Nora McGunnigle

Got this email from the Avenue Pub (recall, I saw a letter in Offbeat a while back alluding to this).  Hooray!  Mark your calendar...for... Narke, Nils Oscar, Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri & Oppigarde Beer event. The Kindness of Strangers Swedish beer event January 21st, 2012 In April of last year I met the owner of a very famous beer bar in Sweden. Stene loves New Orleans and wanted to throw a Mardi Gras party at his bar in Stockholm. Working with Shelton Bros we figured out a way to ship kegs of Abita and NOLA to Sweden. The idea was that they would be filled with Swedish beer and then returned to the Pub. Those kegs are on their way back to us now and we have scheduled the event for Saturday Jan 21st. what I didnt expect was the beers Stene would choose to send us. More than a few have never been in the US before and there is little chance they will return. The Stormskaporter is surely one of the most coveted imperial stouts in the world. It's made in tiny batches and ...

Picked up the latest issue of Offbeat Magazine last night while hanging out on Frenchmen Street and found something of great interest to me in the Letters to the Editor section: STOCKHOLM FESTIVAL First of all, thanks for a great magazine. You have helped me so much in learning about the music and culture of New Orleans. On Friday we start the first ever New Orleans Festival in Sweden at my club in Stockholm [Akkurat Bar & Restaurant]. I have beers coming in from both Abita and NOLA Brewing Company. To my knowledge, it’s the first time these beers have been shipped on draught outside the United States. We will fill the empty barrels with Swedish beer and ship them back to Polly at the Avenue Pub on Saint Charles Avenue, who is doing a wonderful job for the beer culture. Hopefully we can have a continuous exchange program working in the future. We also got loads of food like po-boys and of course crawfish, which are in season in Sweden right now. Yes we eat them here too. —Stene I...