Carolina Brewery and Tyler's Restaurant & Taproom

I have been fortunate to attend the greatest university in the world even though they did not initially want me here in Chapel Hill. I can already foresee quite a few future posts related to UNC in general, especially during basketball season when the Black Falcon takes flight. For now, however, I'm trying to avoid lengthy discussions about the current developments in the Tar Heels football program.

Instead, I feel like I should pay homage to two of my favorite places to eat near me: Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill which I ate at just a few hours ago and Tyler's Restaurant & Taproom in Carrboro. There have been numerous times when KKW and I cannot decide where to eat and end up going to either one of these places. Why? Because both Carolina Brewery and Tyler's R&T both have good beer and good food. I have honestly never had a bad experience at either restaurant and both are usually full of people when I visit. Good Beer + Good Food + Good People = Hard to Beat. It's places like these that make drinking Craft Beer even easier (as if it's not easy enough as it is).

I have been meaning to go to the Pittsboro location of Carolina Brewery where they do most of their brewing nowadays but I have only been to the restaurant on Franklin Street. My favorite things to eat there are the Brunswick Stew, the Barbecue Plate (which you can order with Brunswick Stew and Hushpuppies), and any of their burgers. KKW will almost always get the Buffalo Chicken Pizza. I tried the "RTP" pizza tonight for the first time and it didn't disappoint (never fails). CB is constantly offering various seasonal selections of both food and beers which makes for a fresh experience every few times you go. Their Oatmeal Porter is amazing but is, unfortunately, not on tap currently because it is out of season (gotta take the good with the bad). The Firecracker Pale Ale is my personal favorite which is very easy to drink and makes for a good pairing with all types of meats one may be grilling during the summer months. The Copperline Amber Ale and the Sky Blue Golden Ale are also very worthy of noting.

 Although Tyler's is a chain I have only ever been to the one in Carrboro. However that should not detract from anyone's opinion of the restaurant because whatever they are doing, they are doing well. Last time we went, KKW and I drank Victory Brewing Company's Headwaters Pale Ale and Golden Monkey. I had never really heard about Victory Brewing Co. until a month or two ago but their beer is delicious. At some point in time I'm going to have to drag KKW on an extensive brewery tour up in the northern part of the US. Maybe while I"m there I can check out Victory's brewery and brewpub in PA. But, I digress. Lets just say I  pounded the "2 Beer" burger I ate at Tyler's which features melted Pepper Jack cheese, jalapenos, and 2 beer hot wing sauce.

In other news, I am heading to the Beer, Bourbon, and Barbecue festival in Cary, NC on August 5th and 6th which will have in attendance "60 beers, 40 bourbons, + lots of barbecue." Yeah, and me. This means I cannot attend the Carolina Panthers training camp in Wofford, SC which I have never made it to, despite planning on it every year. It's amazing how something can come up every time to prevent me from going. I am very excited that the Panthers may actually do work this season and am actually impressed with the moves the front office has made since the lockout ended. I look forward to finding lots of good things to blog about at the festival in Cary and I'm particularly excited about the Saturday seminars in the Tasting Theater where there will be Brewmasters and Pit Masters from the Deep South.

Lastly, I finally had the opportunity to visit the iconic Merritt's Store and Grill in Chapel Hill for lunch today. In order to do the place justice I will refer you to KKW's blog where she has a post dedicated to the restaurant opened during the depression: argyle & paisley. I also just took my final exams for my summer classes and only have a week off before the fall semester begins but I'm hoping to brew sometime this week. Hobby or obsession? Either way, I'm hooked.

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.