The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [156]
PHILOSOPHY
Enlightened. Watts is an unabashed craft beer maven, but neither she nor her staff will condescend to another’s taste. This is New Orleans: self-serious puffery is ill advised. Knowledge, on the other hand, is power. The bar offers classes for the Cicerone program, a beer expertise certification course, and she keeps her tap beers fresh using a costly system that dispenses beers under a mixture of CO2 and nitrogen that is calibrated according to each beer’s ideal mixture. Her staff cleans the lines every two weeks, inhibiting the bacteria growth that can contribute to terribly off flavors in beer. This is a (woefully) rare and yet essential practice.
KEY BEER
Watts recently put the seldom seen Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek on tap; it’s a tart lambic brew from Belgium that is spontaneously fermented with wild yeasts, aged in Bordeaux barrels for up to three years, and refermented with the juice of local cherries before bottling. With its unremittingly tart flavor it would be the perfect combo for the rich artisan cheese board from St. James Cheese Company, a noted Garden District merchant.
NOLA BREWING CO.
3001 Tchoupitoulas St. • New Orleans, LA 70115 (504) 896–9996 • nolabrewing.com • Established: 2008
SCENE & STORY
With the sultry weather it would seem unlikely that craft beer—with its sometimes intense, attention-demanding flavors and hefty alcoholic punch—would gain much of a foothold in New Orleans. But it has. This is, after all, the city that invented the cocktail, elevating simple spirits to something higher, and, at one time, the former brewing capital of the American South.
Those days may be coming back. It’s a short drive from the French Quarter down to Tchoupitoulas Street to get to one of the most remarkable success stories—in beer, or any local business—since Katrina. With the void left by Dixie, the New Orleans Lager & Ale Brewing Company, universally known as Nola Brewing, is poised to become the city’s preeminent craft brewery, first by putting super distinctive batches on draft around town and then by packaging.
Native son and founder Kirk Coco and head brewer Peter Caddoo have set up shop in a hangar-like former metal shop just south of the Garden District overlooking the Mississippi River. Standing beneath the soaring eaves in view of their compact 20 bbl system of kettle and tanks (sure to expand) with the freshest possible brew in hand, it’s easy to think the sky’s the limit.
Coco, a former lawyer with wily enthusiasm, was working as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy during Katrina, while Caddoo, a shyer sort but often wearing a contented, wry grin, had been sous chef under Emeril Lagasse at Commander’s Palace before working at Dixie—until all the brewers were laid off a few months before Katrina as the company foundered. Both men watched from a safe distance as the storm took its terrible toll on the city and on Dixie, its last proud brewery, and, slowly, as the city picked up the pieces in 2007, began to plan their venture.
PHILOSOPHY
Quintessentially local. Coco and Caddoo are experimenting with some local ingredients like watermelon and say they want to stay small (they did about 1,300 bbl in 2010, and say they’d top out at 10,000). “More than any other city—except maybe Seattle or San Francisco—New Orleans supports local products so strongly,” says Coco. “That’s why there are no chain restaurants around. It’s very hard to find one.
KEY BEER
The IPA has come a long way, from oddity to everyday brew, but the trouble is, too many are haphazard affairs defined by a long and face-contorting aftertaste. Not Caddoo’s 6.5% ABV Hopitoulas IPA, a blend of six malts and six hops, which is then dry hopped with two different hops beyond that point. It’s balanced, with notes of pine, grapefruit, and caramel.
DETOUR
THE MAPLE LEAF
8316 Oak St. • New Orleans, LA 70118 • (504) 866–9359 • mapleleafbar.com
Open since 1974, the old Leaf is the paradigmatic New Orleans music