Nora McGunnigle

A few weeks ago I got an email from Irish blogger/writer Seamus Murphy, who writes for Trenditionist  and had recently been to Belgium. He wanted to know if I'd publish his account of visiting St. Feullien . Since I'm not going to be going there myself in the foreseeable future, I figured I'd take the opportunity to share this with my blog audience.  (all photographs are courtesy of Seamus Murphy.) It's interesting (and a little sad to me) that Americans are still thought of as crappy beer drinkers, regardless of the fact that we have a huge number of craft breweries throughout the country.  Also, when he start talking about the start of their St. Feullien tour experience, it made me think a little bit about this April Fools post from earlier this year which is hilarious.   Thanks, Seamus!

Tin Roof's new seasonal out in cans I started a new column for Propaganda New Orleans, called "Hopaganda" (see what I did there?) and I'm really excited about working with them. It'll be a much more laid back style of writing, maybe like one step up from this blog in tone, but a step down from the informational, interview-heavy reporting that I have been focusing on. This column focuses on my memories and thoughts about the beer scene here as a New Orleans transplant back in 2010.

This weekend was the Gambit-sponsored FestivALES, their second beer pub crawl. The one in May down in the Warehouse District had too many "crafty" beers for my tastes , but this one on Freret Street had much more consistently good beers. I don't think I tried much I haven't had before, but every single Louisiana brewery currently producing (Abita, Bayou Teche, Chafunkta, Covington, NOLA Brewing, Parish, and Tin Roof) were represented as well as neighboring breweries that have a significant presence here, Lazy Magnolia (MS) and Saint Arnold (TX.)

Wayfare on Freret Street This week my story on Lauren Salazar from New Belgium Brewing went up on The Alcohol Professor. This was a fun one to write. She's super cool and fun to hang out with and her love of beer and life is contagious! I also did a writeup of last week's Boudin, Bourbon, & Beer event focusing on the Abita cask ale garden. And there's something cool in the works with a national beer magazine that I can't quite talk about yet, but I'm pretty psyched!

This week's Brewsday Tuesday focuses on the upcoming Bayou Beer Festival, with a hat tip to the other beer festival happening on the 16th, the Gambit's FestivALES.

On Sunday I had a great opportunity to enjoy the beautiful afternoon (well, beautiful if you weren't watching the Saints game) out on the upper balcony at the Avenue Pub.

Did a photo shoot at Restaurant August for an upcoming article in Southern Brew News Hope everyone had a great Halloween! I know the weekend ahead is still the holiday weekend, sort of, so stay safe and drink well. I am sort of a fuddy-duddy when it comes to Halloween - living in Salem, MA for 5 years can do that to a person. But at least now I enjoy being Halloween-adjacent, if not quite celebratory.