Nora McGunnigle

Preparing for the speed drinking madness that awaited us The Beer Blogger's Conference, held this year in San Diego, is a heady, um, brew of beer geeks, beer geek enablers, free beer, lots of information, and then also some beer. While I will be providing a more complete overview, I wanted to start out with the most intense (and my favorite) event of the conference, Live Beer Blogging. I recapped last year's  here , and used a lot of tweets to capture it. And I'm doing it again!

Saturday was the main educational component of the Beer Bloggers Conference. For the entire morning we had sessions like "The Current State of Beer Blogging Survey Results" and "Mechanics of Beer Pouring" while conversing on Twitter. I particularly enjoyed the panel of "industry" bloggers - bloggers and social media gurus working for breweries. It gave an intriguing view of the different paths this blogging thing could potentially lead to, if an independent blogger was interested in making that switch.

I just found out about a whole host of food-craft beer pairings that are happening this week at the Irish House . Chopped winner chef Matt Murphy has created a small plate to pair with a specific American craft beer for every night this week, starting tonight. All pairings are $11. Monday, May 13: Stone Ruination IPA served with an Irish cheese plate Tuesday, May 14: Ommegang Abbey Ale with fish & chips Wednesday, May 15: Harpoon IPA with truffled chicken Thursday, May 16: Green Flash West Coast IPA with baked redfish Friday, May 17: Rogue Dead Guy Ale with corned beef & cabbage Saturday, May 18: Anchor Steam with bacon & cheese croquettes Sunday, May 19: Covington Strawberry Ale with BBQ oysters Also on Thursday, May 16, the Irish House will be hosting a three course beer dinner with NOLA Brewing. It's $45 and starts at 7pm. Limited seating, call 504-595-6755 for reservations. Here's the menu:

Chef Lopez and Root's management staff have decided to have the one dinner in August so they can really focus on it, and it will be on August 27 (not the previously stated date of two weeks previous). AUGUST 27!  BE THERE! SO THEY WILL DO MORE! I've changed my previous post to reflect the accurate information.

After the Times-Picayune article by Todd Price came out profiling me as a beer blogger and Root as a restaurant that valued the pairing of beer with fine food, we (me and the guys at Root) came together to talk about promoting/expanding/improving their beer menu. Root decided to host a beer dinner on August 27th. They invited me to choose the beer pairings based on the menu that Chef Lopez put together! Obviously a huge honor for me as well as an extremely fun project. See below for the menu with the pairings. Many of the courses chosen are Root's most lauded dishes - the stars of their menu. Although I was given free reign to request any beer that is distributed in this market, I wanted to show how their beer menu as it is now complements the regular food menu. The dinner will $75 per person, not inclusive of tax and gratuity. The beer will be served in five ounce portions. Reservations will be available by phone (504-252-9480) only for seatings at 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, 8:30,...

OK, so you missed the first Coquette beer dinner .  It's all right, you didn't know any better.  Now you do!  So call the restaurant for reservations ASAP (504-265-0241) for the upcoming Fried Chicken And Beer Dinner on Tuesday, June 26 at 7:00pm . Behold! the menu: Passed Hors D'oeuvres & Ponies Collard Green and Boudin "Grapeleaves" Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs Pickled Gulf Shrimp Accompanying beers: Anchor Brekle's Brown, Stoudt's Kolsch, and Wasatch Little Slammer Family Style Fried Chicken Dinner Three Varieties of Fried Chicken Collard Greens Potato Salad Cole Slaw Heirloom Tomatoes Watermelon Salad Mashed Potatoes Accompanying beers:  Brooklyn Sorachi Ace and Rogue Dead Guy Dessert Peach Crisp Chocolate Pecan Tart Summer Berry Shortcake Accompanying beer:  Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout OK SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, THIS WILL BE EPIC.  (possibly I love fried chicken a little too much, hence, e...

Inspired by Polly Watts' list posted on the Avenue Pub's Facebook page: 1) Cantillon Iris. A gueuze that has been brewed with hops instead of wheat. Tart, sharp, a subtle hop bitterness on the finish. The sour and atypical bitterness marry well. Very refreshing while retaining the traditional gueuze sour characteristics. Recommended for sour lovers and sour skeptics alike. 2) Cantillon Zwanze 2010. More tart than sour, well balanced, crisp, refreshing, mild tartness and subtle. Like a belgian berlinerweiss. Wheat is turned all the way up. Smooth. Biscuits and lemon juice. Dances over the tongue leaving a trail of tartness behind. (I know it's something that won't be around to have again, but it was just that good.) 3) Mikkeller Drink In The Sun. Best session beer in the country. Wouldn't know it was less than 3%, the taste is much bigger than that. 4) Rogue Brutal Bitter: Balanced but very flavorful, like an amped up ESB. An interesting beer to say the least. It...

Over the causeway and through the woods... Tom and I went to Mandeville to pick up some excellent beers being donated for the Beers Not Bullets fundraiser that's happening THIS FRIDAY ( Have you got your tickets yet??? ). Driving across the causeway always makes me feel so sleepy. Doubly so on the way back after having stopped at the Barley Oak Old World Draught House . The Barley Oak is a big supporter of the event, so I've been going back and forth with them via email about sponsorship stuff. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to go visit the place after all our communication! The location was beautiful and it was an ideal day to go. It's right on the edge of the lakeside so it was just blue sky and water as far as the eye could see. We ate and drank inside, but it was breezy enough to enjoy a beer out on the patio in the shade very comfortably. Tom said that it reminded him of an English pub- especially the wallpaper that covered about half of the interior ...

I had a couple really good beers this evening at da Avenue Pub. Very different but extremely delicious. First was the Rogue Brutal Bitter. Balanced but very flavorful, like an amped up ESB. I ended up getting a growler of it to take home. (hooray growlers!) An interesting beer to say the least. It's a cross between the hoppiness of an IPA and the smoothness of an ESB. Apparantly in recent releases it's been renamed "Brutal IPA" which I think is misleading, because as IPAs go, it's not brutal at all. "Brutal Bitter" sums up the style quite nicely, a bitter with some West Coast OOMPH. A delightful discovery! The other beer of note that I had was the Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, a raspberry lambic from the very highly regarded Cantillon brewery in Belgium. These people make amazing beers, and I hope to drink more of them in the future. This particular beer is incredibly sophisticated, complex, and exploding with fruit notes and funk and amazing flav...

Hooray, the culmination of New Orleans' ACBW celebration occurred yesterday with the Avenue Pub's Super Saturday beer tasting. $20 got you a ticket for 12 4-oz samples, with the opportunity for up to three bonus pours if you could produce receipts from other ACBW events. Which, of course, we could. So 15 pours! Let me see if I can remember what I had... NOLA Sorachi Dry Hopped Blonde NOLA Citra Dry Hopped Blonde NOLA Amarillo Dry Hopped Blonde NOLA Centennial Dry Hopped Blonde NOLA Cascade Dry Hopped Blonde Rogue Dad's Little Helper Black IPA (on cask) Brooklyn Cuvee de Noire Rogue John John Whiskey Barrel Aged Dead Guy Ale Stone Highway 78 (Green Flash/Pizza Port Collaboration) Red Brick Dog Days Hoppy Heffe Rogue Capt. Sig's Northwestern Deadliest Ale Abita Abbey Ale (on cask) Moylan's ESB (on nitro) Brooklyn EIPA (on cask) Moylander Imperial IPA My thoughts: I just loved the entire NOLA hop variety vertical, served over 2 different ACBW sessions. Listening t...