“O that Jupiter would but bring back to me the years that have passed.”
– Virgil

On a recent Friday my boss and I took the afternoon to do a serious script breakdown for an upcoming project. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we wanted to sit outside and enjoy some pints while working—so we opted for the Berkeley institution, Jupiter. Located (literally) around the corner from the University of California: Berkeley campus it definitely vibes college pub and was started by John Martin, founder of the legendary Triple Rock Brewery (located a whopping 0.3 miles away). Classified as a brewpub (although, I don’t believe they brew any beers on-site), Jupiter is a two-story building with an impressive copper-covered bar, a large outdoor beer garden (with a towering tree in the back of it), and a large selection of house and guest beers. With about 30 or so taps, they featured nearly a dozen of their house brews including a generous selection of area-brewed guest beers. I love a place that’s confident enough to stack up competitor’s beers next to their own!

We grabbed a table in the beer garden and ordered a pair of pints. A perfect spring day in late January—I really love living in the Bay Area!

The menu is fairly standard pub fair, reasonably priced, with sandwiches, burgers, wood-fired pizzas and the like and all pretty good. Of special note were their baked garlic wings—a must order! The clientele definitely skewed younger but featured a great selection of humanity and would definitely be a great place to people watch—as we witnessed what had to have been a gathering of the local Mustache and Beard Appreciation League.

I tried 7 of their tap beers and their IPA and Nebula Barley Wine were the standouts although their stout was right up there. Overall, it was a great time (and yes, we did manage to get most of our work done) and I would recommend it to anyone in the East Bay wanting to enjoy the sunshine and a great craft beer. Additionally, it’s located directly across the street from a BART stop so anyone worried about driving after some joyous alcohol consumption need not fear.

Jupiter
www.jupiterbeer.com
2181 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
@jupiterberkeley

Cheers!
Ben