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A concise brewery bio
Haines Brewing is based in historic Dalton City (which is part of Haines, Alaska).
Here is what I would order if I had their line-up in front of me….
Captain Cook’s Spruce Tip Ale – a seasonal ale made with, you guessed it, spruce tree tips.
DMMDI IPA – that is short for Devil made me do it. Pretty self-explanatory after that.
One of the first thing that hops out when you visit this brewers website is this tagline, “New Zealand’s first ultra cool, postmodern brewers of leftfield ales. Specialists in all styles.”
All you have to do is peruse their beer list to see that leftfield is an understatement.
How about:
Pot Kettle Black
“Remixed and remastered as a celebration of Pot Kettle Black’s double trophy-winning effort at BrewNZ 2009: Champion beer in the ‘Stouts and Porters’ class and winner of the ‘People’s Choice’ award at the Beervana festival.”
I always find something interesting from the Beer Advocate magazine (much more so than the website, which is a little on the trolly side) And on the last page of the recent edition is about a newish brewery in Massachussetts by the name of Cody Brewing.
They have two really out there offerings: Fruit cake strong ale and Wasabi lemongrass lager.
Here is what their website says about themselves:
“Little Brewery, Big Biere
Parish Brewing Co. is a nanobrewery (yes, nano! smaller than micro!) in Lafayette, Louisiana. Parish will be bringing Acadiana and the rest of Louisiana uncompromising, craft brewed beer (or biere in our native cajun french). Using only the finest ingredients, we’d never cut costs at the expense of flavor.
Think of Parish as an upstart local brewery in cajun country doing battle against boring, tasteless swill.”
This biere (the first on their list) really caught my eye:
“Canebrake
Brewed with Louisiana sugarcane! A new Louisiana tradition in the works. Crisp and easy to drink, this sparingly hopped American wheat focuses attention on the understated sweet remnants of sugarcane.”
Moonlight Brewing (like it’s famous, but no less revered neighbor, Russian River) is a bit of mystery to me and a lot of people. They don’t have large distribution circles but they are doing what they want to do, the way they want to. And for that, I applaud them.
Here are some of the brews from their Abbey (“The Abbey de St. Humulus, founded in 2005, is home to the Moonlight Brewery. We believe that Moonlight is the first and perhaps only Abbey brewery in the US. The Moonlight beers are not of European Abbey brewery styles, as we are not a European Abbey, but instead are of the unique California Abbey style range. The mission of the Abbey is to promote good will through good beer. Abbey de St. Humulus is in no way affiliated with the Trappist Monasteries.”) that caught my eye….
Reality Czeck – a 4.8% lager.
Toast – their slightly burned lager.
Bayou Teche is another small and very Cajun’ outfit.
Like so many others before him, Karlos Knott, the founder of the brewery, tasted quality flavorful beer while in Europe, in Knott’s case, Germany. He was further entranced by the Washington State beer scene that he returned too. That led to home brewing in 1994. Upon returning to Louisiana, Knott and his brothers, who all live on the family farm in Arnaudville, crafted beers to compliment Cajun cuisine and launched Bayou Teche.
LA-31 is their most famous biere but others are on the way like a hefeweizen that will pair with that lovely Cajun’ food.
Firestone-Walker is getting some competition for their Buellton outpost. Figueroa Mountain Brewing will be firing up their kettles with a nice variety of beers including Hurricane Deck Helles, Danish Red (for the Solvang crowd) and Stagecoach Stout. They have an experienced brewer on board and I hope they can compete against the massive crush of wineries in that area of California.
Good Luck and I hope to visit soon.
We dip back into New Zealand to look at an organic brewery by the name of Mike’s. I like that they celebrate both mom and dad. (Some organics forget the male of the gender) “mike’s is committed to offering you the very best quality organic beer that we can produce. Joining us are mother nature, who supplies all of the ingredients, and father time, who matures the beer for us.”
Their IPA sounds like a bitter treat:
“Inspired by the hoppy English pale ales but leaning toward the highly hopped American variety. Pours rich golden amber with a faint haze and a creamy white head settling to a fine veil. The aroma is complex with tropical fruit including passion fruit, pineapple and melons all vying for attention.
The flavour is something to behold, with the sweet tropical fruits now balanced out by the strong biscuity malt flavour and absolutely intense hop bitterness. The very full mouth feel and glowing warm aftertaste serve to further keep the hop bitterness in check.
This is an extremely hoppy beer, if the drinker is not partial to hops, they might struggle with this drop. For the true hop heads, this is nectar to be savoured.
Serve chilled in small stemmed goblets, to be sipped on cool Autumn evenings. This beer needs to be treated with respect, weighing in at 9.0% ABV, it’s no lightweight and should be shared with good company.”
Each of the Louisiana breweries that I have focused on have great histories and NOLA is no exception. Here is the NOLA story: “NOLA Brewing is the concept and dream of entrepreneur Kirk Coco. Kirk is a native New Orleanian who earned his BA and Juris Doctorate from Louisiana State University, his MBA from the University of New Orleans and served 11 years as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy. After watching the effects of Katrina while on deployment in the Arabian Gulf, he decided to come home to help rebuild and develop commerce in post-Katrina New Orleans.
While enjoying great tasting beer of fellow New Orleanian and home brewer Byron Towles, the question arose, “Why doesn’t New Orleans have several great local micro-breweries like Portland or Seattle to offer a variety of beer to a city full of brewing history?”
Once the cradle of brewing in the Deep South, New Orleans boasted world famous beers such as Falstaff, Regal, Union, Dixie, Jax, New Orleans Brewing and XXXX (Four X).”
And here is the beer that stood out amongst the many good choices:
“Hopitoulas is a West Coast style India Pale Ale that has 6 malts and 6 hops and has been additionally dry hopped for three weeks. A month and a half to make each batch, we think you’ll appreciate our extra work in the perfectly balanced, hoppy flavor Hopitoulas packs.”
To start the month of Louisiana Beer, I have to start in the traditional (some may say cliche) heart. The French Quarter of New Orleans. I will expand out as the month goes by but first I present, Crescent City Brewhouse.
They have a really solid list of beers. All crafted by “Wolfram Koehler, [who] is recognized among his peers for his craftsmanship … and continues his family tradition of brewing the finest selection of world class beer. Our house selection of distinctive lagers has won numerous awards. World travelers will be pleased to discover that the German heritage known for fine beer making is continued here.”