Nora McGunnigle

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...

So we cracked open a few of the beers we brought home from Pensacola. I had the (justifiably) well reviewed Bell's Brewing Two Hearted Ale, a complex but easy drinking IPA. Tom tried the Southern Tier Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale. I only had a sip of the Phin & Matt's, but its schtick is that it's brewed with three different hops and three different malts. The Bell's was awesome. Wonderful hop aroma and flavor- full of citrus and pine and pineapple. Balanced and drinkable and delicious. This bottle was dated June 30, 2011, so it was super fresh and tasty. Tried the Terrapin Rye Pale Ale. It initially suffered a little being drunk after the Two Hearted, but it is an excellent rye malt beer. The hops serve to support the spiciness of the rye, and allow the malt flavor to shine, without the characteristic significant malty sweetness. Very enjoyable. Glad we have six packs of these both- my inclination is to hoard them, but of course these beers won...

So, we went on vacation to Florida's Forgotten Coast (Port St. Joe and Cape San Blas area) and were able to drink new and exciting brews from Yuengling, Sweetwater (420, IPA, and Blue), Blue Point (Toasted Lager), Cigar City (Porter), and Pensacola Bay (Brown, Amber, and the Deluna XPA). We wanted to check out the Pensacola Bay Brewery but it was downpouring in an epic fashion on both the way to Port St. Joe and the way home. I liked the Sweetwater 420, it was an easy drinking and tasty beer for hot summer days (or the recovery from them.) We had a couple bottles of the Sweetwater IPA at the Indian Pass Raw Bar , which was good, but not the crazy hop bomb that the bottle boasted. Other places we found good beer to drink: The Thirsty Goat , Joe Mama's Pizza , Provisions , (all in Port St. Joe) and the Fish House in Pensacola. But the beer motherlode was when we came back through Pensacola and, upon the Beer Buddha's recommendation, we stopped at Four Winds International Fin...

Bought this at Cork & Barrel a couple months ago, I think during American Craft Beer Week. Finally cracked it open tonight after a few cask ales at the Avenue Pub, while listening to TMBG's Flood. I was very unsure what to expect with a coffee IPA. Not really the style you expect to go with a coffee infusion, and I was intrigued. It was a tasty and interesting IPA. Poured a pale orange with a nice head- a few fingers' worth. I did not get any coffee flavor really, though. The finish had that tannic, acidic coffee aftertaste, but no actual coffee flavor. Odd. But I don't want to complain, because the Tomahawk hops gave the beer an excellent piney, citrus, pineapple aroma and bitterness. The specific bitterness of these hops added to the coffee-esque overall impression of the taste. It was good, but I don't know if I'd ever attribute coffee to it as a flavor or overtone. I mean, read the above- I'm REALLY stretching to give it any coffee relevance. Like...

This right here, people, is a sign of no respect being accorded to ladies who love beer. CHICK BEER. I was gonna quote some of the more egregiously horrible choice bits of the home page and from their "Story" but re-reading this made my eyeballs roll right out of my head and my brain to ooze out my ears. I can't even get into how superficial, sexist, sterotypical, and insulting to the many women who brew and love beer because my blood pressure is already too high. In conclusion, I hate everything. Good day sir!

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...