The bar scene in downtown Walnut Creek is not the greatest. You have a few old bars that aren’t cool enough to call dives and a slew of nice restaurants that serve cocktails — but aren’t bars. But now, a new rooftop cocktail haven is filling the void, and it comes from an unlikely source: an office park brewery 3 miles away.

Open since December in a former medical spa, Calicraft Upstairs is the latest innovation from Blaine Landberg and Thomas Dang Vo of Calicraft Brewing Co. Landberg, a former Honest Tea employee, started the brewery in 2012 amid the medical offices and storage facilities of the Shadelands area of Walnut Creek. They’ve built it into one of the few Bay Area craft breweries that is actually growing. 

Last year, the brewery’s sales increased more than 50% due to growth in chain stores wholesaling its beers, along with the opening of the Walnut Creek bar and a taproom in Davis, Landberg told SFGATE. In 2024, Calicraft acquired Heretic Brewing after the Fairfield brewery went bankrupt, and turned it into a Calicraft taproom. That same year, the company launched a major expansion of its flagship brewery; once complete, the Walnut Creek site will feature a 10,000-square-foot, two-story facility with a restaurant, distillery and winery. 

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The neon sign at Calicraft Upstairs casts a glow on the bar.

And now, they have a rooftop cocktail bar and outdoor beer garden next to a Tiffany & Co. store. 

“We wanted to expand who we are as a brand and company,” Landberg said. “It’s part of the DNA of craft and Bay Area beer, to be this whole experience. That was the premise of Calicraft from the beginning. We looked at beer as the first canvas. You can easily color outside the lines.”

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That notion of craft runs deep for Landberg, who grew up in Willows, half an hour from Sierra........

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