For the craft beer faithful, the World Beer Festival can feel familiar after a time or two. The twice-a-year gatherings in the Triangle tout the vast expanse of beer, but enthusiasts are drawn to the new, the special and the undiscovered. The double rice India pale ale from Kuhnhenn Brewing, a small craft brewer in Michigan, attracted quite a favorable crowd at the Durham event last fall.

For the upcoming spring festival in Raleigh, organizers are trying to keep it fresh with more new breweries. The recently announced newcomers include Goose Island from Chicago, Blue Mountain Barrel House from Virginia, No-Li Brewhouse from Washington state and Windy Hill Orchard from New York. The newly opened Raleigh Brewing Co. and White Street Brewing in Wake Forest also will debut. Read more news from the North Carolina craft beer scene in this week's Pintful craft beer column.

UPDATED: Raleigh Brewing Company opens Saturday at 5 p.m. with special offers for the first tasters.

The starting lineup at the capitol city's newest craft brewery features six beers and other experimental batches, along with a cask ale. What's on tap: an English bitter (City of Blokes), a light lager (Uncommon Curiosity), a rye India pale ale (House of Clay), a Belgian golden strong (HellYesMa'am), a Scottish ale (Blatherskite) and a wheat IPA lager (Love Triangle).

The experimental beers include an American wheat with blood oranges (Agent Orange) and a dry stout. A root beer for the nonalcoholic crowd will also be on tap.

Brewer John Federal told me a few weeks ago that he expects the light lager and rye IPA to be popular -- both are recipes he has honed for years as a homebrewer.

As part of the opening day festivities, Blue Sky Dining will serve food from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., a beer trivia game starts at 8 p.m. and live music begins at 9 p.m. and goes until the midnight closing. The brewery is located off Neil Street across from Meredith College.

The first 100 customers to buy an unfilled growler receive a commemorative coaster and punch card to get prizes after trying all the brewery's core beers. Find more information here.

This post below is from John Frank, our weekly craft beer columnist.

The giant, gleaming steel tanks and touch-screen control panels standard at a professional brewery seem like Disneyland to a homebrewer.

The amateur brewer stirs wort in a dented stock pot on the kitchen stove or spends good money to upgrade to a propane burner on the porch. No overhead tubes shooting grain into a mash tun like a deposit to a bank teller and no yeast culturing laboratories for mad-scientist tinkering. These are only dreams to homebrewers -- many of whom wish to open their own brewery one day.

John Federal knows the feeling. Like many professionals, the general manager and brewer at Raleigh Brewing Co.started at home. But in more ways than most who progress to brewing Disneyland, he wants to keep the homebrew spirit alive in his new venture.

"We are creating a brewtopia here," said Federal, who worked for years at American Brewmaster, a Raleigh homebrew shop.

Other Triangle breweries maintain links to homebrewers -- whether Lonerider's annual competition in which the winner gets to brew on the professional system, or Mystery Brewing Company in Hillsborough, where owner Erik Lars Myers organizes a monthly homebrew club and operates a small supply shop around the corner.

Raleigh Brewing Co. is doing the same -- and then some.

The new microbrewery -- located on Neil Street across Hillsborough Avenue from Meredith College -- is home to Atlantic Brew Supply, which opened earlier this month as the area's largest homebrew supply store in terms of square footage, if not goods, too.

The shop offers 34 hops, 67 grains and dozens of different yeasts, as well as malt extract by the ounce, a first for local shops. Atlantic will offer classes for those new to the craft and the employees will double as brewers. "Everyone who works here has to brew," Federal said.

At the brewery's tasting room -- which is aiming for a late-February or early-March opening -- two taps are reserved for homebrewers who master their craft.

One is a "community tap," as Federal calls it, for top-notch recipes from local homebrewers made on the professional pilot system. And the other is dedicated for the ultimate winner of Federal's four-times-a-year homebrew competition, called the Carolina Quarterly Brew Off. The best in each competition will compete in a taste-off at the end of the year for a chance to see their creation on tap at Raleigh Brewing Co.

(The proceeds from the homebrew taps will go to local charities because it's illegal to sell homebrew in North Carolina.)

The brewery's owners, Kristie and Patrik Nystedt are homebrewers, too, so the team doesn't mind turning over precious tap space.

"Homebrewing is a community thing," Federal said. "Our main goal is to get the community to rally around us."

What I'm drinking

In my mind, nothing is more exciting than discovering a new craft brewery -- particularly one in North Carolina. So I didn't hesitate when I saw Blind Squirrel Brewery on the shelf at Peabody's Wine & Beer Merchants during a recent visit to Boone.

The small craft brewery opened six months ago in Plumtree, a hour southwest of Boone. Brewing under the collective name "Earl the Squirrel," they offer seven of the most common varieties, from pale ale to stout, and just recently began distributing 22-ounce bombers to select locations like Peabody's.

I picked the Tripel. It's a true-to-style, Belgian beer with a golden hue brewed with Trappist ale yeast and tettnang and saaz hops. The yeast's complexity shines in a simple recipe with a sweeter taste than most in the category and a slight alcoholic flavor that hints to the beer's potent punch.

Stats: 9 percent ABV, 34 IBUs, 22 ounce bottle. More information at blindsquirrelbrewery.com.

What's on tap

*Raleigh Rare and Vintage Beer Festival
3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Tyler’s Tap Room in Raleigh
The event is sold out so if you can bum a ticket from a friend it’s worth the $65 to the truest of beer enthusiasts. Taste 40 beers that few others ever get a chance to try including a few special local releases. Info: raleighrarebeertasting.com

*Cackalacky-Fullsteam beer release party
3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham
Fullsteam Brewery is joining sauce masters Cackalacky of Chapel Hill to launch a collaboration beer. The first commercial batch of Cackalacky Ginger Pale Ale debuts at the brewery Sunday with plans to distribute to select areas in the Southeast later this year. Info: fullsteam.ag/beer/

Contact John at jfrank@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4698

Raleigh Brewing Co., located across from Meredith College, hopes to open late winter or early spring.

President Kristie Nystedt said she and her husband, Patrik, have been home brewers for about a decade. They were approached a few years ago by the folks behind Lynwood Grill about opening a brewery associated with the restaurant. While that idea didn't work out, Nystedt said they couldn't shake the idea of starting a brewery. Four months ago, they found a location behind Beansprout Chinese Restaurant on Hillsborough Street.

They hired John Federal as their brewer. Federal is wellknown among Raleigh home brewers as the general manager and brewing instructor at American Brewmaster for more than four years.

Nystedt said they plan to launch six beers: a Scotch ale, a rye IPA, a Belgian golden, a robust porter, an English bitter and a Raleigh uncommon. The last will be their gateway beer for those who prefer Budweiser and other macrobrews. Not only will they be brewing beer and hosting the public in a 2,800-square-foot tasting room, Nystedt said they will be reselling and distributing commercial brewing equipment.

For more information about the brewery, go to raleighbrewingcompany.com.
 

Durham's Rockfish Seafood Grill is hosting a "Cask Ales for Tails" event from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday (10/24) to benefit Second Chance Adoption.

Six Triangle breweries are bringing cask conditioned beers for sampling. A $10 cash donation at the door gets you in to taste the beer and enjoy light appetizers. Plus, bring extra cash to buy raffle tickets for prizes. All money collected will be donated to the charity.

The breweries include Haw River Farmhouse Ales of Saxapahaw, Deep River Brewing Co. of Clayton, Steel String Craft Brewery and Four Saints Brewing Co. in Asheboro. Plus, this event will be the Triangle debut of two breweries: Raleigh Brewing Co. and Crank Arm Brewing.

Here's a LINK to the event's Facebook page.

While I have beer drinkers' attention, you may want to mark this event on your calendar:

Hillsborough's Wooden Nickel Pub is hosting a cask beer fest from noon to 11 p.m. Nov. 3. Forty dollars gets you a souvenir glass and a taste of cask-conditioned brews from Fullsteam, Big Boss Brewing Co., Aviator Brewing Co., Haw River Farmhouse Ales, Mother Earth Brewing and several other breweries.

For more information, check out the Wooden Nickel's Facebook page. Tickets will be sold at the door.
 

(If you hadn't heard of some of these breweries, check out my post in June about the breweries on the horizon in the Triangle. I can't believe we have 2 more since that time.)