By Dathan Kazsuk
Durham has always been a city that reinvents itself. Old tobacco warehouses become restaurants. Brick factories turn into apartments. And somewhere along the way, those same streets started filling up with breweries—taprooms where the smell of hops replaced the smell of cured tobacco.
These days, you can walk a few blocks downtown and stumble across everything from crisp German-style pilsners to tart kettle sours and hazy IPAs that look like they were poured straight from a glass of orange juice.
Which is exactly why Jen and I figured the best way to spend an afternoon in Bull City was simple: Follow the beer.
Enter Drafts of the Bull, a guided brewery walking tour run by the team behind Flavors of the Bull, where small groups wind their way through downtown Durham, stopping at several breweries along the route. Along the way, you get a little local history, a few bites of food, and roughly 15 beer samples that cover a wide range of styles—from easy-drinking lagers to the occasional curveball, like a blackberry dragon fruit sour.
Our afternoon kicked off at Brightleaf Square, where the old tobacco warehouses still stand like brick monuments to Durham’s past. The timber beams and thick brick walls once housed part of the city’s cigarette industry, which made the city famous.
Waiting for us outside were Zachery and Lindsey Hollis, the tour’s co-owners. The idea behind the tour might seem like a natural fit for a beer-loving city like Durham, but the story behind how it started is a little more unusual. It’s actually a family business.
“My older brother started a donut tour company in Chicago,” Lindsey tells us. “It’s called the Underground Donut Tour. He launched it about six or seven years ago, and it just exploded—it’s all over the US now, plus Canada, London, France, and Spain.” And the entrepreneurial spirit apparently runs in the family. “My mom runs a food tour business in Greenville, South Carolina,” she says. “She started it during retirement because she just loves food.”
For Hollis and her husband, the inspiration came from something much simpler: exploring their own city.
Both still work full-time jobs in healthcare, but they wanted a project that combined Durham’s booming food scene with something people could experience firsthand.
“We kept thinking, what could be our fun thing?” she says. “Durham’s become such a foodie city. There are Michelin-recommended restaurants now, and we were already spending time checking out new spots. So we thought—why not turn that into something?”
The first idea wasn’t beer.
“We actually wanted to start with a pizza tour,” Hollis laughed. “But we had a hard time getting traction with restaurants. When we approached the breweries, though, they were all in.”
Honestly, that part made sense. Breweries tend to be the most laid-back corner of the hospitality world—and they’re usually happy to pour a few samples for curious drinkers.
That first stop quickly proved why the idea works.
At Clouds Brewing, our group was greeted with a flight that covered just about every direction beer can go—from the crisp, refreshing German-style pilsner, Precipitation, to the fruity hop punch of their flagship IPA, Hop J.A.M. Someone at the table described the lime-infused lager Sky Lime as a “perfect lawnmower beer,” which felt like a pretty accurate description for a hot North Carolina afternoon. But the beer that surprised me most was Mean Girl, a blackberry dragon fruit kettle sour that landed somewhere between tart and refreshing without going overboard.
And just like that, the tour—and the afternoon—was officially underway.
From there, we made the short walk over to Crank Arm Brewing. Our group was greeted with a flight presentation served on a board designed like bicycle spokes—very on-brand for a brewery built around cycling culture.
The flight of five beers featured a hazy IPA, a cranberry kettle sour, an altbier, and two of the group’s favorites—a peach wheat beer and a sea salt and lime lager. Now, I don’t want to get too descriptive about the beers because, as Hollis points out, they’ll change throughout the seasons—so what I have today, you might not have tomorrow.
Our third stop brought us to Flying Bull Beer Company, which included a small twist—a cocktail sample alongside the beers. This lineup included a Scotch ale, a West Coast IPA, a Czech-style pilsner, and a cocktail called the Curious Journey, made with gin, rosemary fig simple syrup, and lemon juice. It probably didn’t hurt that we paired the drinks with loaded tots and roasted Brussels sprouts, which were easily some of the best bites of the afternoon.
Our final stop was Atomic Clock Brewing Co. The lineup included Absolute Zero, their Cold IPA, followed by San Junipero, a wheat beer brewed with juniper and cardamom, giving it a slightly botanical twist. The final beer of the afternoon was Overmorrow, a traditional German-style bock—one of those classic malt-forward beers that feels like a fitting way to wrap up a long tasting run. These three beers were paired with a warm apple tart—which was a perfect ending to our Durham adventure.
For $75, Drafts of the Bull delivers a surprisingly full afternoon. You get a two-plus-hour guided walk through downtown Durham, a little history of the city, about 15 beer samples, one cocktail, and light food along the way.
More importantly, you get a wide range of beer styles in a short amount of time—from pilsners and West Coast IPAs to kettle sours, wheat beers, and a traditional bock. It’s an easy way to explore Durham’s beer scene without having to plan your own brewery crawl. And like any good beer tour, the lineup changes throughout the year depending on what breweries are pouring that season.
