Under Pressure Brewing — Restaurant in Golden Valley

My dad and I - both huge craft beer fans- stumbled across this absolute gem last night. Neither of us live in the area (I’m in S Mpls and he’s in the south suburbs), but we were in Plymouth looking for a brewery and this one sounded unique. I’m going to try to make this succinct, but so much was perfection, so here’s a list of PROS: -Friendly and extremely knowledgable staff. My dad asks lots of questions, and the kind beertender had good answers about how the brews were made, hops used, “this is a little different than other brews in this style, what’s different?”, etc. He even came out from behind the bar to chat with us, which I don’t see at any other tap rooms. -HUGE variety of brews, and nearly all were fabulous in my opinion. -Completely unique vibe, which was refreshing for me coming from Minneapolis, where it’s easier to find a brewery thats just like all the other breweries than it is to find someone who’s doing something truly unique. -Related to the above: chairs were actually comfortable and not those crappy metal chairs every single brewery has. -Dad loved the library. Between the excellent selection of books and beers, I think he was ready to move in. -Variety of upcoming events, including the classic trivia, a maker’s market, and TRICYCLE JOUSTING coming up on 6/1. -Appears they have a patio as well, it was raining when we visited. -Head brewer is a woman, which is less common than one might hope in 2025, but here we are. She’s so talented, and I’m a fan without even having met you, Lori!

Cons: -No in-house food, which some may prefer. I didn’t mind ordering in from Davanni’s, who gave us a discount for ordering from the brewery. Perhaps they have food trucks sometimes, I’ll keep an eye out for that when I return. They do have snacks like pretzels and chips. -This place is not in my back yard, which is only a con for me personally; hopefully they’re closer to you, dear reader.

Overall, well worth a return trip to see what’s on tap and sit a spell in a friendly, welcoming, unique...

I felt "Under Pressure" to leave during my time at Under Pressure Brewing. I'll start out by saying that the beer was very good. If there was a way to order their beer without interacting with the staff, I would love this place.

We arrived at around 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon, and we were the only people in the place besides one guy at the bar. There were two bartenders who didn't greet us when we arrived. They stared at us during the long walk to the bar without saying a single word. At this point, I wanted to leave, but I thought it would be rude. The older guy eventually greeted us, and he ended up being the nicer of the two. The guy who was working the register seemed to truly despise us though. I'm not sure what we did to him in a past life, but it must have been horrific. He was so impolite that it almost seemed like a bit.

We eventually received our beer after what seemed like an unusually long wait given that the place was empty, and we proceeded to sit at a corner table. I sat behind a bookshelf, so that the bartender couldn't pierce me with his glare while we quietly drank our beer. We ordered a second round, but I made my girlfriend come to the counter with me because I was so perturbed by the cashier.

As we were closing our tab ($80 for two people), two people who must have been regulars arrived, and the two bartenders couldn't have been nicer to them. One of the customers made a comment about Pee-Wee Herman, which got a huge pop from both bartenders. This felt like a slight to my girlfriend and me because we were standing right there. I guess that we should have made a Pee-Wee Herman comment when we arrived. Maybe our experience would have been better.

Again, I can't deny that they had good beer here, and I really wanted to like this place. I'm a Dungeons and Dragons nerd, and I appreciated the aesthetic. However, there are hundreds of other breweries to choose from in this area with equally good beer and better...

I am rarely if ever compelled to write a negative review, but the beer tender we had this evening was extremely unfriendly, disinterested, and impatient. It was my first time to this brewery, so asked what his favorites were for a recommendation. Didn’t look me in the eye and just said three numbers, which correlated to the beer names on the menu, with no other detail. My husband and I ordered, and then I said we had a brewery passport. Instead of explaining that it was only valid for BOGO on flights (which isn’t listed in the book- typically it is BOGO on pints, but i do understand it can be up the the establishment as to what the BOGO covers) he just jabbed his finger onto the piece of paper off to the side that had this rule typed. Again, I have never been to this brewery so was just becoming acquainted with the space. Ultimately seemed very frustrated that we then decided to choose flights. Regardless of how I feel about the beer, I will not be returning. I understand people can have bad days, and COVID has been hard on everyone. However, I’ve been in customer service jobs my entire life, visit many restaurants and breweries and honestly haven’t had this uncomfortable of an experience with what should have been a short and cordial (not even asking for friendly, just simple pleasantry between people) conversation between customer...