Calicraft Brewing Co. has thrown open the gates on a new outdoor beer garden at 2700 Mitchell Drive in Walnut Creek's Shadelands district, giving locals their first taste of what will eventually become the brewery's flagship home. The garden, built with repurposed shipping container bars and rotating food trucks, has opened as phase one of a much larger project still rising behind it.
That larger project is a permanent, two-story building planned for the same address, according to Walnut Creek Record. The project plans also include a permanent facility at the site. The current beer garden effectively sits in front of where that permanent facility will eventually stand, per WhatNow.
What's Coming Next at the Shadelands Site
Owner Blaine Landberg has laid out a phased build-out that stretches into next year. Phase 2, targeted for November, will add a 27-seat interior bar and a 3,000-square-foot children's area, the outlet reports. Later phases of the build-out are still planned.
The company is also shaping four acres around the building into a park-like public space that will border Shadelands' existing community garden and dog park, according to the same report. That kind of integration matters in a district that, per Shadelands Walnut Creek, now houses more than 300 businesses spanning healthcare, commerce, lifestyle, and food — a far cry from its original identity as a traditional office park.
From Homebrewer to Multi-City Brand
Calicraft's roots at this location run back further than the current construction suggests. Landberg founded the brewery in Walnut Creek in 2012, and Calicraft opened its first sit-down brewery and taproom at the Shadelands site in 2016, the Record notes. While site work proceeded at 2700 Mitchell Drive, the company kept customers coming through an interim temporary taproom and beer garden nearby at 390 N. Wiget Lane, which began operating in spring 2025, according to the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce.
The Shadelands buildout is one piece of a broader expansion that has taken Calicraft well beyond its original taproom. In 2024, the company acquired Fairfield-based Heretic Brewing and Distillery, adding regional production capacity and distilling capabilities. The brewery also runs Calicraft Upstairs, a rooftop cocktail lounge with 20 craft beer taps above Va De Vi in downtown Walnut Creek that Hoodline covered in its piece on Calicraft's long-delayed rooftop bar.
A Pizza-and-Beer Blueprint Tested in Davis
Calicraft's push outside Contra Costa County has already given the company a working model for what's coming to Shadelands. The brewery opened a large taproom and pizza venue at The Davis Collection in Davis in September 2025, a concept Hoodline detailed in its report on Calicraft's giant beer and pizza playground landing in Davis. That Davis location is a large pizza-and-beer venue.
For now, Walnut Creek residents can enjoy the beer garden's food trucks and container bars while construction continues on the permanent building next door. Whether the November timeline for the indoor bar and children's area holds, and how the full four-acre park space takes shape, remains to be seen as Calicraft works through the rest of its multi-year plan.
