Mason Jar Tavern buys Draft Line to open lager company

What comes next after running a pair of successful restaurants?

For The Mason Jar Tavern, the next step is brewing their own beer.

Jon Pierce, owner of the Mason Jar, and brewer Dave Haydysch bought equipment from Draft Line Brewing Company in Fuquay-Varina and plan to open The Mason Jar Lager Company in the East Broad Street location.

(Full disclosure: Adam Eshbaugh, host of the 919 Beer Podcast, works for The Mason Jar Tavern and is the general manager of their new lager company.)

As the name suggests, Mason Jar will be brewing lagers.

"I am incredibly excited to be brewing lagers," Haydysch said on the 919 Beer podcast. "I think the interesting thing that I think a lot of people either don't think about or have lost sight of is that lagers and ales, the two big beer groups, they're pretty similar.

"You can play around with a lager pretty much just like you can play around with an ale."

Ales are a popular beer style because they can end up on the extreme ends of flavor, from the palate-frying hops in some IPAs to the dark and roasty stouts. But, like Haydysch said, there's plenty of room to experiment with lagers, too.

The brewery will debut with a Helles and Bock, but there will also be an IPL—an India Pale Lager.

"(It's) kind of our answer to folks that have concerns that we won't have their IPA," Pierce said. "Most of the time we find that people just haven't ever had an IPL. They're life-changing if you get the right one."

Mason Jar Lager Company will have a taproom open to the public with their own Mason Jar Mobile food truck attached to the building. At first, the beer will be available on tap at the brewery and in the Mason Jar restaurants, but the crew will eventually can the suds.

Pending federal government approval and some construction, Pierce said The Mason Jar Lager company could be open in July or early August.