Nora McGunnigle

So, Mardi Gras has come and gone. It was a whirlwind of awesome, as usual. Definitely some somber notes, but that's New Orleans life, partying through the pain. I did a fun interview with Polly Watts about how things are at the Avenue Pub during Mardi Gras. (spoiler: pretty crazy). And in Gambit news, I ran down a bunch of beers that were new in cans this Carnival , announced the new Bayou Teche-Dat Dog beer collaboration , and checked in to see how everything was going at the Snooty Cooter . Otherwise, things are settling down after ALL THE SHENANIGANS that Carnival brings.

Gnarly dudes at the Bulldog I was a bit out of commission yesterday, but as I rest up for New Orleans On Tap tomorrow (I'm one of the judges for the homebrew competition so I need to be there early with a well prepared palate!) I wanted to post the schedule for wrapping up Louisiana Craft Brewer Week this weekend. Looking forward to all the NOOT related shenanigans as well as the Bayou Teche event at the Avenue Pub. That jambalaya will be delicious, and allegedly will have rabbit in it. Saturday, September 27 11 a.m. : The Barley Oak holds its annual Louisiana Craft Beer Appreciation Day. 11:30 a.m .: All pitchers of Louisiana-brewed beer are $2 off at the Bulldog Mid City. 1 p.m. : The fifth annual New Orleans On Tap charity benefit for LA-SPCA, at the City Park Fairgrounds. New Orleans on Tap is a family and pet friendly beer festival that features free admission, live music, over 200 local and national beers, food, homebrew competition, games and giveaways. Go to ...

In exciting news, my cover story in All About Beer has been published! It's a feature length story about Bayou Teche Brewing, its connection to French farmhouse brewing, and a rundown on the history of the farmhouse brewing style.

Matt Horney (Old Rail), me, Zac Caramonta (Gnarly Barley), and Josh Erickson (Chafunkta) during ACBW at the Avenue Pub. Bad Blogspot! It crashed and wiped out my previous draft of this blog post. However, I now suspect that it may have sucked, so it may be for the best.

Ommegang seasonal at Coquette Almost at the end of ACBW, hope everyone is holding up OK! Yesterday afternoon/evening was gorgeous in New Orleans and today is shaping up to be the same. I'm heading over to the Avenue Pub to drink some of the newer, smaller, local breweries' beer this afternoon - hey, did y'all know that the Avenue balcony opens at 1pm on Fridays? - and then head over to Crescent Pie and Sausage. I saw a bunch of ACBW stuff around on social media, and I thought it would be fun to post through other folks' eyes (i.e., Twitter accounts).

Me at the Avenue during ACBW 2010. We moved to New Orleans that week. Which is why I look exhausted and why I have band-aids on my fingers - because I broke a dish while unpacking it. I thought I'd be all up in the middle of ACBW this year, having turned pro with the beer writing, but it turns out, I'm too busy actually writing about beer to go out and enjoy it. Heh. However! After I meet my deadlines today, I should be footloose and fancy free. I want to go to dba for the Bayou Teche shenanigans, but also there's a bunch of stuff happening on Freret Street, including a book signing at Midway of the New Orleans Beer book by Jeremy Labadie and Argyle Wolf-Knapp. Buffalo Wild Wings has a cool looking cask, and the Aline Street Beer Garden gets in the ACBW game tonight, too.

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...

Drinking a NOLA Brewing Rebirth Pale Ale while watching the Roots of Music band, which will be receiving a portion of the proceeds of the beer. I'm heading to Shreveport today to check out Great Raft and Red River Brewing, but before I go, a few things to share: Brewsday Tuesday article about Bayou Teche's collaboration beer with French brewery La Bambelle, Bayoust, which will be released at Lafayette's Festival International. Article on the founding of New Orleans' Girls Pint Out on the Alcohol Professor website. Great article in the NOLA Defender by Sam Nelson about the Cajun Fire folks.

So, I can't link the content to Beer Advocate February issue #85 , but look! My article on Bayou Teche is in it.

Son of a Peacherman collaboration between Fairhope Brewing and Druid City, both AL breweries First of all, congrats to Chris Paylor who won a pair of tickets to the NOLA Eats King Cake Tasting by suggesting a pairing of NOLA Brewing's Seventh Street Wheat with Haydel's king cake, on my Facebook page. Though I won't be able to make the tasting, I'm pretty excited to check this pairing out before Mardi Gras. Second, Stein't Deli's Annual Beer Day is happening on Saturday! It involves a brewing demonstration and a bottle share. Also on Saturday: Abita's 2nd annual Abita on the Avenue, the Avenue in question is St. Charles. Go here to check it out .

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.

Winter beers are still my bread & butter right now: check out my writeup on the Alcohol Professor . I'm pretty sure next week I'll have yet another one published online. For my weekly Gambit column, I discussed Parish Brewing's upcoming Grand Reserve Barleywine release .

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.

Saint Arnold beer dinner at Domenica last week I've got a new post up on The Alcohol Professor about my GABF experience . It's been a while since I had the opportunity to contribute to them, but hopefully I'll have more stuff published there soon. Almanac Brewing's founder Jesse Friedman also published a post about a brewer's take on GABF , which was cool. This week's Brewsday Tuesday focuses on the two new breweries in Shreveport , Great Raft and Red River, who have just been licensed by the state to start brewing. ( NOLA.com also ran a piece on the new Shreveport breweries) I also had a post published about a couple beer dinners happening this week - last night's at Dat Dog and tonight's NOLA Brewing dinner at Delmonico.

My time in Denver for GABF was incredible and overwhelming and SO MUCH. I went to some great places while there: Euclid Kitchen (where we had lunch our first day and went to a great Deschutes "carnival"), Great Divide , Falling Rock , Freshcraft , Hogshead , Hops & Pie , and Lucky Pie Pizza & Tap Room . There were special promotions from breweries, especially Colorado breweries. I got a lot of info from friends and colleagues, and also this website . I'll hopefully be publishing my adventures in more detail shortly, so I'll be sure to link that next week. Garrett Oliver pouring beer at GABF for Brooklyn Brewery

It has been a crazy week - I can't believe it was only one week ago yesterday that we were hanging out with the Bayou Teche guys, one of whom was dressed as Napoleon. I had some really cool experiences during this week, some of which I'll be expanding upon in the near future (either here or other publications). But for right now, here are some highlights: 1.

Several weeks ago I was contact by North Carolina blogger Bryan Roth , who has been working on what he calls " The Six Pack Project ." The idea is to select six beers that are in bottles or cans to properly represent the craft brewing culture of the state of Louisiana.

Yesterday, Bayou Teche kicked off Louisiana Craft Brewer Week by bringing a pot of jambalaya and a couple beers to the Avenue Pub. According to brewmaster Gar Hatcher, the newly released honey braggot Miel Sauvage is a blend of two batches - one aged for 100 days in whiskey barrels and one aged for two months in fresh oak barrels.

The NOLA taproom opened this week! I have been keeping busy working on a couple pieces for the Gambit and Where Y'At as well as hustling doing pitches for other publications, which is why I haven't been able to write a blog post about the awesome Bayou Teche beer dinner I had at Sainte Marie Brasserie last week (a week ago today, actually.) I'm really hoping to get that up with some pictures in the near future, because it was pretty kickass. The chef, Kristen Essig, was so warm and welcoming and so excited about the pairings! It was great. ANYWAY, for your links du jour:

My new print column! First of all, per last week's breathless announcement , here is the link to my Inside Northside article.  http://www.insidenorthside.com/craft-beer-revolution/ . Also, my Brewsday Tuesday post , which will be published in the upcoming print version.