With about 40 North Carolina breweries and dozens of rare offerings Saturday, the Hickory Hops Brew Festival reaffirmed its status as one of the state's best craft beer festivals.

About 2,000 craft beer lovers attended the six-hour event in Hickory on a gorgeous sunny day in the downtown square -- including a number of familiar faces from the Triangle area. Bill "QB" Quattlebaum said the event appeals to the true craft beer enthusiasts and is well worth the drive from the Triangle.

The festival showcased the true explosion of new breweries in North Carolina with at least a dozen rookies attending, including Deep River in Clayton and Trophy in Raleigh.

A number of local brewers took home medals in the Carolinas Championship of Beer, a competition for breweries at the event. (Read more below for full list of winners.)

Take the best of the Triangle, Fullsteam and Bull City beers and mash them together. What do you get? The first-ever collaboration ale from Durham’s three craft breweries.

The trio came together on the unique project for N.C. Beer Month in April, said Seth Gross, owner of Bull City Burger and Brewery. The concept was simple: Take the signature grain, a specialty malt and the dominant hop from each brewery, at equal proportions, and make a beer. The end result is a hop-forward, copper-colored beer with roughly 6 percent alcohol. “It’s not any particular style,” said Gross, who is brewing the beer at his restaurant. “It’s representative of what the three brewers embody.”

The project also represents a movement gaining steam in the craft beer industry: the collaboration ale. The whole idea of multiple breweries putting their creative minds together to produce a single, often nouveau beer under a joint label sets the craft industry apart. It’s the tangible result of the camaraderie you hear so much about in the industry.

Gross said the Durham collaboration – which will debut April 3 at each brewery’s tasting room – is still a work in progress. Once the initial fermentation is completed, the brewers may add another twist – a dry hop or possibly a specialty ingredient, such as rosemary from the bush on the nearby street corner, Gross said.

In the meantime, the breweries are soliciting a name for the beer. The brewers will considered top five “liked” names submitted by March 31 on Bull City’s Facebook page. Read this week's Pintful column here.

Congrats to the five Triangle burger joints that got a mention in this month's Southern Living magazine: Only Burger and Bull City Burger and Brewery, both in Durham, Chuck's in Raleigh, Buns in Chapel Hill and Johnson's in Siler City. (The latter is one of my favorites in the state.)

Go HERE to see the Durham mentions in the story, courtesy of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Click on the pdf below to see the entire story.

Documents:

REMINDER: Durham's Bull City Burger and Brewery is reviving the old New York beefsteak tradition with its Beefsteak Octoberfest.

Owner Seth Gross calls the event "a meat eater's and beer lover's gastronomic festival."

It will be from 4 p.m.-midnight Saturday, Sept. 17. There will be two seatings; one at 4 p.m. and another at 6:30 p.m. The restaurant will not serve burgers on this night and there will be no vegetarian options.

The menu includes an assortment of beef, lamb, pork, offal and sausage provided by Farmhand Foods, which specializes in local-raised meat. The $45 ticket also gets you two beers and unlimited fries, bread, celery and radishes.

Tickets cost $45 for adults and $20 for a chld. Tickets are limited and only available online at www.bullcityburgerandbrewery.com. The event will benefit Habitat for Humanity of Durham.

To read New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell's classic story about New York beefsteaks, go to http://bit.ly/1PCYsh
 

Durham's Bull City Burger and Brewery is reviving the old New York beefsteak tradition with its Beefsteak Octoberfest.

Owner Seth Gross calls the event "a meat eater's and beer lover's gastronomic festival."

It will be from 4 p.m.-midnight Sept. 17. There will be two seatings; one at 4 p.m. and another at 6:30 p.m. The restaurant will not serve burgers on this night and there will be no vegetarian options.

The menu includes an assortment of beef, lamb, pork, offal and sausage provided by Farmhand Foods, which specializes in local-raised meat. The $45 ticket also gets you two beers and unlimited fries, bread, celery and radishes.

Tickets cost $45 for adults and $20 for a chld. Tickets are limited and only available online at www.bullcityburgerandbrewery.com. The event will benefit Habitat for Humanity of Durham.

To read New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell's classic story about New York beefsteaks, go to http://bit.ly/1PCYsh
 

Beer and prostate health are two causes close to men's hearts. So Bull City Burger and Brewery is sponsoring a "Brew for a Cure" homebrewed beer contest to raise money for prostate cancer research.

Home brewers must drop off their entries by noon Saturday, Aug. 27 to enter. Each brewer is allowed two entries, which cost $4 each. The winner will get to have their beer brewed and offered on tap at the Durham restaurant and bring nine friends for a free first round.  

All proceeds will be donated to Movember, a charity that raises money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Livestrong.

For more information, go to http://bullcityburgerandbrewery.com
 

Beltline Brew Tours is now offering an once-a-month tour of three Durham breweries: Fullsteam, Triangle Brewing Company and Bull City Burger and Brewery. The next one is 11:30 a.m. July 16. Tickets cost between $40 and $45.

Beltline Brew Tours owner Will Holland says the ticket price includes all the participants' beer and transportation.

For a year, Holland has been doing private tours but gave his first open-to-the-public tour on a Saturday last month. Tickets are now available for the once-a-month Durham tours scheduled for the next six months. He hopes to start a Raleigh tour soon that would include visits to LoneRider, Roth Brewing Company and Natty Greene's.

Holland, who works for an investment bank, says he's a craft beer fan and home brewer who took a beer tour in Asheville and decided to start offering them here.

For more information, go to www.beltlinebrewtours.com

Seth Gross, owner of the soon-to-open Bull City Burger & Brewery is pulling a Willy Wonka-style game: he's hidden 5 golden, ok they are brass, bulls around Durham.

If you are one of the lucky ones to find one, you will win a free meal at the new downtown Durham restaurant every week for a year. For clues, go HERE. Let the hunt begin!

Gross, co-founder of Wine Authorities retail wine shop in Durham,  hopes to open Bull City Burger & Brewery at 107 E. Parrish Street on March 21.

This is what Gross said in the press release about the restaurant concept: "If itʼs on the menu at Bull City Burger and Brewery, we most likely will have made it from scratch or bought it locally. Weʼll grind the beef daily, make the buns, make the mustard, make the ketchup, pickle the pickles and stuff our all-beef hotdogs. No corn syrup, no added hormones, noantibiotics and, we will focus on making the best burger and hotdog we can produce."

Seth Gross, a co-founder of the Wine Authorities store in Durham, is planning to open Bull City Burger and Brewery this February at 107 E. Parrish St. in downtown Durham.

It will be a farm-to-fork brewpub where Gross promises most everything will be either made from scratch or purchased locally from the beef to the buns to the ketchup and mustard. The 90-seat restaurant and brewery also will serve six beers brewed on site.

Gross is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and previously brewed beer at Goose Island brewpub in Chicago.