Fullsteam Brewery at Boxyard RTP

Fullsteam has spent more than a decade building beers out of Southern agriculture — sweet potatoes, persimmons, locally malted grain — and Blank Check is that philosophy applied to non-alcoholic brewing. It is a 0.5% ABV pilsner the brewery calls a prohibition pilsner, made as the alcohol-free counterpart to Paycheck, its standard lager. Crucially it is brewed in house rather than contracted out or bought in, which almost no brewery of this size does.

The build is properly specified. The grain bill runs locally malted Cumberland corn, Epiphany Modern Pilsner malt, aromatic malt and North Carolina two-row barley; the hops are Wakatu, Saphir and Magnum; the yeast is an Apex Munich lager strain. It comes in at 26 IBU, which is enough bitterness to keep it dry rather than sweet — the failure mode of most non-alcoholic lagers. It carries Craft Malt Certification, meaning at least ten percent of the grain is regional, so the beer qualifies on the same local-sourcing terms as the rest of the range rather than being exempted for being alcohol-free.

The location matters here, and it has changed. Fullsteam's original Durham brewery is currently not trading, and the downtown site on the American Tobacco Campus is under construction with no announced opening. The taproom that is open is at Boxyard RTP, the shipping-container development in Research Triangle Park, Tuesday to Saturday from eleven until nine. If you have an older address for Fullsteam — Rigsbee Avenue or Blackwell Street — it will not get you a beer.

Blank Check is sold to go in twelve-ounce cans; if you are making a specific trip to drink it on site, it is worth calling ahead to confirm it is pouring on draught that day.