Nora McGunnigle

I've been playing around with my camera and have a few cool shots that actually came out well, as well as a couple that are kinda blurry. Once I get access to (and knowledge of) some photo editing software, I'll fix up the blurrier ones. A bit of a blurry shot of all the brewers at the Irish House Emilyand Cari taking pictures of the brewers

The Tin Roof Single Hop Series at the Avenue Pub on Tuesday Things started ramping up last night- went to Avenue Pub to try the Tin Roof single hop series and its experimental sour beer, then off to the Bulldog Mid City to get my hands on the Chafunkta-Gnarly Barley collaboration, Black Tooth Grin. If you missed the collaboration last night, fear not, it's on at the Avenue Pub tonight at 4pm. Should be a fun night all around, see below for everything that's happening - and don't forget to keep checking on my schedule for the week's events . I've been updating it daily over the past week.  Tonight's events: Wednesday, September 24 11 a.m. : Happy hour prices on all Covington Brewhouse beer all day at the Columbia Street Tap Room 4 p.m. : Chafunkta/Gnarly Barley  Black Tooth Grin  collaboration party at the Avenue Pub. 5 p.m. : Abita cask, Pumpkin & Peach SOS, at the Bulldog Mid City. 5 p.m. : Parish Brewing visits the Avenue Pub. Tapping Export...

Another successful ACBW in the books. Avenue Pub had a 16% increase (in either volume or sales, I'm not sure) over last year. Lots of events, lots of beer, lots of breweries, lots of fun. I'm a bit fried. So here are some other people's brainthoughts.

Variety of beer from Local's Night at the Avenue Pub The local's night at the Avenue Pub was a lot of fun. A bunch of the brewers were there and I especially enjoyed the double dry hopped Catahoula Common by Gnarly Barley. Also the Off the Tracks and (to my surprise) the 40 Arpent stout on cask with ginger and wasabi. The crowd was lively but friendly and although the beer professionals in attendance seemed pretty weary from their week, they were awesome. OK, for today, this is important - the Avenue Pub Grand Tasting actually starts at 1pm, not 3pm as previously reported. In fact, there's a bunch of stuff on tap right now that's available downstairs, so... no need to wait, get on out there!

The upstairs offerings of last night's Barrel Aged night at the Avenue Pub (photo courtesy of the Avenue Pub's FB page ) Got out yesterday to the Avenue Pub for the barrel aged event, and it was MAD JAM PACKED. Literally, the line for the upstairs bar's beers went out the door and down the stairs. I was able to grab an Evil Twin Double Barreled Jesus (though I was wondering if Evil Twin counts as American Craft Beer) and an Against The Grain London Balling barleywine aged in "Angel's Share" barrels previously used to age ruby port wine. It was a pretty interesting beer. I also got a chance to try one of Bayou Teche's special ACBW beers, Coteau Rodaire. I liked it a lot- it's a farmhouse/saison style aged in French Sauvignon Blanc barrels. Little bit of funk, very drinkable, but with a pleasant complexity.

Kirk Coco and Peter Caddoo at SAVOR, an event dedicated to showcasing American Craft Beer OK, I confess. I didn't go out last night for American Craft Beer Week. But it's a marathon, not a sprint, and I plan to go to two events tonight: The Avenue Pub's Barrel Aged Night, celebrating the best of barrel aged beers (of primarily bourbon barrels.) Here are the beers featured:

Cookies from 40 Arpent's ribbon cutting ceremony last week. May Day! And that means that American Craft Beer Week is almost upon us. It is also Jazz Fest. And Savor American Craft Beer and Food Experience is happening in Washington DC. And a new brewery, Gnarly Barley, is opening. April was also pretty crazy with the Brew Dogs hitting town, Festival International happening in Lafayette, and a bunch of new restaurants opening and other restaurants expanding. I have a new gig! I'm writing features for Eater New Orleans . Some of them are straight up food writing, but I've also started a new recurring feature called Beer Here! which covers restaurants' beer lists, etc. In a testament to the tail-eating snake that is online media today, Todd Price of NOLA.com/Times Picayune did an aggregate story on the work I'm doing on a primarily aggregate website. (Aggregate: pretty much where you round up cool stories and direct your audience to them - much like this blog...

My Christmas gift to you is lots of interesting articles about beer! Bayou Teche's Karlos Knott sitting behind a pint glass full of cracklins, because why not.

Apologies for not getting these out yesterday, but I've been under the weather. This week was a two-fer for me in the Gambit: my feature article on Louisiana Craft Brewer Week and my regular Brewsday Tuesday column on the Avenue Pub's badass events in the recent past and near future. I also suggest you investigate my other blog to read about local eatery Salu's Oktoberfest kick off pig roast that's happening tomorrow, Saturday 9/21 for both lunch and dinner. Also, check this blog out for my writeup on the new NOLA Brewing taproom as well as suggestions as to how to help get the word out about it on national beer sites. Speaking of NOLA Brewing, Thrillist named it the best craft brewery in Louisiana in their story choosing the best craft brewery for every state. And also speaking of Louisiana Craft Brewer Week above, Todd Price did a great writeup in NOLA.com in which he spoke with local brewers like NOLA Brewing and Gnarly Barley. Love it! I am so ...

There's a beer-focused fundraiser (OK, also wine and food) happening in Mandeville on August 23, 7-10pm at Benedict's Plantation (1144 North Causeway Blvd.) The big news (from my perspective) is that Chafunkta Brewing has announced that they will be debuting a brand new beer at the fundraiser. It's still a mystery right now, but Josh Erickson, head brewer, gave this as a hint:  "We wanted to bring our passion for quality, craft beer to a larger audience. We selected a style that, to our knowledge, is not currently being commercially brewed in Louisiana. It's one that we think will appeal to a broader market, but the style is one that still takes quite a bit of care to brew correctly."

For the last week or so, ever since returning from NYC/Savor ( with the exception of my wild WYES weekend ) I've been working on a story for a lovely local magazine called Inside Northside , which focuses on Northshore business, art, and lifestyle. This means several trips up to Mandeville, Covington, Slidell, and Hammond over the last week or so.

This Friday and Saturday are the WYES fundraising beer events: Friday's Private Beer Sampling and Saturday's International Beer Festival.

I have done a lot of travelling this fall (which is kind of weird, for me) and as you might imagine, I tend to focus on beer-related activities while on the road. I have enjoyed many beers and breweries and beer bars over the past two months and would like to share what I've learned and seen. (and eaten and drank) First trip was to San Francisco. My trip to the Bay Area in early October was short and sweet, so I didn't get to go to the many beer places in the city. (Note: I've gone to the Anchor Brewing tour on a previous trip in 2009, as well as Monk's Kettle, Alembic, Toronado, and Magnolia, as well as outside of the city, where of course there's Russian River, as well as Bear Republic, Silverado, Moylans, Anderson Valley, North Coast, 3rd Street Ale Works, Calistoga Brewery, etc. We enjoyed excellent beer service at the French Laundry as well during that trip.) But this past trip, my primary beer activity was focused on my pilgrimage to Toronado - but I was ab...

OK, this event was like three weeks ago, and I had so much fun talking to local brewers and other awesome folks, and I didn't even post anything in a timely fashion! Since I was out of town this past weekend and missed the rescheduled New Orleans on Tap (as well as the Outlaw Homebrew Festival in Hattiesburg, MI, which John from the Keg and Barrel had invited me to judge) I figured I'd discuss the recent, more low-key local brewery and cheese/charcuterie event held on October 24 at the St. James Cheese Co. Peter Caddoo was there with a firkin of NOLA Brown ale, Gordon Biersch had something that was pretty unremarkable but fine. Gnarly Barley was there, and I hadn't met them yet. They had a very interesting rye beer, that was being called an IPA but didn't quite fit into that category, in my opinion. I think if they can call it something so that the IPA expectation isn't there, they'll have something. They also had a pretty decent coffee porter on tap. ...