Return to The Glass Jug RTP

When we arrived, the band was in full swing, the crowd was vibing, and the lively patio was full of people and dogs, all having a great time. Shout out to Your Mama’s New Boyfriend for playing lively sets of danceable music at a listenable volume that everyone could enjoy. There was plenty of seating at picnic tables and Adirondack chairs, and the beautiful murals on the back of the building added to the scenery. We even ran into a couple of friends!

The Basics

Location: 5410 NC Highway 55, Suite V, Durham, NC 27713

Parking: large lot

Website: glass-jug.com/rtp

Social media: instagram.com/glassjug, facebook.com/glassjugbeerlab

Vibe/Atmosphere: spacious, vibrant, inviting, family and dog-friendly

Beers We Tried: Helles Lager, Hourglass Hefewiezen, Weekend Patrol (Forgotten Road Brewing), Primeval Atom, Opacity, Vicinity (Trillium Brewing), Holy Ghost Tripel (Parish Brewing)

Important NC Beer Explorer Tip: When consuming alcohol, always have a designated driver. Be safe out there, friends! Follow these simple tips for safer consumption.

Hazy Shade of Beer

I was ecstatic to find that there were five — count them — five New England IPAs on tap for a visit. I have been going through an extended crush on New England IPAs, and our recent trip to New England did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. I was determined to try as wide a range as possible of the lovely gold and hazies as I could for our trip.

Not wanting to sleep on Glass Jug’s other excellent beers, I started with a flight including their Helles, Hefeweizen and Belgian Strong Ale, plus a guest pour of a sour. Check out the tasting notes for details. This visit was primarily about NEIPAs, but I have to say, I especially loved the Helles and the BSA!

Now, for the main event! I got a flight of four NEIPAs, including GJBL’s Opacity, Trillium’s Vicinity and “PoCoToB,” and Parish’s Holy Ghost. It's important to note that Trillium and Parish are renowned breweries, and the specific beers I tasted have all been rated as world-class beers. All that being said, my favorite beer of the four was Glass Jug’s Opacity. It was the closest of the four to my ideal of what a NEIPA should taste like: tropical fruit-forward with secondary citrus notes, restrained bitterness, pillowy mouthfeel and highly drinkable. On the other hand, the three guest tap beers — classified as imperial, triple and Quad, respectively — all exhibited extreme hop bitterness and tended more toward grapefruit/citrus (by my taste) versus tropical or stone fruit.

Of course, my experience of the beers is biased toward my own preferences. But isn't everyone's?

My tasting experience begged the question: what makes all these New England IPAs taste so different? And more fundamentally, what is the difference between a Hazy IPA, a Juicy IPA and a New England IPA? Not to mention an Imperial, double dry-hopped, triple or quadruple hazy IPA? The combinations are maddening!

So I did a little research.

Back on Home Turf

Whenever anyone asks us which North Carolina brewery is our favorite, the answer is easy: “All of them.” However, there are specific RTP breweries near and dear to us because we always have a great experience when we stop in, their beers and vibe are top-notch, and we have met the owner/brewer over the course of our beer explorations. The Glass Jug is one of those breweries, and when Rebecca saw on Instagram that they had finished their patio updates in time for a Saturday night concert by Your Mama’s New Boyfriend, we were all in.

A year has passed since our last Glass Jug deep-dive, so, in preparation for our visit, I checked out their current draft lineup on their website. This summer has kind of been “The Summer of Hazy IPAs” for us, so I was thrilled to see that they had at least four New England IPAs, including multiple guest taps.

Their frequent showcasing of guest taps is one of my favorite things about The Glass Jug. Some of the best beers made in North Carolina and beyond can be found at the original RTP location, harking back to their roots as a craft beer bottle shop before they added on-site brewing. It says a lot about owner/brewer Chris Creech that he feels confident enough about his own brews to serve them alongside such fine guest beers.

There's something for everyone at The Glass Jug RTP.

The only thing we appreciate as much as great beer is good live music, like this solo from Your Mama's New Boyfriend.

Beer Nerd Alert

New England IPAs emerged in Vermont and the broader New England region in the 2000s as a reaction to the intensely bitter, citrus- and pine-forward IPAs popularized by West Coast breweries. They featured tropical and stone-fruit juiciness combined with a hazy appearance and soft, smooth mouthfeel. This style gained regional and then national prominence in the 2010s. As breweries outside New England began to brew this beer style, they were more likely to call them “Hazy” or “Juicy,” but Hazy IPA and New England IPA are essentially different names for the same style, while “juicy” is generally used to describe the beer’s fruit-forward character. The trend has continued to the point that you are now likely to see more “Hazies” than “Westies” at taprooms and brewpubs anywhere in the country.

As with all things beer, if something is good, brewers are going to take it to the extreme and a lot of beer fanboys are going to love the results … until they don't anymore and move on to something else. This is my take on some of the more extreme versions of NEIPA. Again, this is all based on my particular tastes, which admittedly could change next month. Brewers have a lot of levers to pull in crafting a beer. There are hundreds of malts, hop varieties and yeasts to select and combine. Plus, they have many brewing process options, including dry hopping, double-dry hopping and thiolizing.

The current trend in Hazy/NEIPAs seems to be toward the experimental and the extreme. As an example, the Parish Holy Ghost Triple IPA uses a blend of hops that includes Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy and Citra Cryo. The Trillium Quad uses a more conventional bill of Citra, Galaxy and Mosaic but uses massive quantities to achieve 12% ABV and an “unlisted” IBU level.

Everything got a little hazy at The Glass Jug.

There are beer nerds ... and then there are serious beer nerds. I may be the latter.

Take Away's

What this experience has taught me is a few things:

• First, there is no definite difference between Hazy, Juicy and New England IPAs. They are just different terms for the same beer style.

• Second, there are dramatically different interpretations of a Hazy. The only way to know if you are going to like it is to taste it.

• Third, I realize now that my crush on NEIPAs is for a particular version. I am not going to like every iteration that is out there, even if it gets a 4.4 rating on Untappd. But then again, you can say that about virtually every beer style.

• Fourth, I am extremely appreciative that The Glass Jug Beer Lab enables me to go down this kind of rabbit hole for only $12 per flight!

To bottom-line everything stated above: different strokes for different folks! And check out the expanded patio at The Glass Jug RTP.

NCBE's Beer Notes -The Glass Jug RTP Part II

• Glass Jug Helles Lager*

  • Appearance: straw color, clear

  • Aroma: bread, honey, corn, musty

  • Taste: toasted bread honey light bitter edge

  • Mouthfeel: light body medium carbonation

  • Finish: bread and sour/ sweet

  • Overall: excellent helles!

• Glass Jug Hourglass Hefewiezen

  • ABV: 4.2%

  • Appearance: yellow light haze

  • Aroma: clove, light banana.

  • Taste: strong clove, medium banana, medium dry

  • Mouthfeel: medium body, creamy, high carbonation

  • Finish: banana, clove, bittersweet

• Forgotten Road Brewing - Weekend Patrol - Tropic Like It's Hot Sour Ale

  • ABV: 5.5%

  • Aroma: banana daiquiri

  • Taste: mango, dragon fruit, sour, orange peel, pineapple, banana

  • Mouthfeel: light body, low carbonation

• Glass Jug – Primeval Atom - Belgian Strong Dark Ale*

  • ABV: 8.8%

  • Appearance: dark brown, translucent

  • Aroma: caramel, malt, coffee, banana

  • Taste: caramel, honey, wheat bread, baking spice, alcohol, bitter showing through the sweetness

  • Mouthfeel: light carbonation, medium to full body

  • Finish: bitter, banana bread

  • Overall: very good beer, like a stronger version of a dubbel

• Glass Jug: Opacity NEIPA

  • ABV: 7.3%

  • Appearance: yellow/ gold, hazy/ transparent

  • Aroma: grapefruit, light tropical

  • Taste: grapefruit, orange/tropical, round flavor profile, balance towards bitter

  • Mouthfeel: medium body, creamy, medium/high carbonation

• Trillium Brewing - Vicinity - Imperial and EIPA

  • ABV: 8%

  • Appearance: gold, hazy

  • Aroma: grapefruit/tropical, rounded flavor

  • Taste: bitter /tangy, grapefruit, pineapple, orange

  • Mouthfeel: creamy/pillowy, almost foamy

  • Finish: very bitter

• Parish Brewing: Holy Ghost Triple IPA

  • ABV: 10%

  • Appearance: gold, hazy

  • Aroma: grapefruit, light tropical

  • Taste: grapefruit, very bitter with lots of sweetness in the background

  • Mouthfeel : pillowy

  • Finish: bitter, citrus

• Trillium Brewing – Plane Over Car Over Truck Over Boat Quad IPA

  • ABV: 12%

  • Appearance: gold, hazy

  • Aroma: light grapefruit/ tropical

  • Taste: very strong hops, citrus/bitter

  • Mouthfeel: pillowy

  • Finish: very bitter

*NCBE Two mugs up!

What do you think about The Glass Jug? Hazy IPAs?