We have our winners: Here are the picks for top Eastern and Western Triangle breweries

The Triangle Brewery Brackets came down to pioneers in the local beer scene versus trend-setting newcomers.

And in this round, the newbies took it.

The top brewery in the Western Triangle bracket, based on reader votes, is Durham’s Barrel Culture Brewing & Blending. It pulled away from Haw River Brewing and collected 59% of the vote.

In the Eastern Triangle, Funguys Brewing racked up 79% of votes to take the Raleigh beer crown from Lynnwood Brewing Concern.

Barrel Culture

Founded by married couple Caroline and Ethan Barbee, Barrel Culture Brewing initially focused on mixed fermentation beers, the funky, tart, sour spectrum of ales that have exploded in popularity in recent years.

Now, five years in, Barrel Culture has expanded its taplists and its footprint, going big on fruited sours and hazy IPAs, while adding a production facility in Rocky Mount and a second taproom in Raleigh.

“We specialize in pushing the boundaries,” Caroline Barbee said. “We really try to have a finger on the pulse of craft beer. We’re making the beer people want to drink right now.”

The Barbees moved to Durham from Texas and opened Barrel Culture in a secluded spot of RTP. At that point the brewery was making only mixed fermentation and wild ales, particularly barrel aged offerings.

“We really started out small and niche but have seen exponential growth,” Barbee said. “We’re tucked away in a wooded area of RTP, so this brings a lot of awareness to our company. It’s really great.”

One of the boundaries Barrel Culture pushes is how exactly one can drink a beer. How about a soft serve cone? The beer, often something fruity, is simply poured into a special soft serve machine with a gel that stabilizes the hard-to-freeze alcohol and pours it straight into a cone or cup.

“We usually use beers from our ‘Heavy Jam’ series, which are heavily fruited and already sweet,” Barbee said. “People go wild for it.”

Funguys Brewing

Off the bat, co-owner Nick Brango said Funguys might not be the brewery for everyone. He points to the long list of beers made by the Raleigh brewery, almost all of which are some kind of New England style hazy IPA.

It’s almost as if Funguys put all its kegs in one basket, but that basket happens to be the most popular beer style in the country.

“We do very specific styles: we don’t have a light lager, we don’t have a witbier, we don’t have a wheat beer, we do have a few lagers,” Brango said. “Our specialties are our smoothie sours and New England IPAs. We don’t check a lot of boxes as a brewery.”

Funguys is married couple Nick and Carly Brango, who moved to Raleigh from Pennsylvania in 2018 to escape the cold. North Carolina was the southernmost state where the brewing laws matched the Brango’s ambitions.

“We came down here knowing there weren’t a lot of people doing New England style IPAs in Raleigh,” Brango said. “We figured if we did the right thing long enough people would find us.”

Despite the legions of fans picking Funguys as their favorite, the brewery remains a slim operation. Carly Brango handles sales and distribution, Nick writes the recipes and brews the beer.

Brango said that Funguys can put such a huge emphasis on hazy IPAs because of the seasonal whims and varieties of hops. Just like any crop, some years are good for certain hops and some years are lousy, Brango said. The constant exploration of combinations and single flavors means the thirst for IPAs remains endless.

In taking the Eastern Triangle beer crown, Brango said Funguys’ fans want greater recognition of the still small brewery.

“We had people come in this week saying they voted for us, and others saying they stopped in after seeing us (in the bracket),” Brango said. “It just speaks to how much support we get from our regulars. They want to see us compared to Burial (in Asheville) and The Veil (in Richmond). It speaks to our fans and how much they want to see us succeed.”