Hops & Blues Festival
Saturday, Aug. 17, 4–8 p.m., $15–$40
The Glass Jug Beer Lab, Durham
“People like to say blues is dead or dying—but the culture is still there, still vibrant,” says Cornelius Lewis, the community coordinator at the Music Maker Relief Foundation. The Hillsborough-based nonprofit, which works to preserve the traditional music of the South by supporting the artists who create it, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with a string of Duke Performances shows in December.
But first, this Saturday, it’s teaming up with The Glass Jug Beer Lab for the inaugural Hops & Blues Festival, which will celebrate Durham’s living history as a hub for blues music while spotlighting local brewers at the forefront of the hoppy beer movement.
“We always say that the artists we represent are making some of the best music you’ve never heard,” Lewis says. “By partnering with local groups like Glass Jug, folks get to see and hear where American roots music comes from.”
Katy Creech, who co-owns Glass Jug with her husband, Chris, notes the rich history of blues music in South Durham.
“Ever since we opened, we’ve wanted to put on an event that lets that blues heritage shine and provides a platform for the talented artists that live here,” she says.
Of course, there are also those trendy New England IPAs that usually sell out quickly, boasting the floral and fruity flavors of regular hops without the bitterness often associated with conventional IPAs. According to Creech, New England IPAs have taken the country by storm in the last few years thanks to their accessibility.
“Producers run out of these beers within days of releasing them because they’re so popular,” she says. “We want to give everyday craft beer fans a chance to come in, try a bunch of modern IPAs, and learn about this new style.”
Hops & Blues will feature unlimited samples from Glass Jug and ten other Triangle breweries that the Creeches selected as premier IPA producers: Brewery Bhavana, Fullsteam, Bond Brothers Beer Company, and Ancillary* Fermentation, to name a few.
Whit Baker, who co-owns Bond Brothers and Ancillary*, will be showcasing a number of his most sought after hoppy beers. To achieve the rounded-out flavor and reduced sharpness of New England IPAs, Baker says, one must create a “haze that doesn’t go away” during the brewing process.
“That haze is basically particles spinning the beer, and flavor compounds stick to the particles, so by making a haze you’re actually changing the taste,” Baker says.
The high demand for such beers has been fittingly dubbed the “Haze Craze;” Baker says visitors to his breweries always have to have one. These hip and funky IPAs will be on heavy rotation at Hops & Blues, as will live performances by two local blues artists: Big Ron Hunter and Harvey Dalton Arnold.
The festival taps into a blues lineage not just in Durham overall, but in this very neighborhood. Glass Jug is a stone’s throw from the former location of Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse, the Cajun restaurant and live blues venue that closed in 2014.
“It was very sad for this part of town,” Creech says. “They were known for having world-class blues music every weekend.”
While local beer fests are often packed with thousands of thirsty beer lovers, Glass Jug is capping tickets at three hundred in an effort to create a more relaxed atmosphere.
“We want people to make new friends and meet neighbors they don’t know, and it’s harder to do that if the space is crowded,” Creech says. “Fostering the community in South Durham was more our focus.”
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