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?).

Available at Martin’s on March 7th, Monchshof Schwarzbier and Kapuziner Weisse will be available in 5 liter mini-kegs.

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.

Thanks to the work of local beer retailers, and the pressure they’re applying on local distributors, there will be at least a dozen new Belgian beers entering distribution at Martin’s and Steins, and who knows, maybe even Whole Foods. Look out for these beers arriving on shelves in the coming weeks.

• Des Rocs Brune
• Des Rocs Grand Cru
• Des Rocs Triple Imperiale
• Duchesse de Bourgogne
• Fantome Saison
• Nostradamus
• Saison DuPont
• St. Bernardus Tripel
• St. Bernardus Abt 12
• St. Bernardus Wit

Also, the beer guys from Martin’s, Stein’s and Acquistapace are working on convincing Glazers to bring Rochefort back!

A couple of beers from Rogue’s XSperience line of imperial beers are now available in New Orleans. The Rogue Imperial India Pale Ale (aka the I2PA or IIPA) and the Imperial Stout are now available at Whole Foods and Martin’s Wine Cellar.

I first tried these at the Extreme Beer Fest in Boston back in February 2007. Now I love me a hoppy beer, and IPA is one of my favorite styles, but the I2PA is just a little too much for me. At least the hoppy punch is floral and not just straight up bitterness. Now.. the Imperial Stout is another beast. This is one of the best beers I’ve ever had, and probably in my Top 5 stouts that you can easily obtain. Soft, chocolaty and with a very complementary hoppiness, this stuff cellars real well and gets better with age.

I currently have a bottle in storage that I’m saving till 2009.So get out there, grab some bottles and pour one into your favorite goblet. Oh, and let it warm up a bit if you’re pulling it out of the fridge.

Finally! An Abita pub crawl that wont be a rehash of one they had at the same time a year ago! Abita, for the first time in many many seasons, shakes things up with a new crawl location: The Bywater.

Markey’s Bar / 640 Louisa St / 6pm-8pm (Registration)
Bud Rips / 900 Piety St / 8pm-9pm
Mimi’s in the Marigny / 2601 Royal St / 9pm-Till

This is the first Abita Pub Crawl that I’ve been looking forward to since the Marigny crawl of ‘06. Strange bars in a strange part of town with a style beer that most people dislike. Given the distance from colleges and downtown offices, hopefully this one wont be as overcrowded as previous affairs.