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7030 Roscoe-Turner Rd. • Kiln, MS 39556 (228) 467–2727 • lazymagnolia.com • Established: 2005

SCENE & STORY

It’s a classic love story, but with a twist (or two). Boy meets girl. Girl buys boy home brewing kit. Boy brews decent beer; girl falls in love with brewing, takes over, goes to brewing school; couple starts brewing company (and boy designs the label). That’s the short version for Leslie and Mark Henderson, who met in college and and opened for business in 2005 in an industrial facility in tiny Kiln (population: 2,000). A crossroads of a town not too far from the Gulf of Mexico and formerly famous only for the presence of Brett Favre’s high school, it’s not terribly far from New Orleans (about one hour, without traffic). There are free, no-reservation-required tours every Saturday morning, but state law forbids sampling on-site (post-tour, pick up a list of local bars serving the beer). In other words, it’s a pilgrimage.

PHILOSOPHY

Named for the flowers that grow along the banks of the nearby Jordan River (and one malnourished, hence “lazy” specimen on the couple’s back porch), Lazy Magnolia uses everything from sweet potatoes to roasted pecans and honey from an uncle’s bee-keeping operation in the brewing process.

KEY BEER

Beer nuts are usually on the side, but not in the case of Southern Pecan, a carameltinted brown ale flavored with whole roasted pecans. It has a sweet, nutty body and easy-drinking alcohol content of just 4.25% ABV.

Hattiesburg

THE KEG & BARREL BREW PUB

1315 Hardy St. • Hattiesburg, MS 39401 (601) 582–7148 • kegandbarrel.com • Established: 2005

SCENE & STORY

The beating heart of Mississippi’s craft beer scene, this is a bar in a refurbished 100-year-old house with a wraparound porch and tables in the yard and a good list for a state that is completely backward with regards to beer laws. Due to distribution issues, the bottle list relies on familiar American crafts and everyday imports (though there are some good brews among those, like Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout and Franziskaner Hefeweizen). On draft, sought-after kegs run dry with alacrity. It’s just not easy to get beer all the way to Hattiesburg.

That is, unless it’s made on-site. The Keg & Barrel is also the home of an upstart nanobrewery, Southern Prohibition, now a legal resident in a side room (unlike the early days, when one imagines all sorts of interesting excuses for the aromas wafting around Hattiesburg). With about sixty taps and thirty bottles, the selection is the best around for nearly a hundred miles, absolutely worth a trip for any beer lover in the area. And you won’t go hungry: choose from Southern comfort food staples such as fried chicken and waffles, fried green tomatoes, and chicken-fried steak (did someone say fried?).

PHILOSOPHY

This is a friendly little oasis trying to do the right thing for the locals and for the state. For now, the right thing means bringing as many good beers to the area as possible under the limit, which excludes a huge number of beers, but doesn’t mean you can’t get a good one.

KEY BEER

From Flying Dog to Anchor and Sierra Nevada, there are some familiar and excellent drafts on the list, as well as the whole Lazy Magnolia line. So whatever Southern Prohibition’s little nanosystem has kicked out most recently, put it in your glass and tell everyone you meet in the state they need to try it, too.

Oklahoma

Tulsa

JAMES MCNELLIE’S PUBLIC HOUSE

409 East 1st St. • Tulsa, OK 74120 • (918) 382-PINT mcnellies.com • Established: 2004

SCENE & STORY

Also known for its Scotch selection, this huge, two-story beer bar in Tulsa’s booming Blue Dome District was inspired by the owner’s travels in Ireland and gleams with a huge brass-clad tap row, copper accents, and other old-world flourishes. Today it boasts two spin-off bars—one in Oklahoma City, and one in the town of Norman—but this is the original and Oklahoma’s best beer spot. It has 62 beers on tap, two casks on Oklahoma’s only beer engines, another 290 bottled brews, and great sweet-potato fries