Chapel Hill: Home of the Tarheels. University of North Carolina lies at the heart of Chapel Hill and to be honest, I can’t imagine this town would exist without the college, but that’s how most college towns are anyway.

So, Chapel Hill, if you ever visit, is a weird place because right in the middle of it, there is another town called Carrboro. This is where I was. I wanted to tell you about some awesome breweries in the Chapel Hill area because everyone knows Chapel Hill. But I’m not a liar, so this blog is actually about breweries in Carrboro.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

The first brewery I visited was Steel String Brewery. Steel String is the quintessential, vibing, taproom. You walk in and you feel funky vibes. There are drawings of aliens and a chalkboard littered with illustrations next to the name of each beet. They also have some pretty awesome merchandise to check out.

Steel String is opening their own farm, where they will be able to brew beer using well water and ingredients grown and foraged on their own farm. The current taproom will have the brewing equipment removed and the space will double in size. I highly recommend this brewery based on their beer, the vibe, and the fact this place is going to be growing in size and influence within the community.

Here are my top three beers:

They had two stouts, the French Freakness and the Shady Grove. French Freakness, coming in at 9.7% is an imperial stout, with a maple syrup taste on top of a heavy coffee. I really liked this beer, it had a lot of flavor and didn’t have that high percentage coppery taste that imperial stouts sometimes have. The Shady Grove stout was an oatmeal coffee stout at 7.4%. I didn’t like this beer nearly as much as I liked the Freakness. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it tasted like the Freakness without the maple. So, if you don’t like maple then this one is for you. My wife liked the Shady Grove better.

My favorite beer was the Shady Grove Sour. It’s aged in pinot noir barrels with local North Carolina blackberries in the beginning of the year to be prepared for release at the end of the year. This beer comes in at 7%, and in my opinion that is the perfect percentage for a sour. Not too sweet and not too malty. Perfect color of pinkish red but leaning on the darker side rather than the bright side you might see in a smoothie sour. This is the sour that I hope all other sours taste like right before I taste them. No shit, every time I’m about to taste a sour, there is a specific taste I’m hoping for and I’m so often disappointed, but not this time.

The bartender was from New Jersey, which is not the same as New York, but hey, still reminds me of home. Awesome bartender who was extremely knowledgeable in the beers served there and the company’s mission. He was a regualr at the brewery before he started there, which you love to hear.

Next, we walked up the block in the rain – the wife was not happy – to Vecino Brewing Co. This brewery was a totally different place, a modern feel with a huge bar, and a full menu. They had live music and event called small business Saturday, where small businesses came in to advertise and sell. The brewer/owner was hanging out in the place having a beer like he was just a regular.

The first beer I tried here was the Lovely Drop west coast IPA. It was 7.1% and was a classic west coast IPA. It had a light malt and caramel taste with a dry piney after taste. Personally, I always love a west coast IPA, but the beer I had next blew me away: The Umbria. It was a black Mexican lager at 5.4%; I tasted it and it was just so much better than any Modelo Negra I’ve ever had, and that’s my go to if we’re doing Mexican beers. It had this hint of lime taste that was so different than anything I’ve ever tasted.

I couldn’t tell what the taste was, and my wife kept telling me it was lime, but I knew there was something else we were missing. The bartender told us they use black, or dried, limes to sour the beer. If you ask my wife, she was right, they used limes. But that’s not the same taste you get when you finger a lime into your fourth Corona sitting at the beach. This is a beer I’d travel for.

Our food came out, Pimento cheese dip, which was a great bar snack. Then our final beer, coming off the nitro, was ready. It was called the Volta Do Marr Tropical Stout. My simple palate didn’t get any tropical tastes, but I did like the deep espresso flavor and aroma. It was a good stout and it’s served on nitro, always upping my score on it.

This a cool brewery you can spend a long time at with the live music, food, board games, and a small dart room.

Carrboro is a good spot to hit some breweries. Next time I go back, I’ll be heading to Carolina Brewery and Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery, both being brew pubs.

Come check me out at mycousinvinny.blog if you’re looking for more stories.

Vincent DelGiudice
Vincent DelGiudice

Beer Analyst

Vince Del is a therapist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is originally from New York where he grew up and went to college. Vince has been writing for four years now creating his blog about the unfortunate events that happen to us on a daily basis – mycousinvinny.blog. In his spare time, he drinks beer, and now writes about that as well.

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