Nora McGunnigle

Stopped by NOLA Brewing today to do some planning for the Brooklyn Mash panel discussion, The State of Craft Beer , that I'm introducing (check out my bio photo here , it's hilarious yet awesome.) While there, I saw all four new bomber bottles for the NOLA Funk series for Lowerline, Sauvage, Arabella, and Piety. [ Update 3/12: My bad! The bottles at the brewery are the prototypes, and have not been filled yet. The first big batch of beer from the new sour facility, Lowerline, will be available in about 3-4 weeks. That will be followed by Sauvage, Piety, then Arabella. All should be out in bottles in the next few months. Sorry, there's still a little while to wait.]

Brooklyn MASH has left the city after their whirlwind tour spreading beer, food, music, art, comedy, and general good times.

Note from Nora : Tom's back with a report from the Brooklyn MASH "Beer School" event with Brooklyn Brewing's Technical Director Mary Wiles. I'll be providing a wrap up of the rest of the events I attended in the next couple of days. Mary Wiles with David Blossman, Mark Burlet, Steve Hindy, and Kirk Coco When she worked for Anheuser-Busch, Mary Wiles, now Technical Director at Brooklyn Brewery, was responsible for Bud Light Lime, but she asks people not to hold that against her. On April 2nd, 2014, she held court in the upstairs bar at the Avenue Pub to share her extensive knowledge of brewing with anyone who wanted to listen. As is typically the case at any craft beer event, there were plenty of people interested in learning more about beer. Beer geeks seem to have an almost exhausting thirst for information.

I was finally able to get my hands on the current issue of Louisiana Kitchen & Culture, where my article on the Avenue Pub has been published! Note: I did not write the title Love this picture! This isn't available digitally, so go to Rouses or Barnes & Noble to check it out.

I have a new and diabolical (OK, not really so much with the diabolical) plan to post a weekly roundup of beer related links I find interesting. This post will likely appear every Thursday or Friday. If you have links you'd like me to include, please email me at nora(at)nolabeerblog(dot)com or share your link in the comments below.

Another day, another 6 different beers sampled. The Avenue Pub held its "Funky Town" sour beer sampling event. They had ten different sour/wild beers on deck, both served on draft and in the bottle. I bought a sample pour ticket and selected the following four: Hill Farmstead / Fantome Five Sciences Collaboration .-  Tasting Notes: When this beer arrived it was not ready to pour. Shelton brothers told us to cellar it for at least two months to allow the re-fermentation process to complete. Many shops put this beer on their shelves right away so people that tasted it then will have tried a completely different beer. Made with Fantome’s famous wild yeast strains it has subtle grapeskin flavors and a lacing of smoke, strong carbonation and lightly tart. Nora's Notes: A very delicate and subtly complex beer, practically dissolving on the tongue as soon as I took a sip. This was a beer that I would have liked to have more time and ounces to get acquainted with. I defini...

This past week has been much less beer-centric than usual. I had many awesome food experiences which I'll be writing about on my other blog, norainnola.com this week. However, in the course of having lunch at Byblos on Magazine Street this week (I was checking out their overhauled menu) I caught a glimpse of their new tap list, which is much improved from their previous incarnation down the street. Got local beer represented, like Canebrake and Abita, regional with the Saint Arnold's Santo, larger national microbrews like Magic Hat #9 and Brookyn's Sorachi Ace, and yes, the Redd's is a Miller-Coors apple ale that sounds terrible (though to be fair, I have not tried it) it's more interesting than sticking a tap of Miller Lite or Blue Moon up there. I like seeing these random tap lists at places you wouldn't think would have stuff like this. I think it speaks to a shift to more local restaurants taking chances on craft beer that would previously not had t...

I may have expressed my excitement previously about my favorite neighborhood bistro, Coquette, having a special dinner with all you can eat fried chicken, greens, watermelon, mashed potatoes, creole tomatoes, cornbread, coleslaw, accompanied by delicious beers. It was pretty much the best night ever. Talked to really nice and cool folks, ate great food (in addition to the above, there were passed apps that included shrimp, deviled eggs, and this amaaaaaaazing boudin wrapped in collard greens and cut up to sort of approximate sushi rolls) and drank some very nice beer that was well suited to the hot summer evening. We were greeted with a Lil' Slammer, which was a cute way to start, and having just walked in from the heat, it went down nice and easy.  Then as we wandered, we found the beer table pouring Stoudt's Karnival Kolsch and Anchor's Brekles Brown. Everyone was super nice, and after talking with a fellow ChowHound (Sanglier) and his guests for a bit, we found...

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...

Since we are feeling the pinch from unexpected last minute international travel, our going out has been curtailed somewhat. But we did get out to the Avenue Pub for a friend's birthday and I tried two interesting beers while there. First was the Stillwater Autumnal- a malty, somewhat funky farmhouse ale.  There was a nice spiciness, and I thought I caught a bit of grape/wine taste up front, (looks like it was aged in Burgundy casks, which would explain that) and it had a nice dry finish.  Refreshing, tasty, and nicely challenging. Second was Brooklyn Brewery's The Companion, which was brewed to celebrate Garrett Oliver's work as editor-in-chief for the Oxford Companion to Beer.  According the the Brooklyn Brewery blog , Thomas created special new floor malts for The Companion, which is brewed in an old style called “wheat wine”, a wheat-based equivalent to barley wine. The floor malts give this beer a juicy malt character of considerable depth, 55% malted wheat give...

Had a couple super awesome beers, as usual, last night at the Avenue Pub . Cask Ale was Brooklyn Brewing Pennant Ale, which is one of my favorite Brooklyn beers (not available widely here, sadly) and it is just EXCELLENT on cask. Also amazing: Mikkeller Drink in the Sun, a hoppy kolsch at only 2.3% ABV. It is SO good and SO drinkable and simply one of the best session beers I have ever had on this side of the Atlantic. We loved it. We managed to sneak in a couple from the Lowlands as well: Draeckenier from De Proefbrouwerij in Belgium,a smooth drinking tripel with a lovely complexity and subtlety. Also a Christoffel Bier, a German style pilsener from a Dutch brewery called Bierbrouwerij Sint Christoffel B.V. Really nice. Good work, Polly & Co!

So, summer in New Orleans. It's damn hot and you need a good summer beer (or variety thereof) to get you through it. Last night I tried some interesting summer-appropriate beers (at the Avenue Pub, 'course.) First up: NOLA's Hurricane Saison dryhopped with Grains of Paradise. An interesting cask ale. I really like this year's batch of their Saison, which is excellent for the weather already, and the grains of paradise added a earthy spiciness to balance the belgian yeast flavors. Next up: I was intrigued by the new Brooklyn Brewing "The Concoction" which I guess is based on a cocktail called the Penicillin from some schmancy cocktail bar up in NYC. It's a scotch based cocktail, and the beer interpretation is straight up BANANAS. There aren't actually bananas or banana flavor or aroma in this beer, but that's probably the only thing missing from the ingredient list. It's brewed with a peat smoked malt, which gives it a very smoky finish, a...

I SWEAR TO GOD, TOM IS MAKING ME LISTEN TO THAT DAMN SONG RIGHT NOW. I WILL KILL HIM. LATER. Anyway. It may come as a surprise that I don't actually sit around and analyze all my beers as I drink them all the time. For example, I had several very nice beers this evening (NOT at the WYES VIP beer thingie , can you believe they never got back to me about my press pass request???) And I drank 'em up without taking any mental notes. Here are the beverages I enjoyed: Brooklyn EIPA (which is always a good hot weather beer to start with), followed by an Aphrodisiaque from Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel, an absolutely yummy stout with vanilla, caramel, cocoa, coffee notes all roasty and smokey. (First on the list of beers here .) I finished at the Avenue with the Page 24 Biere De Printemps, (check it out here ) which was crazy excellent. It's a beer de garde from Brasserie Saint-Germain. Highly recommend. Drink any and all of these beers whenever you see them. DRINK THEM! I know I...

Picked a bottle of this at Cork & Barrel a few months ago after Avenue Pub's Brooklyn Brewery's tasting. Sorachi Ace wasn't part of the tasting that night, but it was discussed. At that time I'd actually not heard of the Sorachi Ace hop, a rare Japanese grown hop. During American Craft Beer Week, NOLA Brewing dryhopped their Blonde Ale with Sorachi Ace as part of their dryhop vertical series, following their excellent Blonde Ale dryhopped with Sorachi Ace cask ale a few weeks previously. It's a beautiful color- a golden light orange with a white head that stayed throughout my enjoyment of the beer. It's spicy and faintly herbal, with a lemon citrus aroma. Easy drinking and a dry finish. The style is a saison and the spiciness specific to the Belgian yeast works with the spiciness of the Sorachi Ace hops in a truly unique but very satisfying and drinkable way. I drank this one slowly, savoring it. My opinion, it's a very special beer, and a good on...

I am not sure if ACBW officially begins today or tomorrow, but the Avenue Pub kicked it off this afternoon with a couple new beers from St. Arnold Brewing Company - the latest in their Divine Reserve limited series (a double IPA,) and their Weedwacker, which is their Fancy Lawnmower Kolch brewed with a Hefeweizen yeast. I've been waiting for a St. Arnold beer to really impress me, and this one did. It was the perfect beer to quench the thirst of a bike ride over with actual flavor to enjoy at the same time. It has a increased hop presence, which made for an enticing aroma. The citrus and floral hop notes combined with the banana-clove smell of the hefe yeast was quite lovely. The combination of the yeast and the hops also translated into the flavor profile as well. A light, flavorful, really interesting beer. I love it when I find a beer like that! So, St. Arnold, well done. I only had a sip of Tom's St. Arnold Divine Reserve Double IPA , but it was definitely a hop bomb p...

This week has included a lot of beer as well as a lot of cocktails. Um, and wine. And work! Wednesday, we attended a Brooklyn Brewery tasting at The Avenue. Mike Vitale, the first employee hired by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter as a sales person back in the earliest days of the company, came to talk about Brooklyn's beers. We were running a little late, so we missed some of his discussion about the history. But that was OK, since we'd both read Hindy and Potter's book: "Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery" which goes into all that. I recommend it for any beer lover- though slightly technical about the nuts and bolts about brewing and business. We were able to get 4 (out of 8 available) samples. I had (in this order): Black Ops, their Russian Imperial Stout, which they are very cute about "disavowing knowledge" of. It was good. It's bottled flat and then re-fermented in the bottle with Champagne yeast, and then aged in bourbon ba...