Nora McGunnigle

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.

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...

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...