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The original brewery location just down the road has, since 1994, housed a 100-seat brewpub where you can sample a few house beers Abita doesn’t bottle, like a recent Black IPA. Behind its white picket fence and cypress window frames, it’s a nice enough place to spend some time after the tour. Expect above average southeastern pub fare, though the kitchen hasn’t done much cooking with Abita beer.

PHILOSOPHY

Abita has grown like a beanstalk since the day it opened in 1986 with a capacity for 1,500 bbl, and modernized operations considerably, including the installment of a unique brewing kettle device called the Merlin, a massive steel heating agent more common in Europe and prized for efficiency. Along the way the company has headed north of 80,000 barrels produced annually, but managed to keep a somewhat soulful image. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Abita launched a beer they dubbed Fleur de Lis Restoration Pale Ale and raised over half a million dollars for hurricane relief, having been spared themselves from major physical damages, and in 2010 released SOS Pilsner to raise funds for the BP Gulf Oil recovery efforts. The brewery is run by David Blossman, a longtime craft beer enthusiast and original shareholder.

“People say there’s no beer culture [here], and I just have to disagree,” says Blossman. He ties craft beer’s success in the Crescent City to the incredible food scene, with its ambitious chefs and a panoply of influences. “We owe a lot of our success to the chefs who took us under their wings,” he explains, echoing a point often made in the city’s taprooms: the beer scene is intertwined with dining, a central facet of life. Ambitious chefs working from farmer’s markets have helped open the city palate wider, expanding on the already wide spectrum of Cajun, Creole, French, North American, and African American traditions. And of course, it’s The Big Easy: people like to drink here. “It’s a different lifestyle. People like to slow down. We’re very social,” Blossman adds.

KEY BEER

Abita is best known for its caramel-colored and light-bodied amber (4.5% ABV), but the company has six other year-round beers in all, in addition to five seasonals plus occasional one-offs for the pub brewed on Sonny Day’s one-barrel pilot system. The best for daytime drinking is Restoration Ale, a deep gold, lightly dry-hopped ale with Cascade hops, or Purple Haze, a light and cloudy American style wheat ale (4.2% ABV) blended with raspberry puree post-filtration, giving it a fruity zing.

HEINER BRAU

226 E. Lockwood St. • Covington, LA 70433 • (888) 910-BEER (985) 893–2884 • heinerbrau.com • Established: 2005

SCENE & STORY

Just off the town square in quiet Covington, one of the South’s most unusual breweries—one which wouldn’t look out of place in the Alps—is Heiner Brau. There, German-born, bred, and trained brewer Henryk “Heiner” Orlik holds court, having left his native home to brew in the United States in 1994 with nary a glance back. The irrepressibly friendly Bavarian came to this country to get in on the burgeoning craft beer industry; the trade in Germany has been slowing down for decades. After stints in Cleveland, at nearby Abita, and in North Carolina, he opened up Heiner Brau in Covington’s barn-like old passenger rail station in 2005.

The brewery itself is one of the most photogenic in the South, a copper clad 15 bbl system set by two rows of low copper-clad tanks by big windows (the better to show off the gear, with lighting on the tanks after dark). There are brewing photos and artifacts arranged throughout, giving it a quaint museum feel.

“I’m really blessed for great conditions in America,” says Heiner, who has raised four kids with his wife and seems to have a permanent grin on his face along with the brisk, helpful manners of a Bavarian. He’s brewing around 2,500 to 3,000 bbl per year, and contract brewing a couple of projects beyond the three main beers of the Heiner Brau line. Heiner, to put it in American vernacular, is loving it. “For me, it’s a dream come true to start a small