beer NOLA

If you need a beer made en masse in the New Orleans area, but you don’t feel like building a brewery, then Covington’s Heiner Brau has become the brewery to turn to. Sure, they make their own tasty beers (well except the Kolsh, but that’s just because I don’t like Kolsh), but they also do contact brewing for Zea, Big Easy/Tiger Town Beer, Dixie for a while, and various house beers for various local restaurants.

As a business, they’re the most diverse and interesting brewery in the New Orleans area and yet, they’ve never really offered tours since they started up a little over two years ago. Well that’s finally changed, as Heiner Brau now offers tours every Saturday at 10, 10:45 and 11:30am.

You get to tour the brewery, learn about their beer types, learn about the brewing process and the final packaging and distribution process. Sounds great, but there’s something pretty important missing from that list. For some reason, they’re not allowed to serve beer on the premises. So despite getting to learn all about their beers through words and pictures and intricate hand gestures, you don’t actually get to taste any of their beers.

One of the highlights, if not THE highlight of the Abita brewery tour is being able to taste their beers, right out a keg, made probably the day before and filled just a few feet away. It’s freshness you can’t get anywhere else … In fact, I swear I had a Purple Haze at the brewery once and saw raspberry pulp (or was it the seeds) in my cup! I’m glad Heiner Brau is finally offering tours. They have a great operation, an incredibly knowledgeable and talented Brewmaster, and are in a cool building in downtown Covington .. but I hope, for the sake of brewery tour goers everywhere, that they offer tastings just like Abita and every other brewery in the country (world?).