This place is small but very quaint with a lot of personality. Great german beer selection and the pretzels w/ salami are incredible. It does get crowded but it’s always worth the visit. Very overlooked bottle selection (mostly german and saison/sours) in the front of the store.“

tightslice 3533 days ago

“What a cool place. Half German beer garden, half German retail shop. Big list of German draft beers, somewhat rare to find that. Also have a host of great US/west coast brews. Outdoor beer garden, and the food looked great. Plenty of German fare...“

jlulensk 3541 days ago

“A very nice selection of beer on the whole. I was looking for some Almanac Farmer’s Reserves and found them, as well as a surprise Heater Allen Pils, which blew my mind. The crowd is obnoxious wine snobbery and the staff was more or less useless to me. Prices are a nip high, but the selection is worth the visit.“

auerbrau 3553 days ago

“Another place I’ve been to a few times and never reviewed. This place is awesome. It’s located in downtown Redwood City which probably doesn’t mean too much to most people, but there is a CalTrain station nearby, so there’s public transit available from SF. It looks like a German themed trinket gift shop from the outside, which I guess it is for most of the front of the store, but there are some bottles on the shelves in the back. The bar area is in the rear of the place with really nice ambiance and friendly bartenders. The selection has a mix of German beers and locals. They have a separate list for each, so depending on where you sit, you’ll have to get up to view the other part of the draft list since the bar is L shaped. The food is pretty good here, obviously mostly German stuff, but they frequently put their own twist on things. There are a few tables inside and more open seating outside on the back patio, but I’ve never gone out there. Overall, this is the place I come to when I have a serious hankering for some fresh, draft German lagers.“

joeneugs 3672 days ago

“Our first stop on the way down to SD. Actually heard about this place for the wine but not the beer, glad we made the stop to check it out. Tons of wine all over the place, it is a wine merchant after all. People milling around looking at different bottles, quite laid back. Quality was really high, as you would expect from a high end wine store. Service was good. I was asked once if I needed help, I didn’t tho, and the guy at the counter was nice to talk to as he rang us up. Selection was a little small compared to some of the other shops I have stopped at over the last two weeks but it made up for it with quality. I was able to pick up a limited Belgian I had been searching for as well as a new sour from Drake’s that sounds awesome, can’t wait to try it. Prices were a bit up and down but mostly they were all really well priced. Overall a great wine shop that has some awesome beers hiding in the back corner. Definitely worth the side trip to check out.“

orangesol 3720 days ago

“A nice selection. Some stuff you can find at Bevmo“

Sledutah 3738 days ago

“Decent selection, about the same as the other Bevmo’s. Wanted to go to K&L but they closed at 7.“

Sledutah 3738 days ago

“It’s been many years since I’ve been to a Harry’s Hofbau, in fact I don’t think they served beer then (1989), if they did it wasn’t good beer. Kind of disappointed in the food choices. Doesn’t look like it has changed much either. Then I walked in to the bar. A nice tap list and cooler filled with tasty beers.“

Sledutah 3738 days ago

“Cool little place in a strip mall, all there beers were cask only. The beer was all good and clean. Good prices. Didn’t try the food. $8.50 for 5 - 5oz samples.“

Sledutah 3738 days ago

“This place has everything. It’s slightly better than the SOMA Whole foods but not as good as City beer or healthy spirits. Obviously a general liquor store that has beer. Worth a visit as you’ll be surprised what you find.“

AdamChandler 3746 days ago

“In the short time I’ve lived in RC, this smaller Whole Foods has improved on an already great beer section. Definitely one of the better selections of beer at any WFM I’ve been to.“

tightslice 3757 days ago

“Visited November 29, 2013.

It had been here since I was in middle school, in the mid 90s, so it was about time to go back. The layout is interesting in that the dining area is pretty small compared to the bar area and the food is served cafeteria style. Normally I scroll past tri tip sandwiches as I’m always let down but one look at the tri tip they were cutting up and my mind was made up. I got it on Dutch crunch bread (something I’ve never been able to find outside of the bay area) dipped in the au jus sauce. It was good. Prices start a little high but so do the serving sizes. The amount of food that you get for the money that you spend is impressive.

The beer list is pretty impressive these days. Two dozen taps and half a dozen good IPAs along with some Belgian stuff and a bunch of other random choices, most of which are west coast beers. I went with the blonde from Cellarmaker who is showing a lot of potential for becoming the next great brewery.

The atmosphere was once described as "geriatric" which is more less correct but it’s fine. Not sure how many Germans actually go here but they certainly play up the German restaurant-theme. I’ll have to stop back in more often.“

t0rin0 3796 days ago

“Visited November 5, 2013.

Kind of bummed that it took me as long as it did to stop in here considering I’m in the neighborhood several times a year. For a restaurant it’s pretty small, maybe eight or ten tables. They have a pretty limited menu that tries to be British. What fascinated me about the place is that it’s in no way owned by the breweries that donate their recipes. All I can assume is that it’s a free form of marketing for them. All the beers are made in house and have the Freewheel logo and name on the cask handle but on the menu it tells you where the recipe comes from. What’s also interesting is that they only serve their house beers on cask, though they have two guest beers on draft. They list seven house beers but admittedly they only have room for five so they basically just rotate the beers as they have space. The brewhouse itself is pretty small, maybe 7bbl but they only brew at about half capacity. Prices were reasonable on drinks, maybe a bit high but not too bad ($6.75 on imperial pints and $8.50 for a sampler of 5 5oz pours) and a little higher on food. All the beers are fairly low ABV so if you find one you like you don’t need to worry about getting too buzzed on one beer. Only two beers were over 5% and none over 6%. I thought the ESB was the best but it, like the others, had some green apple flavor that I wasn’t fond of. Very neat concept (British pub isn’t that exciting but the fact that they’re sticking to only English beers and even collaborating with English breweries is interesting) and I’ll be back to see if the beer improves. “

t0rin0 3823 days ago

“Visited several times over the years, most recently in June 2013.

This is probably one of the better beer stores in the bay area for a number of reasons including that they’re not right off the freeway (so things don’t sell out quite so fast) and that they can ship to any of their locations. It’s a decently large store that is 95% wine but there are a half a dozen fridges full of beer. The first time I went in there they had a bunch of the (then new) 3 Fonteinen Hommage. I stupidly scrolled past it assuming it would be everywhere. Well it was, for about a week and then it was gone forever. Ugh. Live and learn I guess. They also get a ton of random stuff that you don’t see anywhere else, mostly obscure imports. In my more naive days I grabbed a few Italian imports that were all very mediocre and over priced. My complaints about this place include the somewhat limited selection (I know 200 is a lot but there are always things that I want that I can’t find here) and that only one person there knows anything about the beer. It’s been a few months since I’ve been in, probably time for another visit.

Almost forgot to mention: prices are kind of high.“

t0rin0 3828 days ago

“Lots of help if needed. Good coverage for beer choices and varieties from around the USA. Different wines and single bottle alcohols not found in other stores as well, I’ll make this a regular stop !“

Gmac60 3856 days ago

“Visited September 28, 2013.

After going to GHS for so many years it was time to walk across the street and check this out. Not sure how the low scores are justified as they had a dozen decent to good taps going when I was there. I saw at least 3 hoppy Drakes beers on as well as some Lagunitas and some Deschutes. Service was friendly enough, the food looked good but I didn’t order any, and the prices weren’t terrible. I guess I’d have to eat here to confirm that the food really is nasty but everything was fine. All that said, you’re better off across the street at Gourmet Haus but if they’re closed you can get a good beer here.“

t0rin0 3861 days ago

“Pretty cool spot. Neat German store plus the beer bar in the back with full decor and beer garden. Mix of US and German taps. Nice bottle selection in the bar.“

BVery 3897 days ago

“Seems like a pretty normal Whole Foods to me, better than some, not as good as Cupertino. Nothing really special on the shelves when I was there.“

bytemesis 3913 days ago

“They usually have a good selection of beers. Some of the food is good.“

mrhoppy 3926 days ago

“It was a complete accident finding this a couple years ago. I was looking for the auto parts store and didn’t realize that they moved down the street. In any case I find this whole foods and decide to stop in.

Nice place and nice people for sure. The beer selection was very good for a grocery store. On an absolute scale its not the best source of beer I’ve ever seen, not by a long shot, but for a local grocery store its really nice.

I bought their last bottle of the Abyss off the shelf and also found some Lozenboer and a few others that I’ve only got to try once before. Didn’t buy any food but I noticed that the prices are extremely high here. The beer was priced about the same as everyone else.I was in the express lane and the lady in front of me paid for her 10 items or less and got a bill of $165!

The service was good. Even though the people at the front didn’t know anything about beer, they got someone right away that did. Nice place and well kept. If the summer gets as hot as it did last year I might just have to post up in the beer isle with my lawn chair.“

t0rin0 3940 days ago

“Stopped in for lunch on my way to K&L today. Place has been open since January, and brew their beers in the English tradition - everything are cask poured Real Ales. Five taps running when I was there, and they sell a 5oz taster flight of all of them for $8.5, which is a pretty good deal. They have gotten their restaurant part up and running since WomenCantSail’s review - a fair amount of seating and a decent bar menu, including some British faves like fish and chips. I had a pulled pork sandwich that was pretty good and well worth the $8. Now for the beers. They are English style as I said. All are decent enough, nothing really stands out as special. A place to watch as they get into the flow of things, however.“

bytemesis 4045 days ago