NOLA! HOLA!

Abita Brewery. Bizarre Location. Awesome setup. At first glance one might notice that the brewery is located in a trailer park. But then one takes a further glance and sees the gem in the rough. The brewery is rather incredible. Their “visitor center” (tasting room) is brand new and rather awesome. They have Abita brew inspired art and games and a longggg Mahogany bar with only Abita taps behind it. Two big flat screens top off the atmosphere of the room. A short, older woman begins the tour with a “Can I have everyones attention. Soon we will open up the bar.” Everyone shuts up immediately. She begins to tell us how we will soon be able to walk behind the bar and pour our own pints for the rest of the tour. There was a group of (clearly by the boat shoes and pink collared shirts) frat guys standing next to me who at that moment began to believe in Santa Claus again at the open bar announcement. I, on the other hand, was looking forward not to the fact that it was an open bar but to the fact that they had ALL their current beers on tap. I got in line and waited my turn. As soon as it came my turn to choose one of the many tap handles to pull, I had to choose the Double IPA (a brew not available everywhere). It was exactly as I expected, enough hops to melt the enamel off your teeth. Also rather boozy. But delicious. As I stood talking to an older couple of my journey across country and how they were also just sort of passing through (although they were just coming from Mobile, AL), the tour lady came on the mic and announced that the bar would be temporarily closing in 5 minutes so that the tour could begin. I have never seen such a wide age range of people down their beers so quickly. Of course the frat dudes pounded theirs and congratulated each other as they went back up to the bar. But I saw one woman around the age of 60 just tilt her cup up and let gravity do the rest for a few seconds. You really have got to love the South... But anyway. I was luckily done with my beer and was able to get a Restoration Pale Ale (get it?!) before the tour started. The only other brewery that I have ever toured was located inside a warehouse in Raleigh and consisted of about 6 or 7, 30 bbl fermenters. Abita on the other hand, had about 25, 300 bbl fermenters and a few 400 bbl ones as well. Just so you can get an idea, one 300 bbl fermenter holds over 16,000 six packs of beer. That is massive! As the tour leader told us, Abita is currently the 15^th largest among American craft breweries as of right now. Can't wait till I get to Stone and New Belgium...

But enough of me rambling about the beer (although prepare on later posts cause its gunna get worse). I finally made it to New Orleans, LA (NOLA)! Talk about a crazy drive in. I came via 27 miles of bridge across Lake Pontchartrain (I like to say it in a French accent as “Pon-Chon-Tron”). As you drive along the bridge, you can begin to see center city on the skyline and good golly Miss Molly is the Super Dome huge!! One of the first things I could see. I guess thats why its not named the “Pretty Cool Dome”. But anyway, once I got off the bridge of eternity, you could immediately tell you were in a different type of place. Thanks to an out-of-date GPS that I was trying to follow, I was weirdly lucky enough to miss a few turns and see just a small amount of what Katrina did. Man was it weird. Signs that are still faded from flood water. Cracks in pavement. Homes still a mess. You really don't get a sense of what happened on the news. It hits you once you're here. Completely out of my element. Comin up on 6 years and its easy to forget about certain things that popular media decides to drop. But I digress. I am staying with Paul. Paul is the man. I think as soon as I stepped on his property we began to discuss beers and brewing processes. The man really knows his stuff. While discussing, I was apart of my first brew ever (while we shared a few bottles that Paul had already made, great stuff!). Very exciting. We brewed an American style Cream Ale. It was awesome being apart of the process for the first time since I plan on starting up myself in a few months. Once the brew was done boiling, we set off for dinner. I gotta say, I am DIGGING the open container law in NOLA. The rest of the country needs to adopt the lifestyle. Walking to dinner with a Stella in a can somehow just feels right to me. Perhaps I should talk to my local Congressman...Wow I really do ramble. Well long story short, we went to dinner, me and Paul went and got a few beers at a sports bar, and then retired to home base. I can't leave this city without visiting the French Quarter so I'm gunna do that tomorrow. From there, I'm Houston bound. I need to sleep...