Off the top of your head, what associations do you have with
New Orleans? Jazz, perhaps, which originated there; Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which
beautifully captures its humid buzz; the Hurricane Katrina tragedy; maybe, at a
stretch, Lil Wayne? Beer is unlikely to feature on your list. A quick wander
around the French Quarter will tell you that plenty of beer is consumed in the
city, though. If open container laws apply here at all, they are openly flouted
by carefree tourists spilling from jazz club to dive bar, beer in hand.
Granted, much of this beer is light lager from macro
breweries but if that doesn’t satisfy, you don’t have to look hard for
alternatives. If, say, you’re on a family holiday that is not specifically or
exclusively beer-focused, this is particularly useful. Pizzerias, music venues,
art gallery cafés and even bars aboard historic paddle steamers all have your
back. You may stumble across an unassuming hotel bar quietly serving eight Louisiana
craft beers on tap, and reflect on the fact that, in the UK, such an
establishment would be trying to pass itself off as a specialist beer venue.
There are some places you should make time for, though, and
I’ll get to those. First, an observation – the apparent trend amongst Louisiana
breweries is for hazy, juicy beers in the New England style. Of the ten or so
pale ales and IPAs I tasted in New Orleans, only a few poured clear, and even
those – Bayou Teche’s LA-31 Biere Pale or Clean State from Wayward Owl, for example – had a touch
of something tropical about them.
In a sense there’s nothing extraordinary about this, since
the popularity of these beers seems to have hit just about everywhere with a
craft beer scene, but it’s not what I expected. The swampy state is known for
its sticky humidity, and I expected the brewers from such an environment to aim
straight at the easy-going and refreshing. Hazy IPAs might be low in IBUs, but
they’re also kind of intense and sometimes share the thick body of a fruit
smoothie. On my visit, though, the weather was pleasantly warm but reportedly
nothing like the still heat that New Orleans experiences in the summer months.
And as such, I sure appreciated those juicy brews.
Amongst the best was Voodoo Pale Ale, from Baton Rouge’s Tin Roof; its tropical vibe was given
further depth by a resinous, even slightly sharp edge, probably imparted by the
Simcoe hop. Jucifer, brewed by Gnarly Barley in Hammond, was also sublimely
juicy, with a touch of sherbet lemon and a gentle bitter finish.
The Courtyard Brewery
dedicates a good percentage of their output to incredibly turbid IPAs, some of
which almost seem to glow with a greenish-yellow luminosity. Situated a little
outside the tourist centre of the city, it’s a self-described nanobrewery and
looks like a tiny, tight space. You’ll need to come to the taproom to taste The
Courtyard’s wares, as they do not distribute and sell all their beer on-site
and on draught.
4th Best Body Surfer in the World has an allium aroma, and the flavour toes the line between savoury and juicy, like a mango salsa. The texture is creamy and smooth, and there’s a slightly raw bitterness in the finish. I liked The Wild Party better; it’s especially dank, with more of those onion-like notes, but also cranking the tropical fruit up a notch with bags of pineapple and a touch of blueberry. And to break up those IPAs, I tried And So We Can Acquiesce To Authority, a rosemary and blackberry witbier. It’s incredibly refreshing and the unusual ingredients have been added with subtlety. It instantly recalls the quenching sensation of biting into a slice of watermelon, though I’m conscious that making that comparison makes the beer sound watery, which it is not.
The taproom is a must-visit; basic in the manner of Bermondsey’s most down-to-earth (though with the welcome addition of a plumbed-in toilet), it doesn’t amount to much more than a few tables and chairs placed out the front, but this is charming rather than half-arsed and chimes with the laid-back approach that earned New Orleans the nickname ‘The Big Easy’.
A short walk into the smart Lower Garden District you’ll
find The Avenue Pub. Definitely a pub rather than a bar, it’s an old-timey
place by American standards; thought to date back to 1845, it boasts quirks
like a tin ceiling and fireplaces that, in the warmth of late spring, it’s hard
to imagine are ever lit. Louisiana breweries are well represented on the
extensive draught list, and I got my fix of juice from Urban South’s superb Holly Roller IPA. One of the
highlights of the local beers I tried on this trip was All My Tomorrows from Great Raft in Shreveport. This is a saison brewed with rye, and has a slightly
grainy, rustic farmhouse quality as well as bubblegum and black pepper. I could
have sworn the version I tasted was brewed with Motueka or something similar,
though can’t now find any reference to this online; my notes say that passion
fruit and lime flavours intensified as it warmed, which doesn’t sound much the
advertised hop bill of Mosaic, Citra and Bravo. Regardless, here’s the
important part – it was utterly delicious.
Then came something really special. Each year, Montreal’s Brasserie Dieu de Ciel! release a
series of variations on their imperial coffee stout, Péché Mortel, in an event
known as Péché Day. Not only were several of these still pouring at the Avenue Pub,
they were discounting them to $3 a pour as if they wanted to get rid of them. Péché Framboise is so good I feel
privileged to have tasted it; it’s amongst the finest stouts I have ever
tasted, astonishingly silky with a vibrant raspberry flavour that plays
beautifully off the decadent chocolate notes. Péché Latte, with added lactose, was a desert-like treat, all
sweet, creamy coffee. Do not leave New Orleans without going to the Avenue Pub.
Miss your plane if you have to.
Back towards the centre on the city, on the edge of the
French Quarter, you’ll find Black Penny.
This well-worn-in pub might have an appealingly divey feel during its
late-night opening hours, but with the sun streaming through the window in the
late afternoon, it’s pretty idyllic. Note the absence of the ubiquitous, OTT
branded tap handles on the bar; all the beer here is in cans. Why this is, I don’t
know, but I do know that’s it’s an
impressive list featuring plenty of Lousiana breweries as well as those from
further afield. You’ll find oddities such as Lion Stout, the Sri Lankan brew
that Michael Jackson wrote about and which I’ve never seen anywhere before, and
selections from Wasatch, the first brewery in Utah since Prohibition – astonishingly, it
opened in 1986.
Here I drank Hoppyright Infringement from NOLA Brewing Company. Once, Dixie Brewing
Company made New Orelans’ local lager within the city, but closed after
Hurricane Katrina and relocated brewing to Wisconsin. In 2009, NOLA became the
city’s only active brewery. BeerAdvocate now lists about 15, of which NOLA is
probably the most visible. The beer in my can at Black Penny is as good an example
of the hazy fruit salad double IPA as you’re likely to find without queuing up
overnight in New England (and I highly recommend their silky, hoppy Irish
Channel Stout, too.)
I should point out, by the way, that the easy-drinking, refreshing
brews I expected of the Pelican State are there when you need them; in the
excitingly sweaty Maison jazz club on Frenchmen Street, I dodged IPAs in favour
of Coop’d Up from Urban South, a
refreshingly tart farmhouse ale with a beautiful peachy flavour and a slightly
salty finish. Wayward Owl’s Family Tree is a kristallweizen – not normally a style I gravitate towards
because I prefer the fuller, mealy body of its yeastier relative, the
hefeweizen. Well, not in a humid jazz venue I don’t; the crisp, lager-like
quality really hit the spot, whilst the rhubard, banana and clove flavours I
love in German wheat beers were there in spades.
The visibility of good beer in New Orleans demonstrates, I
think, at least part of what people are getting at when they say beer culture
in the UK is “behind” that of the US. There’s plenty here to satisfy nerds like
myself; but equally, there is a mainstream understanding and appreciation of
craft beer here I don’t think yet exists at home. I like it.
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