Author: timandjohnna

So we are all about micro-breweries but this is the extreme. Offering only two house beers but over a dozen guest beers, we were pleasantly surprised that those two beers were exactly what we like: Goldilocks Golden Ale and Leroy Brown Ale.

Now this is our type of tap room. Small, no frills, good beer and great people. This is a true micro-brewery located in an unassuming building off the main road. Friendly beer-tenders pouring tasty brews from a half-dozen taps. We went with their Eurotrash pilsner and Urban Hiker amber ale along with some chips & queso from the taco truck.

We are starting our of Labor Day weekend right with a stop at this brewery just 15 minutes from the Darlington track. Serving up 15 house brews with a little of everything just steps from the beer vats they were all born in. We drank the Deguello american pale ale and the Klink kolsch – what a way to start the race weekend!

Aside from the ear-piercing one-woman band playing inside, this recently opened tap room is a homerun. Great beer, great food, great location and aside from the excessive volume, great music. We sipped on a Bievergnugen german pils and a Rocket Sugery Juniper Kolsch while snacking on a flatbread and stuffing kleenex in our ears to stop the bleeding. She was cranking out some great music but it was just TOO FREAKIN LOUD.

Know for its “ales for outlaws” slogan, we swung into this brewery on our way home from RDU airport. The tap list was well-rounded with the usual suspects: pils, Hefe, brown ale, IPA’s and a sour. We had the Saloon Style Pilsner and the Vivgo Marzen – both were pretty tasty after a day of travel.

The skies parted and the sun came out right when we pulled up to the packed parking lot of this fine brewery. Known for their sours, we took no chances and stayed with the tried & true Gotta Stay Fly helles and Crispy Gentlemen pilsner. Both beers were pretty tasty.

This sprawling beer complex has three building that house the brewing operations, product warehouse and of course the tap room. Cranking out a dozen & a half brews in a range of styles, we started off easy with a Roller Girl Belgium Blonde and a Gizmo Amber ale. The tap room looks like an old garage and cranks out some pretty good tunes so the experience overall was pretty good except for the Covid mask Nazi.

Opened in 2007, this is the 2nd location with the original brew house opening in 1995 in Chapel Hill. More like a restaurant than a tasting room, this brewery only had 5 beers ready on tap but what they did have was delicious. We drank pints of the Sky Blue Kolsch and Copperline Amber Ale but had a taster of the Helles Lager. Yum!

Every now and then, you find the perfect brewery. Everyone always asks “what’s your favorite?” and after over 400, it’s sometimes hard to remember. But this one might break the Top 10 and be one of those memorable breweries we tell people about. So what makes a great and memorable brewery? There is no single criteria. It’s about the moment. It’s about stumbling into something you didn’t expect but discovering you needed. Take this place for example: old commerical building, vintage decor, old wood bar & furniture, live music, outside seating and good beer. This place even smells like history, fresh beer and a hint of good food which is coming from the food truck parked outside. Setting outside in an Adirondack chair, sipping a Deliberate Disrespect blonde ale & a Olaf’s Revenge amber ale and listening to the live music in what looks like the back yard of three close neighbors. You might even think this is a block party with people talking, laughing and enjoying the great outdoors.

It’s been a while since we have been to a brewery that has more guest taps than their own beer so this one is reminder that not all breweries have the resources ($$) to have full-scale brewering operations. With 18 beers on the menu of this surfing/wake boarding themed tap room, only 4 are house brews. And of those 4, none were anything we were too excited about. Two were IPA’s, one was a sour and the other wasn’t beer at all; it was a seltzer. We played it safe and went with the Triadulation IPA and the Dock Start Coffee IPA. The Triad was very hoppy but the coffee was actually pretty decent with the coffee flavor not TOO over powering. We were tempted to walk across the parking lot to get a doughnut from Duck Donuts!