Nora McGunnigle

So, holy crap, Pretty Things Beer And Ale Project (originally from Somerville, MA, our old stomping grounds) is now apparently being kinda-sorta distributed in New Orleans! First, for American Craft Beer Week, the Avenue Pub did a tasting of two beers released through their "Once Upon A Time" project. This particular project was the result of a collaboration with beer historian Ron Pattinson, and examined what happens when you brew the same Mild "X" beer as it was brewed in both 1838 and 1945. From their website: Two X Ales from the same London brewery, 107 years apart: these beers were brewed and sold as the “same beer”. But they weren’t the same beer at all! This side-by-side release allows you to taste history in a very direct, beat-you-about-the-head kind of way. The beers are whoppingly, fantastically different. There’s no way you would think they are connected by the same brewery, brand name and style. Isn’t history wonderful?  We first tasted these b...

If NOLA Brown is Tom's favorite session beer, mine has to be the 2.4% dynamo brewed by gypsy brewer wunderkind Mikkeller. Called Drink'in the Sun, it's a hoppy wheat beer that has gorgeous citrus hop aroma, a light body that is pale gold, and the wheat style is heavily influenced by the bitterness of the hops, merging those characteristic tropical fruit notes of a wheat beer with the floral hop flavor very successfully.  The wheat/malt also balanced the bitterness of the hops beautifully. Dry finish. Could literally drink this all day. (and cannot wait to have the opportunity to do so once again.) I mean, this beer is genius. To have such a light bodied, light colored, light ABV beer that is so complex yet simply easy to drink all day long. This is what can be done with session beers! Why don't more brewers do it? One thing of note- the hop aroma and citrus flavors muted quite quickly after being tapped, so the second day on was not as transcendentally wonderful...

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!

Thanks to the tireless work of the beer leaders in the Greater New Orleans area, there are some excellent beers coming to market here in the coming weeks and months! On August 17, Ommegang Brewing is debuting at the Avenue Pub. This is a beer I've had access to up in New England, and I'll be happy to see it again in bars and stores. The rollout event will be taking place at the Avenue Pub and promises "a lot of great beers including just one keg of their special release Aphrodite and one sneak peak keg of a new brew from Duvel." News just broke on a few more newcomers to the market: Stillwater Artisanal Ales , a " gypsy " brewer based in the Baltimore area. Their website is a Blogger blog format (like this one) so it's a little awkward to navigate, but the beers look awesome and seem well reviewed on BA. They definitely seem like they have an exciting approach to brewing so I will cut them some slack on how they message, heh. Also "gypsy brewer...