Fullsteam Brewery

It was inevitable that I would eventually get bogged down studying and working towards my Masters degree once classes started during the summer. However, I made it a point to come up with a few different blogging topics so that when I had enough time to devote to a post it would be easy to get the ideas flowing. Having said that, you can expect a few more posts than usual within the next few days.

At the request of my brother who lives in Charlotte, my girlfriend and I went to Fullsteam Brewery in Durham to pick up some growlers of their beer for him and to check the place out. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I was ecstatic about heading into Durham during the evening hours because it's the last kind of place you want to get stranded. Venturing over into enemy territory (Go Heels!) with Carolina stickers all over my car was risky but in this case I was willing to take the risk for a few reasons:

1) Fullsteam has delicious beer. If you haven't had it, you should try it. Most of their beer offerings are delicious. I've tasted/had the El Toro Cream Ale, the Southern Lager, the Carver Sweet Potato, and the Hogwash Hickory Smoked Porter and I wasn't disappointed with any. Although I doubt I could drink more than one or two of the Porter.

2) It is summertime which means days are longer and I don't have to worry about unsavory characters coming out of creepy alleyways in downtown Durham quite as early on in the day. Arriving at the brewery around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. leaves plenty of time for anyone wanting to check out the brewery after work, grab a few beers and get back to safety--basically anywhere other than Durham. If you're lucky you might cross paths with the food trucks that frequent the area and park near the brewery on many days. I'm actually quite jealous about this actually and hope that the laws in downtown Charlotte will soon change to allow food trucks. Many major cities have been featured on the TV show Eat Street showing off the cultural variety of the food offered by the trucks with unusual and tasty creations.

3) I want to open up a brewery. What better way is there to learn about the things I can expect in the future than talking to people who have recently had that experience?

In the next few posts I will talk about my visit to Lexington Avenue Brewery in Asheville, NC, Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill, NC, as well as Tyler's Restaurant and Taproom in Carrboro, NC so please check back soon for those updates.