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3236 Magazine St. • New Orleans, LA 70115 • (504) 891–1516 bulldog.draftfreak.com • Established: 1994

THE BULLDOG MIDCITY

5135 Canal Blvd. • New Orleans, LA 70124 • (504) 488–4191 bulldog-midcity.draftfreak.com • Established: 2004

SCENE & STORY

Magazine Street, in the area generally referred to as uptown (and bordering the Garden District) is lined with cool old bars, shops, art galleries, and eateries, and makes a nice change from the French Quarter, which varies from magical to insufferably touristy. The original Bulldog on Magazine Street has fifty beers on tap and a hundred in bottles, standard pub fare, and a spacious patio out back featuring a fountain made of beer taps. The mid-city location is a bit more upscale; both bars offer easygoing environments that make them worth a stop on a pub-crawl. The Bulldog has two other locations as well: Baton Rouge (where you can try the latest brews from Tin Roof, Louisiana’s most recent craft brewery to fire up), and Jackson, Mississippi.

PHILOSOPHY

Good fun for good causes. There are generally a lot of Tulane and Loyola students, and it’s dog friendly, donating often to the local Humane Society and ASPCA. Wednesdays are popular as everyone gets to keep the pint glasses, or, by leaving them, donate to the causes.

KEY BEER

Nola Blonde, an easygoing, light-bodied brew first released in March 2009, is grainy, pale gold, and has an angular hop attack for the style.

COOTER BROWN’S TAVERN, GRILL, & OYSTER BAR

509 S. Carrollton Ave. • New Orleans, LA 70118 (504) 886–9104 • cooterbrowns.com • Established: 1977

SCENE & STORY

The gloriously dive-y Cooter Brown’s, in the Riverbend area of uptown New Orleans, is the eccentric granddaddy of New Orleans beer bars, with a vast hoard of beer (358 bottles and 42 taps), pool tables, pressed tin walls, wood slatted ceilings, and a gallery of ceramic caricatures of “dead celebrities,” clutching beers related somehow to their careers (“Jimmy Dean, an unfulfilled acting career cut short by tragedy, grips a bottle of Golden Promise,” explains the website). It’s a classic, plain and simple.

PHILOSOPHY

No frills. You’ll hear it described as a good beer bar and a place to mingle with drunken Tulane students and eccentric locals, and it is indeed both, as well as a decent place to go for oysters and crawfish.

KEY BEER

A deliciously safe bet is Duvel in a 12-ounce bottle, the classic 8.5% ABV Belgian strong pale ale. It’s a big, refreshing, kicky beer with fine effervescence and Champagne dryness that can stand the extra shelf time that comes for beers in bars with huge lists.

DETOUR

RUINS & RESURRECTION

Not so long ago, of course, all the laughter ended in The Big Easy. When the floodwaters of Katrina breached in August 2005, the area’s breweries took a serious hit along with the rest of the beleaguered city. Hardest hit was Dixie Brewing Company, opened in New Orleans in 1907. A familiar landmark in town for 98 grand years, Dixie was inundated with 8 or 9 feet of water.

Today the wracked shell of a building stands as a grim reminder of what the region suffered in the great storm. Visible from I-90 over on Tulane Avenue, the red brick behemoth stands scarred, its windows blackened and broken out, the interior emptied, the brewing equipment long looted and sold for scrap. After the storm, the owners talked of coming back, but costs were prohibitive, and today the ruins gloam over 3rd Ward streets with an abiding sadness. Once the largest brewery in town and the pride of the region, the catastrophic storm reduced it to an empty hulk.

As of mid-2011 there are competing plans to either redevelop or raze the ruins. So if it’s still there, make sure to drive past it a few times, perhaps slowing down for a picture or two (it’s not currently a safe area to walk around on foot), and apprehend a powerful reminder of what New Orleans once was—the brewing capital of the South. Locals seem resigned to the fact that the wrecking ball can’t be far off, but perhaps someone whose heart beats for an old brewery will find a way to