Nora McGunnigle

Beers we can get here, hooray! Last week, a new best of list came out from RateBeer.com . While of course user rated boards have their own issues, I thought this was a pretty solid list in general. Polly Watts at the Avenue Pub also pointed out that the list was based on reviews only in 2014, so it could be considered more a "what's hot" list, which might explain the few head scratching inclusions (no comment) and exclusions (Cantillon!!!!!!!!) But all in all, pretty good list. And like a third of it is available here, which is very cool, especially considering how sparse the selection was when I moved down here in 2010. So, I wrote my Gambit column on it, analyzing the trend a little, but I also wanted to post the list of all the stuff that New Orleans gets, either regularly or occasionally. Some of these you'll only see at the Avenue Pub and Stein's a couple times a year, but we get them. Here's the New Orleans/Southeast LA availability of the ...

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 .

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.

Reveillon Dinner at Restaurant August is a Christmas tradition of ours. In 2009, we were there for Christmas Night dinner, even before we moved here. It was so wonderful that it became a tradition for us right around the holiday- since they are no longer open on December 25, we shoot for Christmas Eve instead. Last year, we noticed that the beer list was pretty extensive but focused mostly on bottles from local breweries like Abita and Bayou Teche. Nothing too exciting, but, you know, August is more a wine-oriented fine food place so it wasn't a surprise to us. This year, though, we decided to take advantage of August's generous no-corkage-fee policy and bring some special beers we'd been saving. The Reveillon menu was online, so I was able to get an idea of the flavor profiles and chose accordingly. I brought a Lost Abbey Avant Garde bier de garde for the amuse and the first 2 courses, and Boulevard and Pretty Things' "Collaboration No. 3," a Yorkshire Stin...

Louisiana breweries have been getting some great press in the new year! Read about a Bostonian beer blogger's experience in New Orleans, especially at NOLA Brewing. Brenton Day AKA the Ale Runner updates us on what Andrew Godley and Parish Brewing are looking to accomplish in 2013. Jeremy "Beer Buddha" Labadie does his annual 2013 Mardi Gras roundup. NOLA.com explores the Old Rail's current bureaucratic limbo. Very cool to see more and more people talking about craft beer! A couple other items of note: NOLA Brewing is going to release Irish Channel Stout YEAR ROUND !  There will be an "Abita on the Avenue" pub crawl on Saturday that will feature several different kinds of very special cask ales. I want to try the Wooden Indian IPA, the Cask Conditioned Restoration Ale, and the ESB. ESB on cask! I hope it lives up to my expectations. It starts at the Avenue Pub at 3:30pm. I hope everyone turns out to support MORE CASK ALE in New Orleans! Ste...

Last week was the much anticipated Louisiana launch of the well-regarded San Diego brewery Green Flash . I'd been looking forward to it, especially since I'd had only limited exposure to it before moving-I think MA only had West Coast IPA, their flagship. The Avenue Pub did a three day rollout between June 19 and 21. Tom and I showed up on the last day of the rollout, when all the beers (even the bottles) were available for tasting. We each got a tasting ticket (5 tastes for $12) and proceeded to sample the list. Funny story- I started using the Untappd app recently and I started checking in all the beers we were sampling - since I was checking in both our beers and they were small amounts, I was doing so fairly rapidly. After the 4th or 5th check in, I got a message from my friend the Beer Buddha , saying, "Nora, slow down. Seriously!" Oops! I explained the logistics, got made fun of a little bit. On to the beers! Le Freak! First up: I had the Le Freak a...

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...

I've been to my share of high end beer dinners over the years. It was Will Meyers and the chefs at Cambridge Brewing Company that showed me how perfectly and skillfully beers could be paired with food. When we visited Northern California and had lunch at the esteemed French Laundry, our sommelier picked a great pairing of beers to complement Thomas Keller's food. When we moved to New Orleans, we enjoyed beer dinners at Donald Link's Calcasieu and Nathanial Zimet's Boucherie. They've all been great, and I've learned something important about beer and food at each one. I have never been to a beer dinner like the one I attended this past Thursday night at Coquette. When Jeff Schwartz, bar manager of Coquette, told me that when he and Chef Michael Stoltzfus sat down to plan the menu for the beer dinner, he realized that although beer can do almost anything wine can do and bette r , forcing a beer dinner into the wine dinner format does a disservice to how fu...

OK, I know I've already blogged about High & Mighty this week , but hell, they do so many awesome session beers, I figured I'd give a go at another one of their special bottles. I also had wanted to do as many different styles of session ales as possible, and although this may seem to be the same style- Brown Ale - as NOLA Brown, you'll soon discover that the two share only the word "brown" in their name, session beer ABVs, and outstanding deliciousness. Trying both beers definitely shows the range that is possible in executing a brown ale style- a style often overlooked as not being sexy enough for today's craft beer drinkers. Divine Brown will change that mindset, without going big in the ABV department. Purchased at Stein's Deli, the beer is 4.5% and pours a lighter shade of brown than I'd expected. Creamy half-inch head that retained throughout the enjoyment of the glass. The bottle alludes to the beer being brewed with oats and coffee, ...

Back when we lived in Massachusetts, we'd go to a Belgian- and hophead- heavy bar in Brookline called the Publick House . This place was actually a hike from where we lived in Salem, so when we went, one of us would partake of the high gravity beers and one of us (whoever was driving the 30-40 minutes back home <cough> Tom </cough>) would enjoy the only session beer available, O'Hara's Irish Stout.  It's 4.3% and actually, probably our favorite Irish stout out there, regardless of ABV.  (I like it better than Guinness, better than Murphy's. Hmm, gotta try some Beamish again someday soon.) Brewed by Carlow Brewing Company, and purchased at Stein's this evening, the O'Hara stout is as dark as a ginger's soul and twice as tasty. Poured beautifully into a Sam Adams fancy glass with a good inch of latte colored head, Excellent roasty malt flavors, smooth creamy mouthfeel, finishes dry and crisp with a touch of hop bitterness at the end ther...