918 Pearl Street
Durham, NC 27713
919-683-BEER (2337)
Website: http://www.trianglebrewery.com
Tours: Saturday at 1 P.M.
Owners: Rick Tufts and Andy Miller
Head Brewer: Rick Tufts
Opened: 2007
Regular beer lineup: Belgian-Style Strong Golden Ale, India Pale Ale, Belgian-Style White Ale
Seasonals: Imperial Amber, Mild Ale, Habanero Pale Ale, Belgian-Style Lambic, Belgian-Style Abbey Dubbel, Bourbon Aged Abbey Dubbel, Xtra-Pale Ale, Winter Stout
Rick Tufts and Andy Miller have long been friends, as is obvious to those who meet them. They’re quick to poke fun and laugh, especially at the other’s expense. That good-natured relationship is at the base of Triangle Brewing Company.
The canning line at Triangle Brewing Company
“Rick and I went to high school together,” says Andy. “I came down here for school, and Rick came down and visited a couple of times and kind of fell in love with the area.” Rick ended up moving down in the late 1990s to live near his friend. By that point, he was already an avid home-brewer. He got Andy involved in his hobby and his lofty idea to start a brewery. But it wasn’t the right time for either of them.
Andy was employed in the hospitality industry. Rick was a psychologist for the University of North Carolina School of Medicine’s TEACCH program, working with kids and adults with autism. For the next seven or eight years, the friends continued to spend time together with beer, and especially with homebrew. Finally, they got to a point where it just seemed right.
“My wife told me, ‘If you’re going to start a brewery, it’s got to be right now,’ ” laughs Rick.
So Rick and Andy sat down and started to think about it in earnest. They decided to take a trip out to the Craft Brewers Conference, which was in Seattle that year, to check out the industry. “To say that we had a good time is probably an understatement,” Andy says. “We learned a lot, we met a lot of people, we got a lot of good contact, and more than anything else, we kind of got comfortable with the industry. I think we started our business plan on the plane ride back.”
Soon afterward, Rick enrolled in Vermont’s American Brewers Guild to learn the craft. He followed that with an apprenticeship at Flying Fish Brewery in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where he fell in love with Belgian beers. The two friends then worked on getting a brewery going. Since Andy’s background was in hospitality, he took care of all the sales and distribution. Rick made the beer and focused on the brewery. It was a match made in heaven.
Originally, they were going to open with a pale ale and an IPA, but after Rick spent time at Flying Fish, he realized that a whole range of beers wasn’t typically being made in North Carolina—Belgian-style beers—and that’s what they decided to focus on.
“We were told by a few people in the industry that we had lost our minds for having our flagship be Belgian-Style Strong Golden Ale, that it would never work in North Carolina,” Andy says. “We’re proud to say that a year and a half later, we had 70 accounts and we were looking for a distributor.”
They look back with fondness upon the opening of their brewery. “Our first tap ever was the Carolina Ale House in Brier Creek,” says Andy. “We sold them a half-barrel of our golden ale for $130, and we were so excited. We played soccer that night on an indoor team, and when the game was over we all went over to the Carolina Ale House and dropped about $300 in beer and food there. The next day, they called us up and said, ‘Hey, we need to order another keg. The one you sold just kicked!’ ” The friends laugh about the irony.
“I still get excited when I see somebody pulling on our tap,” says Andy.
“Or going to a store and seeing them looking at your beer and talking about your beer, and then putting a six-pack into their shopping cart,” adds Rick. “It never stops being cool.”
When taking one of Triangle Brewing Company’s tours or attending its Black Friday Cask Festival, hosted every year on the day after Thanksgiving, it’s impossible not to notice the small coffin set up somewhere around the brewery. It’s not actually a coffin, but a jockey box—a device used to serve beer at events. But the reason it’s coffin-shaped is very real. The building that Triangle inhabits was built in the 1950s. It has a two-story basement—part that’s built out of cement and part that is just natural clay. When the friends were having the building renovated for the brewery, the construction crew found a body partially buried in the clay.
A view from the stands at the World Beer Festival in Durham Bulls Athletic Park
• When it happens: October
• Where it happens: Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham
• Ticket prices: About $40 for a regular ticket or $75 for VIP admission
• Features: Exhibiting breweries from around the country, along with most North Carolina breweries; live music; food; educational sessions led by the staff and founders of All About Beer magazine
• Notes: Visitors appreciate the easy parking and good access to bathrooms.
“The bag was obviously tied from the outside,” says Rick, “so he didn’t put himself there. And the cops weren’t able to find anything out about him except that he was a male, just because of his rib structure. There were no dental records back then, no DNA records. So we sat down and we thought, We’ve got to name this guy! We thought that Rufus James sounded like a good Southern name, and now he’s the patron saint of Triangle Brewing Company.”
“He oversees all aspects of the brewery,” Andy adds. “He sees everything. And when he’s not happy, things are not good in here—clogged filter, stuck mash, canning line throwing cans at you, whatever. And we pour a little bit of beer down the drain every once in a while to appease him.”
Triangle was one of the first breweries in North Carolina to put its beers in cans, and was the first packaging brewery to do so. When asked about what made the partners decide to get into canning, Rick immediately falls back on the trademark joking between the friends. “Well, first and foremost, Andy likes it in the can.” After a quick laugh, he turns serious. “But it was really about what was going to be best for the beer, best for the environment, and best for our bottom dollar. It’s better for the beer because cans don’t let light or oxygen in. And we like to make beer for the drinker on the go, someone that can take a six-pack to wherever they want. And cans travel better—to the beach, to the ballpark, to the mountains, kayaking, anything.”
“Look at the extended summers you’ve got here in North Carolina, and all the pools, where you can’t have glass,” adds Andy.
Rick has the final word: “First, they thought we were crazy because our flagship is Belgian-Style Strong Golden Ale. Then we were crazy for putting it in cans.”
Brewer Ian Van Gundy works on a keg at LoneRider Brewing Company.
