Nora McGunnigle

I've gone to two beer dinners this week - one was $30 and one was $100. (disclaimer: I did not pay for either.) As is obvious from the price point differential, the two dinners were on two sides of the cuisine and experience spectrum. Ale (the beer bar on Oak Street) hosted a Goose Island beer dinner on Tuesday. Since Goose Island is owned by AB-Inbev, that's a very good reason for the price of the dinner to be so inexpensive.

Upon returning back to real life and reflecting upon the Beer Blogger's conference last month, I have come to the conclusion that: 1) San Diego is awesome and four days to explore the beer culture there is just starting to scratch the surface; and 2) I love hanging out with my beer geek tribe. Meeting folks from all over, united by beer, and having pimp beer experiences together is the best.

Bayou Teche's collaboration with French brewery La Bambelle I've been working with Propaganda New Orleans for a couple months - it's an opportunity to write more about what I really love and use a writing style and tone that I can't really use when writing my more newsy and reporting pieces. The piece, " Ladies Who Love Beer In What's (Traditionally) A Man's Man's Man's World ," was published yesterday and I have gotten some great feedback from other women. It really seems that my words resonated with people and seeing that is so rewarding in a way that I wasn't expecting. The experience has shown me that being a writer isn't just about selling my ideas and writing articles, but about people reading what I write. This is a huge revelation!

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!