The Best Brewery Hops in Durham

Durham has blossomed over the past decade into one of the coolest cities in the Southeast. More than just a host to Duke University, Durham has turned swiftly into a city known nationwide for its emerging arts and culinary scenes. It’s also a city with a great deal of personal significance to us. Russell went to college at Duke, and he returned to Duke post-grad and spent some time living/working in Durham– big shout out to Elmo’s Diner, Russell’s first job in the food service industry and a damn delicious spot for brunch and BBQ sandwiches. Both of us have returned more than once to take in some basketball, enjoy the local food, and, as we are wont to do, drink plenty of Durham’s delicious craft beer. While the Durham beer scene is sure to continue expanding, Russell hit nearly every brewery in town on his last visit with his family, so he’s crafted this list of the best brewery hops in the city to help you support as many local craft breweries in Durham as you can on your next visit.

3. Ponysaurus Brewing —> Bull City Ciderworks

When you head to explore downtown Durham, perhaps to take in a Durham Bulls game, Ponysaurus is a great place to start your drinking. I hit Ponysaurus at sunset, which is unquestionably the optimal time to sit on their impressive second-story patios and take in the sky’s colors. Ponysaurus is a family-friendly spot, with plenty of outdoor space, food trucks, and several fire pits for those colder North Carolina evenings. My recommendations: the Scottish Ale is malty, hefty, and just the right amount of smoky. (Or maybe that was the fire pits influencing my palate?… nah, it was the beer.) Also, that February outdoor weather made the Ponysaurus English Old Ale a flawless choice, as it warmed me even more effectively than the fires.

It’s a .3 mile stroll from there to Bull City Ciderworks. Their taproom is spacious, family-friendly, and dog-friendly, making this a terrific spot to bring the whole crew to play some games and crush some of the most interesting and delicious cider being made in the South. If some members of your crew don’t like cider? They’ve got some local guest taps and non-alcoholic options for everyone to enjoy… but anyone with an adventurous palate is going to find many things to like here. My recommendations: the Cardinal Cin is a cinnamon-covered cherry pie of a cider, and the Spooky Mango is a mango cider infused with ghost peppers (but don’t worry, the spicy kick is balanced)… but I can’t stop thinking about the Sasquash. The Sasquash is made with butternut squash, maple syrup, and Carolina Reaper peppers. It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s squashy– it’s superb.

2. Fullsteam Brewery —> Durty Bull Brewing Company

The closest brewery hop to Duke University is located a few blocks east from East Campus, and it starts at Fullsteam Brewery. Fullsteam is easily the biggest taproom of any of the breweries I visited in Durham, and yet on the Saturday night I visited, it was packed to the brim with locals looking to get a craft beer fix. They’ve got a ton of games beyond the usual board games– I spotted ping pong, pinball, and darts, and with how crowded it was, I may have missed some! They also have food, a stage for live music– it’s easy to see why Fullsteam is so popular. My recommendations: the Coffee is for Closers is a creamy, chocolately coffee porter, nice and smooth– and while maybe this was just me getting homesick for the West Coast, the Brawny is an old-school, pine-forward Pacific Northwest style IPA.

It’s about a block and a half to Durty Bull Brewing Company. Durty Bull doesn’t have the size or aesthetic appeal of the Ponysaurus or Fullsteam taprooms– it’s just a big brick warehouse converted into a brewery– but it still has arcade games, board games, and a decent amount of seating. More important than any aesthetic, though, is the beer. Plenty of breweries have specific areas of specialty, but very few deliver great-tasting product over a wide variety of styles, and fortunately for people in downtown Durham, Durty Bull is one of those very few. Its IPAs, its porters, its goses, its oak-aged sours– everything I tried was top-notch. My recommendations: the Bad Haircut is a rich, smooth, and toasty coconut porter, and the In Search Of IPA, a collaboration with Barrel Culture, was the best IPA I had in Durham, a bold and juicy Galaxy-and-Mosaic hopped hazy. Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the SMALL BATCH: Barrel-Series #1 (2019), a sour brown ale aged in bourbon barrels and blended with cherries– it’s sweet, syrupy, tart, and the perfect cap to a great visit.

1. The Glass Jug Beer Lab —> Barrel Culture Brewing and Blending

This “hop” is less walkable than the others– it’s .8 miles, certainly doable, but walking along 55 and Sedwick Road isn’t exactly the most scenic of strolls. Still, it’d easily be worth the cheap Lyft it’d take to get from one spot to the next, because this is the most potent 1-2 punch in all of Durham. Start at The Glass Jug Beer Lab, which is not only a great brewery, but also one of the best bottle and can shops in Durham. It’s always an added bonus when a brewery has great outside options. They have a sleek small tap room, a beer garden, and plenty of nearby food you can bring in and enjoy (we brought in pulled pork from Backyard BBQ Pit, which was delightful). Our recommendations: the Microbial is a Brett IPA that is funky, effervescent, and tasty, and the Chocolate Pi is a chocolate gose that’s salty, sour, and light– it’s the most successful chocolate gose I’ve had to date.

Buy some bottles for the road, but save room for your next stop down the road: Barrel Culture Brewing and Blending. Barrel Culture boasts an absurd 4.24 on Untappd, putting them safely in their Top 50 Breweries in the World, even ranking above some big names like Other Half and Foam Brewers. Thankfully, the beer lives up to the score– as does the customer service, which isn’t always the case at these high-scoring breweries. The staff here could tell my family and I were from out of town, so they chatted with us, made recommendations, and were tremendously generous with their time and effort to make us feel at home (special shout out to Raleigh, their adorable dog/assistant beer manager). Their beer options are largely oak fermented wild ales with strong, sometimes unorthodox flavor combinations– but the less adventurous shouldn’t avoid this spot, as they have plenty of guest taps from both local places and nationally renowned breweries like Evil Twin.

They also told us they’re branching into IPAs more in short order, and judging by the quality of the previously mentioned Durty Bull collaboration, any hophead in North Carolina should keep their eyes peeled for further IPA announcements. We’re keeping our eyes peeled for anyone trading cans/bottles of their stouts, as they didn’t have any on tap for our visit, so while we can’t “recommend” their stouts at the moment, we trust in their quality, because we tried literally everything they had on tap, and it was all fantastic. Our recommendations: The Summer Jam: Mango Dragonfruit is as fresh and fruity a sour ale as you’re likely to ever try. Also, Lord knows I was intimidated by the Summer Jam: Pineapple Beets, because I’m not a big fan of beets, but the beet provides just enough to give the otherwise dominant pineapple juice flavor some real complexity. Finally, for those warmer Durham days, you can grab one of their tasty Raspberry Peach Melt slushies and cool off on their patio.

BEST PLACE FOR IPAS:
Durty Bull (Runner-up: The Glass Jug)

BEST PLACE FOR SOURS:
Barrel Culture (Runner-up: Durty Bull)

BEST PLACE FOR STOUTS:
Durty Bull (Runner-up: Fullsteam)

BEST PLACE TO PLAY GAMES:
Fullsteam (Runners-up: Bull City Ciderworks, Durty Bull)

BEST PLACE FOR A LARGE GROUP:
Fullsteam (Runners-up: Ponysaurus, Bull City Ciderworks)

BEST PLACE FOR A SMALL, QUIET DRINK:
Barrel Culture (Runner-up: The Glass Jug)

Which is your favorite of these brewery hops? Please shout them out in the comments below! Also, please come back in the next couple of weeks to read our upcoming beer travel guides for Brooklyn, Boston, and Long Beach!