Pure Louisiana: Abita Brewing

I've talked about them before.  Okay, I've talked about them once when I managed to spirit away a bottle of their special Marti Gras brew.   But given my semi periodic trips to the Crescent city, it's kind of surprising that I hadn't talked about Abita brewing at any length. Well I'm gonna now.  It's happening...
yep...
any moment now...

Here's the deal.  Abita is to the South as Boulevard is to the Midwest or New Belgium is to the West or what Sam Adams is to... well the entire freaking country.  You find it out and around and for good reason, it's pretty good.

Like the breweries mentioned above, they have a flagship beer that is the go-to for most microbrew lovers in the area.  The Abita Amber is a fairly typical, slightly malty light amber ale in the same spirit as a Fat Tire.  It's got some mild roasted, nutty notes with just a hint of hops in the back that makes for a decent beer to sink in large quantities.  Best of all, it's available at just about any bar in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South.   That being said, I had the chance to track down some of their other beers during my last visit and this is what I came up with.

Jockamo IPA: The quasi-masochistic hop-heads from the Pacific Northwest would probably make farty sounds towards this IPA.  It doesn't come at you with that intense bitter flavor that is associated with the style.  It's aroma actually has some fruit notes alongside the tell-tale citrus.  There is some spicy, citrus hops but they kind of float on a tide of heavy, fruity malt sweetness.  It's a little out of sorts for the style, but a pleasant beer anyway.

Purple Haze: Raspberry beer and pretty decidedly so.  Lots of sweet fruit on the aroma and even more packed into the flavor.  A little too much for my tastes.

Hop Gator: The bartender at Lagers Taproom didn't know what kind of beer this was.  BeerAdvocate even seems to fumble over itself when it comes time to classify this.  It starts off with a very, very light spicy aroma.  The flavor reminded me much more of a pepper beer then anything else.  The green chili is especially pronounced at first, but it slowly melds into a more herbal hoppy finish.

SOS: This is a beer brewed to help the continuing cleaning efforts on the gulf coast (yes... they are still at it.  Thank you BP, good work).  A sweet, fruity pear flavor dominates this beer right off the top.  The finish is a little on the dry side with the hops adding a woody, pine flavor.  The two different flavor profiles actually clash rather nicely in this beer.

Andygator: Finishing with a specialty brew.  This is a helles dopplebock with a very light roasted aroma.  It's a big-bodied smooth beer that has some light, sweet toasted flavors that leads to a very drinkable beer.  What it's really doing, however, is skillfully hiding the upwards of 8% alcohol.  It's one of those beers that can be classified as dangerous.  You can drink a lot, yes you can.  And you can wake up with an imprint of the bathroom floor on the side of your face.  That's how they do things in Louisiana... so I am told.

Bottle Beer Tour 3: The Fermented Menace.

Okay, taking a short break from the road to empty out the beer fridge a little, (And yes, I have a refrigerator just for beer.  That's not weird, is it?)  Today is the day daylight savings time hits and to commemorate that fact we got about six inches of snow.  In typical midwest fashion, winter is going keep an icy hold as long as possible.

Tis the season of indecision, so we've got some winter beers, some summer beers and some nasty weather to drink away.

Abita Brewery, Marti Gras Bock:  Seasonal selection available only January through about mid February or something.   Pours clear and copper colored, with a very light herbal aroma.  Has a bit of a spicy, herbal bite to it.  Lots of caramel malts there as well, with a nice full body. 

Choc Brewery, Winter Stout: A winter stout with a wonderful chocolate, raisin coffee aroma.  The flavor has a lot of bitter coffee with some unsweetened chocolate. I also get just a hint of fruit somewhere in there, but I can't quite place it. 

 



Breckenridge Brewery, Agave Wheat:
Something a little different from a brewery halfway up a mountain.  This beer pours a cloudy golden color.  Slightly lemony and herbal. It has a kind of sour-sweet flavor.  Not like the sour of an infected beer, but more like green apple.  It has some slight herbal qualities on the back.  Lighter body, smooth mouthfeel.  Nothing all that astounding, but a nice summer beer anyway.

Huisbrouwerij Klein Duimpje, Erik De Noorman Dutch Barley Wine:  Okay stepping a little out of the United States a bit for the first time.  Pours cloudy and copper colored.  It has a raisin and plum aroma.  Full bodied with a slightly fizzy mouthfeel.  Sweet and malty with dark fruit flavors off the top with a slight bitter back and a dry finish.




This last one... I don't know if it even still qualifies as a microbrew.  I guess it is in the sense that Sam Adams is considered a micro brew by some.  Still, because I happen to have a bottle here, here's a midwest staple: Leinenkugles, Berry Wiess:  And it's pretty much as advertised.  Strong, fruity nose.  Very sweet raspberry flavor to the point of being a sparkling cider. 

Astride Beer Nation

Today's post is one of those where I take a bunch of random beers I've sampled in my travels and pack them into one post.  In this case, it is beer from literally all over the country.  There a some beers from Maine to California... and New York and Utah and Louisiana.  What I'm trying to say is I've got six random beers from five random states.

All five were from a couple of beer bars stuck here and there.  First, Lager's Ale House in New Orleans, which I have already spoken of.  The other was The Brit in San Jose.

A few words about that bar, overall it was a lot of fun.  The staff there was just fun.  Besides keeping the beer flowing they would hang around and bullshit, which was kind of cool given it was slow there.  They had a free beer tasting on the night I was there and a strange act where a guy drug his guitar onto the stage and invited patrons to sing karaoke-style while he played.  Ironically, less irritating then actual karaoke.  I think the thought of playing with actual musical accompaniment keeps the more tone-deaf away.

Anyway, beer!

Brooklyn Brewing Company, Brown Ale:  This beer has a malty caramel coffee aroma.  The flavors start off sweet with some light dark cherry flavors.  It finishes moderately dry with slightly bitter black coffee.

Abita Brewing, Raspberry Wheat: Pretty much as advertised, a very sweet, fruity beer.  That's about as simple as it gets.  This is the type of beer people talk about when they say, "I don't like fruit beer."

Firestone DBA

Firestone Walker Brewing, Firestone DBA (Double Barrel Ale):  This English bitter has really no aroma to speak of.  Flavor has just a hint of fruit sweetness before spicy, lemony hops dominate the flavor.  On the hoppier side of a session beer, but still a good choice to pour back a few.

Allahash White Ale: Tons of clove and banana in the aroma of this wheat beer.  I picked up a similar profile in the flavor with maybe a little bit of cider flavor added.  Finishes with floral hops.

Hermitage Hoptopia

Hermitage Brewery, Hoptopia IPA: Local selection while I was on the West Coast.  I got citrus and a hint of caramel on the aroma.   I got a hint of caramel and maybe peach off the top just before it was plowed the hell down by citrus hops and a whole lot of heavy bitter herbal, back of the throat flavor that was going to be there for a while.

Unita Brewing Company, Hop Notch:  Just a little bit of floral citrus aroma.  The flavor was a slightly different combination of hops then normal.  I got lots of light grassy flavors off the top followed by intense pine, medicinal flavors shortly after.  Not terribly good, but, like I said, different.

Back to more of the regular format next week for another report from San Jose.

Cheers!

Do You Know What it Means, To Miss New Orleans?: Louisiana

Back in New Orleans this week.  You know, there are worse places in the world to consistently find yourself.  This time it's Crescent City Brewhouse in the French Quarter.

This might be the first brewpub I've found in the south.  Most of the breweries down here focus their efforts entirely on beer, and that's not a bad thing.  It does, however, make locating their beer a little harder when they lack a nice, handy central location.  Crescent City is much more of the typical brewpub like you would find in the rest of the country.

Overall, it's nice.  They have live jazz music, which is a nice touch to an atmosphere that tells you to sit back, relax and, yes, go ahead and have just one more beer.  The food is a little on the expensive side, but it's the French Quarter, so what do you want?  It's not exactly the place people go trolling for deals, is what I am saying.   And the beer, it's mostly good.  Most of the available selection is rather boring, but the one or two beers that hit the mark, do so remarkably well. 

Crescent City Pilsner:  Pretty good for the style, but nothing all that spectacular.  It has a grassy aroma.  Flavor is light and refreshing.  Lemony, grassy hops slowly build in the back of the palate for a nice bite at the end. 

Red Stallion:  Again, just an amber ale.  Nothing really special to talk about.  The aroma is very, very light; just a hint of malt there.  Toasted malty flavor dominates the flavor profile with floral hops following in the back.  Good, but nothing to rave about.  A good session beer for those who like a malty option.

Crescent City Wiess:  By this time I was starting to worry about the selection here at the brewery.  This was the third beer and I still wasn't hitting anything all that memorable.  This beer has a banana aroma followed with a spicy banana flavor. I picked up some slight herbal hops on the back, but it's mostly dominated by the fruity esters for a simple, strait forward beer.

Black Forest: And then, we hit gold.  The black forest has a wonderful chocolate, fruit aroma that made me think of black cherry and currants.  The flavor is much the same with chocolate, black cherry and currant with a sharp roasted barley flavor in the back. This one quickly became one of my favorite beers.

Special Brew (IPA). Crescent city has a rotating selection of beer and the selection during my visit was an IPA.  The aroma was very light, bordering on non-existent.  The flavor started off very sweet for an IPA with light malt and a pear fruit flavor.  Hops gradually build and build in the background till they fill the palate with grassy floral hops.  A little on on the malty side of the scale for an IPA, but I wouldn't turn it down.

Big Easy Brew: New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans has been on my top ten list of cities to visit for a while.  Whereas elsewhere in the country cities seem to be slowly blending together, the Crescent City stands out with a drink in hand and a defiant middle finger raised.

Jackson Square, New Orleans

 The microbrew revolution has been slow spreading to the south as I have said before.  The idea of the brewpub, a staple among the Pacific Northwest is a rarity here.  Southern microbreweries tend to focus their efforts entirely on brewing and use local bars and ale houses to get their product to consumers.

Such is the case for NOLA (New Orleans Lager and Ale) Brewing.  It is possible to go to the brewery and check out the events that they host or tour the facilities, but to actually sit  and down a few pints you have to venture out and find them hidden among the tap handles in the bars and taverns that keep this city good and liquored up.

For this I found Lagers Ale House.  As beer bars go it has a fairly decent selection.  Not the best I have ever seen, not by a long shot, but something on par with the Old Chicago franchises peppered around the cities.  It has kind of an English pub ambiance and some pretty good Cajun fare.  All in all, it was a pretty nice place to hang out.  And here's what I found about NOLA.

NOLA Blonde: This is NOLA's flagship beer and the first beer they introduced when they started their business.  It's a pretty standard light ale, no aroma to speak of off the top.  The flavor is light with slightly more herbal bitterness then expected. Nothing all that exiting, but a pretty good, drinkable session beer.

Forground: NOLA Hopitoulus, Background: Hopzilla

NOLA Brown:  I liked this one because this brewery managed to pump quite a bit of flavor into a style that is unfortunately known for a lot of light, watery beers.  Chocolate, caramel and berry dominate the aroma. The flavor is very Malty with hints of chocolate, raspberry and a little roasted barley bite on the back and a creamy texture all the way down.   All in all a nice darkish beer.

NOLA Hopitoulus: We're getting into IPA territory now.  The Hopitoulus has a light citrus  hop aroma.  The flavor starts malty combined with a little citrus.  Pine and herbal hops eventually dominate and finish off the flavor profile.  Overall I like the balance on this beer, or at least I liked the balance a hell of a lot more then it's big brother...

NOLA Hopzilla: The aroma is slightly fruity aroma with hop overtones.  The flavor presents just lightly sweet off the top but, well... ever bite into a hot pepper?  You know that delay that happens where you take a bite and declare, "See?  It's not that hot!"?  You know, right before you frantically search for bread and milk?  This beer is like that with IBU's instead of capsaicin oil.  This beer is a  hop nuclear bomb.  By the end the flavor is nothing but intense spicy, herbal hop flavors that last almost until morning.  Approach with caution.

Next week I hop over to Florida for a few pints, it is my hope that I will have the taste of hops out of my mouth by then.  Seriously, it's freaking bitter, people.

Cheers!

Southern Hospitality: Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas

This is a slightly different post to start off the new year. Still on the road for a two-week long jaunt, and finding time to hammer something out is a challenge. Still found enough beer to talk about here in New Orleans and I wanted to get something written.

There's a specific brewery Ill talk about next week. For now here is a Southern Sampler from Lager's Ale House in New Orleans:

Parish Brewing, Canebreak Wheat: Parish is a fairly new brewery out of Broussard, Louisiana with only two beers currently available, their Canebreak Wheat Ale and their Grand Reserve Barleywine. Their wheat ale has a malty caramel aroma. The flavor is clean and very drinkable. Its fairly malty with a light hint of citrus.

Lazy Magnolia, Southern Pecan: The next beer is from Kiln Mississippi. Thier website claims this as the firs beer to use pecans in the brewing process; a hell if a claim in the eccentric microbrew culture if the United States, but a valid one. The South, the love them some pecans. They do things different in the South, and this is a good example of that. It has a nice sweet earthy aroma. The flavor is very different, it has a slightly malty start with a bitter woody flavor that ends very dry. A great beer for those who like the novelty of strange brews.

Saint Arnold Brewery, Fancy Lawnmower Kolch: Lastly, from Houston, Texas, we have a light, German style summer beer. It starts with a very very light lemon aroma. The flavor contains light malt sweetness with just a hint of lemon grass for a citrusy herbal feel. It's a very simple, but nice refreshing lighter beer.

Cheers for now. Stay tuned for a couple more dispatches from the American South.