Beer Study

Beer Study is several businesses in one unit of the Rockwood shopping centre on University Drive in south Durham: a bottle shop, a forty-tap beer hall, the taproom for Starpoint Brewing, a video arcade, and — through a connecting door — The Boot Room restaurant. The lounge area has leather sofas, arcade cabinets and a fake fireplace, and it is one of the more relaxed rooms in the city to spend an afternoon in.

For non-drinkers, the draw is the cooler rather than the taps. The shop keeps around nine non-alcoholic beers in stock, and the selection is chosen rather than defaulted: Burial Beer's Chaosmachine, a non-alcoholic IPA from the Asheville brewery that is among the best American examples; Fremont Brewing's non-alcoholic dark, a style almost nobody makes without alcohol; the Deschutes-brewed Patagonia Provisions organic golden; and Bellwoods' Jelly King with raspberry and blackberry, a sour from one of Toronto's most respected breweries. That is a considered range rather than a row of the same three national brands, which is why Discover Durham singles the shop out on the city's official non-alcoholic page.

The honest framing is that this is a beer venue with a good non-alcoholic shelf, not a non-alcoholic venue. Almost everything on tap contains alcohol and the room smells like a taproom. But it is open from 11:30 in the morning, until midnight on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and it is a genuinely comfortable place to sit with a good alcohol-free beer while other people drink — which for a lot of people is the specific thing that is hard to find.

One note for anyone searching: mapping services frequently resolve this address to Thai Café or Wine Authorities, both neighbours in the same shopping centre. Beer Study is trading normally at suite 4.