Nora McGunnigle

Man, it has been a busy... (looks at date of last post)... few months. Bypassed the holidays and Mardi Gras, looks like. Oops. Right at the new year, Tom Conklin opened his Chappapeela Farm Brewery. Then Mardi Gras with its various seasonal beers and cans . And riding Nyx with my krewe! (I acquired several beers along the route from various beer geeks who were able to catch me, heh.) And then this past weekend was Nuit Belge, probably the best beer event I've ever attended. It had amazing Belgian (and Belgian-style) beers paired with dishes from great local restaurants . Check out the (well, my) photos of a great, great night . Now, on the horizon: Girls Pint out at Cooter Brown's on March 8, and then another event there on the 9th - Sour Power , with sour beers from New Belgium, NOLA Brewing, and Great Raft (including the first New Orleans release of Great Raft's dry hopped Brett IPA Oceans Between Us.) On March 10, master sour blenders Eric and L...

Taps at the Wayfare So, one of the things I'm lucky enough to do is experience a pretty wide variety of beer and food pairings with local and national craft breweries (and occasionally some international ones too). I think that this has honed my palate over the years to appreciate the interplay between different food flavor profiles and the diversity of flavors that comes from beer's malt, hops, alcohol content, and thousands of other chemical compounds and interactions. It takes practice, and I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to practice a lot. A specific opportunity recently came my way with the Wayfare restaurant on Freret, who reached out to me to pair a beer with one of their dishes. I chose Great Raft's Provisions and Traditions 3, an oak-aged Marzen style. It was a bit of a gimme, given that it was created in partnership with Chef Drake Leonards at Luke, and was therefore very food friendly. I headed to the Wayfare and ordered an insan...

A profile of me and my story in this month's Beer Advocate Man, I have not updated my blog with my new articles and stuff for ages. Let's fix that, shall we? First of all, just a reminder that I've started a Tumblr page , mostly to house links of my stories, but also to reblog stuff I think is cute/funny/interesting and post photos. If you Tumbl, check it out! Beer Advocate's artistic imaging of Hattiesburg The opening page of my Beer Advocate story on Hattiesburg I have two big stories out this past month. One is a profile of Hattiesburg Mississippi as a "Beer Destination" for Beer Advocate Magazine, and the other is an analysis of the impact of craft beer in five cities in the five states that surround the Gulf here: Houston, New Orleans, Hattiesburg, Birmingham, and the Tampa Bay area. This was really interesting to write and, I hope, interesting to read. My Gambit pieces this past month or so have been pretty varied: Great ...

Matt Horney (Old Rail), me, Zac Caramonta (Gnarly Barley), and Josh Erickson (Chafunkta) during ACBW at the Avenue Pub. Bad Blogspot! It crashed and wiped out my previous draft of this blog post. However, I now suspect that it may have sucked, so it may be for the best.

 Happy Carnival, y'all! First, the contest. No, wait, first, the apology for letting too much time lapse between blog updates. I've had a lot of deadlines and doing any writing that I absolutely didn't NEED to do was not at the top of my list... OK, now the contest. I have a pair of tickets to the NOLA Eats New Orleans King Cake Tasting on February 1 at the Little Gem Saloon. And all you need to win them is to visit my Facebook page and leave a comment on the contest post with the perfect beer to pair with king cake. The beer should be available to purchase in New Orleans, and you can be as specific or general with what kind of king cake you're looking to pair your beer choice with. I'm the sole judge, but I can definitely be swayed by "likes" on your contest entry. Share as many ideas as you'd like! Contest winner will be announced Monday, January 20. Onto the all important links!

Great Raft Brewing in Shreveport is hitting all cylinders right out of the gate. Andrew and Lindsay Nations opened their tap room on December 20, and sold all the beer they had brewed for the next two weeks, in two days. They will be canning and selling the cans in Northwest Louisiana by Mardi Gras, and I found a great article about their can design that I wanted to share . They look beautiful, and I can't wait to drink the contents! The inspiration for the design is super cool to read about as well. Photo courtesy of OhBeautifulBeer.com Also, the brewery is a cover story in January's Beer Advocate Magazine! Amazing and wonderful and well-deserved. Here's the cover photo that I downloaded from Great Raft's Facebook page : I know that Andrew and Lindsay have been working so hard, every step of the way, and I'm happy to see that their meticulous planning and beer development has paid off so well, so fast. I reallllllllly hope to see their producti...

My Christmas gift to you is lots of interesting articles about beer! Bayou Teche's Karlos Knott sitting behind a pint glass full of cracklins, because why not.

This Friday and Saturday are the WYES fundraising beer events: Friday's Private Beer Sampling and Saturday's International Beer Festival.

In my recent research of breweries in the state, I came across two I hadn't heard much (or, indeed, anything) about - Cajun Fire in New Orleans and Great Raft in Shreveport. I had the pleasure of talking to the brains behind both these operations this week. Cajun Fire  (warning: music playing upon loading) joins Courtyard Brewing as another Orleans Parish brewery hopeful for a 2013 opening. I spoke to Jon Renthrope, the guy who started it all in October 2011. He's a New Orleans native (as are all the other Cajun Fire folks) who fell in love with beer when off at college and moved back home to try to pursue his dream of opening a brewery. Right now, Jon's brewing a barrel at a time in a rented commercial kitchen space while Cajun Fire makes plans. They are in the process of looking for a space, and are hoping to find something in the New Orleans East area. The plan is to start with a nanobrewery model (a 3 bbl system) and see where it goes. They want to keep the batche...