A New Orleans native, Coco had recently gotten out of the Navy and then headed for home to help rebuild in the wake of Katrina and the failed levees. “We have multiple solidly made core beers that are becoming ubiquitous, and we have really desirable upper-tier limited releases that the beers geeks go nuts for.”Ī confluence of small-scale happenings facilitated this boom: A post-Katrina influx of millennials arrived with a taste for craft beers that was cultivated in other cities, and relatively affordable and roomy warehouse space was available in which to set up shop.Īmong the first brewers of the new fold was Kirk Coco, founder of NOLA Brewery, which opened in 2007. “Louisiana brewing culture has finally made it to the same level as the national scene,” says Polly Watts, owner of Avenue Pub, widely considered the city’s preeminent spot for craft beers. Ten new breweries have opened in New Orleans in the past ten years. In the past decade, the city has seen a wave of new craft breweries, many with taprooms, and many situated in vast, disused buildings, including old theaters and warehouses that served the Mississippi River trade. Remnants of the city’s brewing past can be seen in the elegant old Jax Brewery (now condos and shops, in the French Quarter) and the abandoned Dixie Brewery (which was recently incorporated into a new Mid-City hospital complex).īut local beer making slipped into a long lull over the past century.
Historically, in the 19th century, the city was awash with breweries, as was every city in America before steel kegs and refrigerated shipping made long-distance beer distribution economically feasible. Here, a look at the current rising tide of breweries and distilleries in NOLA. Much of this may simply be a reflection of nationwide trends-some 816 new small breweries and brewpubs opened their doors last year alone, and there are currently more than 1,300 craft distilleries across the country, up from just a few dozen in 2004.īut New Orleans has qualities that have lent it its own peculiar sort of gravity, attracting those looking to get a toehold in the quality adult beverage industry. In more recent years, New Orleans has evolved into an economy that markets experiences for tourists.Īlongside this influx of visitors, production has begun to move to the forefront-more than a dozen breweries and distilleries have appeared in the city’s cultural landscape over the past half-dozen years. Historically built on trade, not manufacturing, the city rose to prominence and wealth as the transfer point between Mississippi flatboats and oceangoing sailing ships. The city’s focus has nearly always been on the consumption of liquor and beer-rarely on their production.
New Orleans also hosts Arnaud’s French 75, just a few steps off Bourbon Street, named the most outstanding bar program in the nation at this year’s James Beard Awards, proving the city can do sophisticated cheek by jowl with sloppy.
It’s the birthplace of several notable cocktails-the Sazerac and the Ramos Gin Fizz among them-and Bourbon Street is the nation’s greatest urban thoroughfare devoted to free-range imbibing and dubiously colored cocktails. Few places are as tightly linked with liquor as the Crescent City.
0 kommentar(er)
