NOLA Brewing
I was looking forward to trying the brews from NOLA Brewing because it was the first public tasting of an entirely new and local brewery. The Brown and the Blonde were both very good, and I’m impressed I liked the Blonde at all since I usually don’t care for that style. Often times “Blonde” is just another name for a Golden or a limp ale that may as well be generic lager, so I’m glad their Blonde isn’t gutless. But like I said, that style’s not really my thing so I spent most of my time focusing on the Brown. It was different than I expected, it had a lighter, sharper, more effervescent mouthfeel to it than say a Brooklyn Brown Ale. I was also happy that unlike many Brown Ales out there, they didn’t decide to throw in nut flavorings or make it anything other than a Brown. So yeah, a nice, solid, surprisingly refreshing American Brown… well done guys! Of course I’ll have to reserve final judgement until this stuff is kegged and bottled.

I also learned a bit about some future beers they’re working on. A Watermelon beer is possibly in the works, which would be great and wouldn’t come into conflict with Abita’s berry beer offerings .. though I’d love to see someone local make a Blueberry beer. The Watermelon was actually at the fest being distributed by Crescent City Homebrewers; NOLA’s Brewmaster, Peter Caddoo, brewed it in that organization. But what really has me excited, and flat out impressed for such a new venture is a possible ISPA. When co-founder Kirk Coco first uttered that term, I was already several beers in and initially thought he said I2PA or IIPA, common terms for Imperial IPA. But no, he meant ISPA, an India Sweet Potato Ale. It’ll be an IPA, but instead of using malt for the sugar source, the yeast will much on sweet potato! This is a really cool idea on two levels: 1) If they pull this off and it’s good, it’ll firmly establish their craft-brewing street cred. 2) There are dozens of breweries that use pumpkin and even a couple that use sweet potato for flavoring, but to use it in place of malt is just inspired. Going crazy with the IPA style is a hallmark of American craft breweries, and for NOLA’s entry into that style to be something like ISPA is very very cool.

So congrats Kirk and Peter, this was a great first outing for this city’s newest and only brewery, can’t wait till this stuff is in bars and on store shelves.

Redstick Brewmastaers
My flat-out favorite homebrewers of the night were these guys. In order of preference, the 568 Saison was my favorite beer of the night, shortly followed by April’s Grand Cru, Saison II, Triple D Robust Porter and Corriander Ale. These are such wonderful brews that I wish they’d team up with someone and bring these to market.

Mystic Krewe of Brew
The very first beer I tried at the Tasting was Mystic’s Coconut Porter, which was already a hot item just minutes into night. This was a fantastic beer, not something I’d want all the time, but an excellent showcase of what can be done with the Porter style beyond coffee, chocolate and hazelnut flavors and adjuncts. My buddy Steve remarked that it was like drinking a Pina Colada and a Guiness all at once, and while I don’t completely agree with that, that’s certainly the direction the brew was going in. The Sweet Unemployment Stout and Chocolate City Stout were, just like last year, very solid stout offerings that I wish were bottled; especially the former… sweet stouts are hard to come by. I was also pleasantly surprised by the Tax Rebate Pale Ale which I think may have been my favorite pale ale of the night.

Home Brewers Underground
These guys, along with Escambia Bay and McGuires were all related, but I only made it to the HBU table. Their Possum Killer Porter was pretty good, but the Barleywine they had was so damn good. I talked to one of the members there about cameras for a while (I guess that’s what happens when you have several pounds of camera strapped around your neck) and he returned the favor by hooking me up with a full cup of the 9.5% Barleywine … twice. It was sad to see not many people at this table, because they had some great brews, and the Barleywine definitely made it into my top tier of the night. HBU also had a great motto: “Comitted to the responsible art of Zymurgy. We encourage you to ‘Go Brew Yourself’”

Heiner Brau
Wow, when I suggested that HB bring the beers they make for Luke this year, I didn’t think that was already in their plan. Sadly, they ran out of this pretty quickly, but they did have their Maerzen on tap which was wonderful. I wish this was more readily available in the fall for Oktoberfest!

Lazy Magnolia
I’m really glad they decided to just focus on the Southern Pecan and to bring large quantities of it. When I was making my final pass of the evening, they were still pouring. I was glad to hear that they’re working on getting the beer into the New Orleans market, whenever that may be.

Crescent City Homebrewers
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to their area until the end of the evening and all I really had time for was the Watermelon Wheat. Good thing for me, this was a fantastic beer!

Regrets
Sadly, I didn’t have time to make it to Hurricane Brewing, Escambia Bay, McGuires, Montgomery Brewing, LA Lagers, or Perdido Vineyards. I saw, too late, that Perdido brought a Satsuma Cider and a Satsuma Wheat, doh!

All in all this was a great WYES Beer Tasting, with a larger turnout both in terms of vendors and drinkers, and was defined by the craft and sprit of homebrewers and microbrewers.

I’ve gotta admit upfront that I’m a real sucker for products with a great design behind their labeling, packaging, marketing, etc. So with that in mind, I’m really impressed with the whole aesthetic and branding behind BrewDog, a little brewery in Scotland.

Named for the brewmasters’s chocolate lab, and billed as “Beer for Punks,” this sorta seems like the craft beer for the same kinda indie punks that’d rock PBR. Despite the artisan-ness and only-a-year-old-ness of the brewery, there’s just something weathered and underground about them .. again, it’s probably just the label design.

As you can guess by now, these beers are now available in New Orleans at Martin’s Wine Cellar. Read on for the lineup of what we’re getting…

• Ripe Tide Stout
• Punk IPA
• Hardcore IPA
• The Physics
• Paradox Imperial Stout - Islay Ardberg 1991
• Paradox Imperial Stout - Islay Bowmore 1987
• Paradox Imperial Stout - Speyside Glen Moray 1991

All of their beers seem really interesting and the writings on them are full of beer geeky lingo. I mean how many brewery sites have things like “4 Hop Cones willingly sacrificed themselves in fiery cauldron that is our brew kettle to ensure your mouth is left feeling punished and puckering for more..” in their official descriptions? None, that’s how many.

While I want to try all their beers, I think my first purchases will be their stouts. The Rip Tide is described as “the beer equivalent of the big, cute chocolate monster.” If that’s isn’t enough to make you wanna buy a bottle of this, I dunno what magic sentence will. The Paradox series of stouts are Brewdog’s line of trendy whiskey aged beers. I’m not a big fan of Islay Scotches, so I may grab a bottle of that Speyside Glen Moray aged version.

I will end this post with another witty quote from the Brewdog site about their “The Physics” beer:

While all of these beers are tasty and are worth a pint, a couple of these are real favorites of mine…

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout is an intense sweet stout from London with chocolate tones that are both over, under, and in the middle. It’s the chocolate milk shake of beers .. thick, creamy, malty, roasted, and damn right delicious. There’s also an interesting balancing act between the mild bitterness of the hops which break and give way to a mild sweetness from the malt; it happens every sip and I never get tired of it. This is one of those stouts, along with any of the Rogue stouts, that will convince non-stout drinkers that this genre of beer is neither defined nor dictated by Guinness. This is also one of the better beers for paring with dessert. Get it at Martin’s and Stein’s.

I’m also pleased to welcome De Konik, all the way from Antwerp, Belgium. I’ve had this on tap a few times before (sadly, not here) and the first thing I remember looking for was some kind of descriptive title for it on the tap. Usually when an ale isn’t a standard ale, it has some kind of title to denote it’s specialness..but this one didn’t. For this brewery, this is just a standard fair beer .. but to me, I was impressed with it’s spiciness and subtle fruitiness with a dry finish. This is a pleasantly complex brew as we head into the summer, as it’s light enough to quaff your thirst, yet complicated enough to give you something to savor.

Further more, Dan Stein over at Stein’s Deli was also able to order some of the Urthel and Rader beers that I was able to have on tap in Chicago last summer. I’ve had the Rader Blonde and Urthel Hop-It, and both were great. That Urthel Hop-It is particularly interesting: an effervescent, peppers, citrusy, spicy, incredibly hoppy Belgian ale that defies all logic and convention.

• Rader Blonde
• Urthel - Hop It
• Urthel - Hibernus Quentum
• Urthel - Nouicius Vertus

The other beers in this new arrivals salvo are listed below. I haven’t had any of these personally, but they seem well enough reviewed to be giving a taste, particularly the Banana Bread and Honey Ale…

• Charles Wells - Bombardier English Ale
• Charles Wells - Banana Bread Beer
• Belhaven - Scottish Ale
• Belhaven - St. Andrew’s Ale
• Brasserie Lefèbvre - Blanche de Bruxelles
• Brasserie Lefèbvre - Barbãr (Belgian Honey Ale)

These should all be available at Martin’s with some select appearances of the better ones at Stein’s.

Sure, Georgia may have made it into the NCAA Tournament despite sucking all season and having to deal with a tornado and a double header.. but even more impressive than all that is Abita Turbodog’s entry and First Round win in Washington Post’s Beer Maddness; it’s like March Madness..but with beer!

Currently Turbodog is competing against Sam Adams Honey Porter in the Sweet Sixteen with a vote that’s almost completely split down the middle. Now I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Sam Adams Honey Porter is a horrid drink, and Turbodog is better and should deserve your vote!

So head over to the Washington Post’s Beer Madness and vote often for Abita Turbodog and tell all your friends. You all have until March 22nd to send Turbodog into the Elite Eight.

The other beers in the Sweet Sixteen I like are: Ommegang Hennepin, Oxford Raspberry Wheat, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, Brooklyn Lager, Raven Lager, Stone Pale Ale, and Troegs Hopback.

There’s something about aging a fluid in an oak barrel for a number of years that just makes it more awesome. And in the world of booze, just about everything that’s good and honest gets aged in an oak barrel by someone .. Whiskeys, rums, wines, etc. However beer is one of those things you never hear about getting aged.. but why not?

There’s been a growing trend in the past few years to take a beer and throw it in an oak barrel that was previously used to age some form of Whiskey. My first serious consumption of a serious attempt at oak aged beer was in Boston a couple years back when the Harpoon Brewery decided to take some of their 100 Barrel Series Barleywine and throw it in 4 different Bourbon casks: Jim Beam, Four Roses, Wild Turkey and Makers Mark. I was immediately hooked. You got the wonderful in your face slam and beer big taste of a Barleywine but with some of the more subtle flavors of a good Bourbon like vanilla, honey and peat.

It’s a pretty niche beverage .. after-all, Bourbon and Scotch drinkers usually can’t be bothered to drink beer, leaving it to a subset of craft beer geeks to drink the drink. So while I’ve had about six or seven Bourbon aged beers in the past couple years, I’ve never had one that was aged in a Scotch barrel. Most Scotches are aged in previously used Bourbon barrels .. so the difference in taste between Bourbon and Scotch should be pretty similar with a beer aged in Bourbon vs Scotch barrels: more earth and peaty flavors with a bit more of an astringent mouth feel.

So if you like beer, and you like Scotch, and you wanna see what would happen if the twain shall meet, then check out some of these new beers are are now available in New Orleans at Martin Wine Cellar and Stein’s Deli.

• Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special 12 Reserve
• Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special 16 Reserve
• Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special 30 Reserve
• J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Aged in Calvados Casks)
• J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Aged in Lagavulin Whiskey Casks)

The Harviestoun Ola Dubh series are all aged in Scotch barrels that were previously used to age Highland Park Scotch for the number of years indicated in the beer’s name. So that Special 12 Reserve should pickup some of the remaining sweeter and more vanilla-y flavors that you find in younger barrels, whereas the Special 30 Reserve should have a more earthy, oaky, peaty taste to it. There’s also the J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (a Barleywine style) aged in a Lagavulin (Scotch) barrel and a Calvados (Apple Brandy) barrel.

I haven’t had any of these yet, though I just picked up a bottle of the J.W. Lee Harvest Ale in Lagavulin cask and will be picking up one of the Harviestoun.

Just a quick note that Troegs’s current seasonal beer, the Nugget Nectar is now available at Martin Wine Cellar and Stein’s Deli. With a current A grade average among the 530 people that have reviewed it on BeerAdvocate, this is surely a beer you’ll want to check out.

It’s a pretty interesting concoction .. it’s got tons of hops and could be considered an Imperial IPA, but at the same time is sweet and malty enough to be an Amber. That’s pretty much how it goes down too; it tastes sweet, then bitter, then sweet again.Get it while it’s available. There are only 15 cases available in the entire city between these two stores.

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?).

Schwarzbiers are a dark lager; they may look like a Guiness, but they’re actually pretty light in body despite the color of the beer. And obviously, the Weisse is a hefeweizen style beer which is very highly rated over at BeerAdvocate.

Although these are among the tastiest beers you can get in a mini-keg (at least locally), I have never won a battle against mini-kegs and have instead always had foamy beer all the counter and my shoes.

Originally an Abita Brewpub exclusive, Abita’s Strawberry Harvest Ale is back for another strawberry season! It’s kinda like their Purple Haze, but instead of raspberries it’s..surprise surprise.. Ponchatoula Strawberries.

It’s pretty easy to mess up a fruit beer, but Abita seems to be batting a thousand. It’s also a great site to see, walking into The Bulldog on a warm Spring afternoon and seeing almost everyone, men included, with a clutter of strawberry beer bottles in front of them.

Get it while it’s..cold? It wont be around for too long, selling out much faster last year than the year before.

I’ve this love/hate relationship with Sam Adams; I hate their flagship Boston Lager, and their pompous marketing, but I love their other beers and everything they’ve done for the beer community.

So it’s no surprise that their Longshot series of beer is right up my alley. It started a couple years ago, when they held a contest to find the best three beers in America (two from around the country and one from an employee) and produce and distribute them large scale.

Well the beers from the 2007 Contest have finally been released. Rodney Kibzey’s Weizenbock and Sam Adams’ own Lili Hess’ beer, a Grape Ale, are now available nationwide, including New Orleans.

Unfortunately, due the worldwide Hops shortage, Mike McDole’s Double IPA will be pushed back until early next year. Hats off to Sam Adams though for still going through with the production of it, and holding off until they can do it right.