Local Beer in Wake Forest, NC

Bringing Festbier to the US, not the amber and sweet “Märzen-style” but the golden elixir they drink in Munich during Oktoberfest is a divine mission shared amongst lager-focused brewers. Our favorite Durham maltster at Epiphany Craft Malt got his start in the industry working at Brauerei Ayinger and used his connections and good looks to seal a deal with a family farm in Germany who only supplies a couple well known Bavarian breweries with their Ursprung Festmalt, and now Epiphany is on their list. Our Festbier showcases this rare and special malt with a small addition of Munich and Vienna malts for color and desirable autumn-evoking aromas, balanced with a few additions of German Perle hops and lagered in horizontal tanks for 8 weeks.

Bavarian-style Doppelbock brewed with a hefty portion of darker kilned Munich malt and Pilsner malt which was smoked over Beechwood. This deep amber lager has been single decoction mashed and aged 8+ weeks in horizontal tanks.

Even more Weizen than Perry’s Epiphany. This is a higher gravity version of a Hefeweizen with higher portions of wheat. In addition to locally grown red wheat from Perry Family Farm in Rolesville, we included British Maris Otter and Belgian Special B malts for a copper colored Hefe with notes of caramel and dark fruit. We still keep the overall profile subtle with high drinkability. An autumnal delight.

Brewed with piles and piles of freshly harvested Strata hops from Crosby Farms in Oregon. Each September during hop harvest, hop farms offer a one time special order of fresh hops to brewers willing to work with these fluffy, wet, sticky hops for a special brew. It’s become an annual tradition and celebration of harvest for brewers. The hops are either picked up at the farm or overnighted to breweries on harvest day where we then have to use them within 24 hours before they spoil. The rest of the harvest is kiln dried, pelletized and vacuum sealed to create a shelf stable hop product we can use year-around. Typically these beers have some green hop notes, but with a saturated and unique resiny flavor you can only get from fresh hops!

Court Shoes Only Hazy IPA is intended to be on the more sessionable side of our Hazy IPA range. Moderate ABV, low IBU, some crisp/refreshing character not usually associated with hazies, and focused on orange citrus flavor notes. This is a flavor concept that has long been on the back burner in the Blackbird recipe archives. Very El Dorado focused, we leveraged both concentrated lupulin and traditional forms of El Dorado for the bulk of the hop load and threw in some NZ Rakau Hop Kief as a top note for its nectarine and peach contribution.

*A portion of proceeds will go to Aceing Autism, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children with autism grow through the sport of tennis.*

This beer is for those averse to the dank, darker tones you get from many of the hops grown on the west coast.T Affectionately named after one of our first WC IPA Untappd comments, we want you to know not all West Coasts need to be the dankest brew bruh, you can thrive as a mellow, chill brew dude. Come forth, kick back, enjoy a light No Dank is OK with bright notes of orange and lemon from Ahhhroma and Citra hops.

Inspired by the famous Fleků Czech lager from Prague. Dark brown in color, double decoction mashed, delivering a deep maltiness and balanced with copious amounts of Czech Saaz hops. If you don’t like our other beers, we suggest a Fleku 2.

This isn’t any other sour, this Cucumber Watermelon sour is “One in A Melon”. Get it? Hehe. We dosed this summer quencher with 80 pounds of locally sourced cucumber from Lee’s Produce and Garden Center and a heap of watermelon extract. Lighter than our previous sours, this refreshing brew won’t put you into a cucumber slumber, but will be one to cucum-remember when we look back at our first cucum-summer as a brewery. A melon happy memories and we are glad we got to share them with all of you.

Named by attendees at our first beer education class who took part in dry hopping this beer! After a lengthy talk about hops they weighed out some Ahhroma, Citra and Strata and dropped them like they’re hot into this Double IPA that had just finished fermenting with thiolized yeast.

Düsseldorf-style Altbier/Amber Ale – Our brewer once spent an evening at Uerige Brewery in Düsseldorf, Germany hosted by their brewmaster discussing traditional Altbier brewing practices. We departed from some of those traditions to create a “Sticke” style Alt which is deeper in color, malt flavor and ABV than the classic. Brewed with a blend of German and English roasted malts and a single decoction to add depth, then fermented cool and slow with a few weeks lagering to meld all those flavors together.

Modern West Coast IPAs are one of our favorite styles. No experiments here, we went tried and true with the “holy trinity” hops Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe. Fermented bone dry with balanced bitterness to produce clean, clear hop juice!

Our first of what will become many attempts at Euro Pils. These are special beers that require extra steps and know-how on the brewhouse and an 8-week minimum maturation in tanks. German malt step mashed with a single decoction, hopped with Hallertau Mittelfruh and Saphir and then naturally carbonated and lagered in horizontal tanks.

Classic German style wheat beer. 50% of this beer is made from wheat grown at Perry Family Farm in Rolesville four miles from the brewery and malted at Epiphany Craft Malt in Durham. Brewed the hard way, this went through five mash steps including two decoctions to get every bit of character these malts have to offer. Naturally carbonated and unfiltered.

If you see your kids congregating at the back fence, they might be throwing rocks and dirt at our neighbors’ trampoline. It’s happening a lot so it must be very tempting for the little ones! Please ask them to back off the fence and give the neighbors some privacy. And let’s cheers to our first Pilsner. After eight weeks of tank time, we decided to throw New Zealand’s Freestyle Farms Nelson and Motueka hops in for some really cool top notes of lime, citrus and NZ terroir.

It’s ya boiiii! It’s Jelly Boi! We don’t remember why but one morning, the brewers called this beer Jelly Boi, and it stuck. Five hop additions on brew day (even in the mash) and dry hopped four times at different temperatures. Simcoe, Chinook, Azacca, Strata, Mosaic and Citra hops. With a drier ferment from German ale yeast and higher IBU than our thicc boi hazies, this one has some West Coast qualities but still uses techniques to soften the edges to keep it balanced. It doesn’t taste like jelly.

We all live in a yellow submarine cruising through a sea of Hazy IPAs and this is a damn good one. We went all Citra for those looking for juice. Made with our ‘thicc boi’ base of oat malt and British yeast for an opaque and creamy base. We’ll eventually stop making hazies when I’m 64. This beer is also available in cans now!

The classic light and crisp German ale drinks like a lager but with unique stone fruit, salt cracker and chalky aromas you only find in Kolsch.  A special selection of malt and hops we don’t share with our other beers, a special yeast strain, tricky alkaline water profile and 3 weeks cold conditioning to settle into its personality makes this a one of a kind beer style we can’t get enough of.