The headline of this critique is somewhat misleading, due to the fact that it’s very hard to rate just local beers since only a few here and there share the same characteristics. A tasting of India Pale Ales would have yielded the most beers to taste, but still only five or so would have been available. Instead, the tasting panel drank 10 different local beers of varying types, less to rate them and more to convince students that the local industry is booming and producing good stuff. The tasting took place at the Flying Saucer, which serves flights, or tastes, of beers and has a decent offering of local beers. Tasters rated things like smoothness and how well the beer fit its taste profile, like stout, porter, etc., but because of the nature of the tasting, those things turned out to be secondary. The most important thing is that no taster hated any of the beers, and all of them walked away from the tasting with one or two new beers on their top-10 list. The bottom line is this: North Carolina beers, in general, rock. More than a dozen brewers produce a range of pale ales, porters, IPA’s, stouts, brown ales, golden ales and others. There’s one for every beer drinker, from the novice to the snob — and what better way to support the N.C. economy than drinking local beer? Just remember to do it legally and responsibly.