Review: Faultline Brewing Company brewpub

                                         02 Apr 1996

Faultline Brewing Company
1235 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 
408-736-BREW

Date visited: March 23, 1996.  The night of the comet.

This Silicon Valley-based brewpub has been open for one year now. 
Unfortunately this pub keeps those stupid hours on Saturday where
they do not open for business until 5pm. Obviously this place is more of 
a business (read "restaurant") than a "friendly" brewpub where you can go 
hang out after a good Saturday morning workout or easy round of golf.

I left Sunnyvale for Marin County nearly two years ago, but finally 
got up the courage to visit this new pub after early word-of-mouth
was pretty negative. However since they open so late I totally enjoyed 
the beer at Stoddard's first. All five of his brews were great.

At Faultline I tasted seven of the eight beers. Unfortunately the first 
beer I tasted was a disgusting, zero star Hefeweizen. (and to think
this is probably their best seller, good god!)  The Hefewizen was closer 
to lemonade in taste & appearance rather than a true hefeweizen 
(incidentally, the best hefe I have had is from Widmer in Portland).

      Beer                                                     Rating
   --------------                                              ------
 - Hefeweizen: horrible                                        (-) (zero) 
 - Best Bitter: smooth, mild                                   *->**
 - Pale Ale: characterless, some hop,                          *->** 
 - IPA: Good bitterness, almost sweet though                   **
 - London Porter: creamy, bit roast, mildly bitter, very dark, **->*** 
 - Stout: very dark, irish style dry, N2                       **
 - Barleywine: sweet, 8.5% by weight, not bitter,              *->**

(my rating system is the same as Michael Jackson's, with 4 stars being tops)

Greg Friday is the headbrewer of the 20 barrel system; Hans is the 
bartender. It's expensive here as each taster is $1.25 ($5 for 4 tasters 
is too much).

The setting is really nice: a large patio next to a pond surrounded 
by trees to escape the summer heat. The Hilton hotel is across the 
pond. As far as the beer is concerned they still have a long way to 
go to improve. Them porter is very nice, the IPA not that bad at all, 
and the stout certainly drinkable.

On a scale of 1 - 100 I rate this place a 71
--

Goto Faultline's homepage

Return to Pubrank