I’m going to be in Raleigh with time to kill on Thursday. Any must visit breweres or must drink local beers I should be aware of?
ok now I want to go there
Cheers,
Ron
That tap list is kind of overwhelming. However, they have Pilsner Urquell on tap so I know where I’ll be having lunch tomorrow.
Beer at lunch?!?!? DISGUSTING! 
And boy you ain’t a kiddin’. It is overwhelming. Plus, did you see some of those prices??? $8.50 for a pint of Keller Pils from Southampton, NY? Must be a very damn fine lager!
Well sorry to offend ya Loop but I’m sorta on vacation…haha. If I have more than 2 I’ll have to call an uber and have my scooter lifted back to the hotel though! So there’s the challenge…
As to the prices…welp there’s another reason we brew our own huh.
No, see, that’s how Uber makes the money… You have to uber back!
Danny, enjoy your vacation!
SWMBO was working in Raleigh all week and I just kinda needed to get away for a bit. So I packed up on the scooter and rolled to Raleigh on Wednesday to chill with her and check out the town. Weather was great once I got south of Lynchburg, VA.
Thursday I hit a local coffee shop called Bean Traders in Durham or Cary I think… Great coffee, friendly people, good service and a great vibe.
Went into Raleigh to get BBQ at The Pit. Passed a couple very legit looking Q shacks on the way surrounded by trucks and bikes. I was sorely tempted but I wanted to get down town to check out the Raleigh Beer Garden.
The Pit looked almost too slick for me but it was comfortable and the service was great. Had a local peach wheat beer that was really good with the chopped pig collards and slaw. Outstanding NC bbq and respectable collards. The slaw was run of the mill for me.
Rolled over to the Raleigh Beer Garden. Very cool place with very friendly hipster staff. Mind boggling tap line up. I hate their bar stools. Maybe I’m just a grumpy old dude with a bad back but I like a back rest on my bar stool. Luckily there’s a tree right next to the downstairs bar that made a perfect natural back rest when I moved my stool next to it. Beyond the bar stools the beer garden has a great ambience. Very open and welcoming with multiple areas of seating indoors and out. It was pretty quiet at 1ish on a Thursday and I had the front bar all to myself. The tap lineup is overwhelming. You can see it online on their website, which I find to be difficult to navigate. The tap list is just text so you can’t search or sort by type you just have to scroll through it. Kind of a pain if you’re looking for a particular beer. My bartender was friendly, mid 20s and pretty but she knew absolutely nothing about beer.
I planned on having 2 beers because it was early in the day and I had to ride back to RTP. I’m on a quest to brew a great pilsner so I wanted another taste of Pilsner Urquell on tap and I wanted to try this other German “Czech” pils, Einbecker Brauhaus Brauherren.
The Einbecker was outstanding. It had that clean pils aroma with a little spice. It was a bright light gold color and crystal clear with a foamy pure white head and nice lacing. Perfect grainy pils taste with sharp dry up front bitterness and a nice spicy finish. It reminded me a lot of my first taste of Urquell on tap but a much paler color. I was very impressed with this beer. It’s just what I hope to achieve with my pils one day.
Unfortunately my holy grail Pilsner Urquell was a let down. That amazing color was there but it had almost zero head and was poorly carbonated, with zero lacing. It tasted somewhat flat and drab, kinda malty but without that great pils taste. The hops were AWOL. Big disappointment. Not sure whether to blame Urquell, the distributor or the establishment. Someone handled this beer poorly.
The trip home on Friday was fairly miserable in cold drizzle and rain but I enjoyed a few days in Raleigh. I pulled a pint of one of my more recent pils’ when I got home to unwind and compare to my thoughts on the Einbecker. Mine was softer, less crisp and more malt focused and Helles-like for me. This one was mashed a little warmer than I wanted and also fermented with 2206 so not a huge surprise.
