Nora McGunnigle

Man, I had a good time at NOLA Brewery on Friday. Not only did I have the day off work so I could go to the tour (held every Friday at 2pm) but also Haydel's was sponsoring a beer pairing with their king cake! What an excellent idea. Here I am drinking and eating king cake and chatting with some nice beer fans. (photo courtesy NOLA Brewing's Facebook page) To quote NOLA Brewing's blog : About 30 of our good friends and fans converged on our Tchoupitoulas Street brewery to take a quick tour of our facilities before digging into some great Haydel’s King cake (and a special preview appearance of our unreleased Red Ale). We asked everyone which of our brews they thought tasted the best with the slices of traditional king cake. The responses were very interesting, and should come in handy as Mardi Gras parades start rolling in a couple of weeks. The 7th Street Wheat won handily, but this was me: Brewer’s Crack – We had another adventurous beer drinker at the pairing, and this...

So last night (after a day off from beer to enjoy some cocktails at Twelve Mile Limit and Bar Tonique and wine at Le Meritage on Thursday) we did our usual Friday night Beer Advocate action. We got to the Avenue Pub and made a beeline for the cask, where Polly had set up shop and was pouring pints of St. Elissa IPA into complementary St. Arnold's pint glasses (with pint cozies!) The cask ale was pretty good- I'd heard it talked up bigtime earlier in the week, so my expectations may have been inflated. But it was a nice IPA and I love IPAs on cask. I keep waiting for St. Arnold's to blow me away- though I did have a nice St. Arnold's winter stout , which I enjoyed. The big excitement was the unveiling of Cantillon Fou' Foune, an apricot lambic. I love the sour and funky beers. This was so, so, so good. Lip smackingly sour and fruity and drinkable and a gorgeous orange color. I'm so happy I had the opportunity to try it. In between, we sampled a couple amazing...

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...

A bit about how craft beer brewing and drinking is slowly growing thoughout the state- here's the article . Louisiana has five local craft breweries where the beer is made onsite. They are: Abita Brewing Co. in Abita Springs, Parish Brewing Co. in Broussard, Heiner Brau Microbrewery in Covington, NOLA Brewing in New Orleans and Tin Roof Brewing Co. in Baton Rouge, the state’s newest. Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudeville has much of its beer brewed by Lazy Magnolia Brewing Co. in Kiln, Miss., until its expanded brewery is fully operational, which is likely about a year away, said Karlos Knott, brewmaster for Bayou Teche Brewing. In 2008 Louisiana ranked 50th in the nation in the number of craft breweries per capita, according to the Brewers Association. I'm really interested in the Parish Brewing model, since that's probably the way that Tom and I may start out one of these days. And by "model" I mean "a dude brewing and selling beer." There's a bit ...

Happy New Year, beer lovahs. (Someone introduced their SO to me last night as their LOVAAAAAH, which is always good for a giggle.) Anyway, I met up with some old college friends at Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar and had a Miller Lite and 2 glasses of sangria. Beer count: 1 Then we drifted down Tchoupotoulas to the Ugly Dog Saloon , where they had NOLA Blonde, NOLA Brown, and Abita Jockimo IPA. We sat out on the veranda and enjoyed the warm weather with a few pints (1 Blonde and 2 IPAa). Beer count (running): 4 Hoofed across the St. Charles Ave circle to the Exxon for a case of beer and brought it back to their hotel room and had a couple (Modelo) while they got dressed to go out. Beer count: 5 Tom picked us up and we went off the the Avenue Pub where the Beer Buddha and his wife and some other Beer Advocaters were congregated. I had a Brooklyn EIPA, a Brooklyn Blast, a sample of a Yeti Imperial Stout (from Great Divide Brewing), and about a third of a bourbon barrel aged ...