|
Flying via Houston and New Orleans is hardly the most direct way to
get from San Diego Beer Week to Toronto. But when the good folk at Abita
Brewing invite you to an event called Boudin & Beer just a few days
after you co-host a beer dinner at Stone Brewing’s World Bistro and
Garden, and then offer to pick up the cost of your one-way flight,
that’s how you go.
And so I did: San Diego to Houston; Houston to New Orleans; airport
to hotel; hotel to the Avenue Pub. All in as rapid a succession as
possible.
For those unfamiliar with the Avenue, it has become,
in a stunningly short time, the definitive beer destination in the Big
Easy. Once a typical locals’ joint on St. Charles Avenue, about a 20 -30
walk from the edge of the French Quarter, the pub began its
transformation to NOLA beer Mecca when Polly Watts took over the running
of the place from her father. A couple of beer epiphanies and a few
renovations later, the Avenue now boasts a roadhouse-esque first floor
with a back patio, a somewhat tonier (but still very much bar-like)
second floor and a large balcony overlooking the street below. And New
Orleans being New Orleans, it’s open and serving 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
Arriving with a serious thirst on, my first beer
was chosen with refreshment in mind, which funnily enough sent me to a
Canadian brew: the raspberry version of the Berlin Alexanderplatz from
Québec’s Hopfenstark brewery, a tart and quenching Berliner weisse with a
decided but pleasing lactic character and gentle suggestion of fresh
raspberries. From there, I made my way through several local, national
and international selections, most in 10 ounce pours, culminating in the
midnight tapping of the 11/11/11 Stone Vertical Epic ale.
Returning
to my hotel not long after, I reflected upon the achievements of Watts
and the Avenue. Serving a city still dominated to a massive degree by
the big brewers, the Avenue is, even more than pioneering beer
destinations, Cooter Brown’s and d.b.a., an oasis of flavour within a
wasteland of banality. That the draft selection changes so frequently it
is almost never up-to-date on the website – but always tweeted and
Facebooked by owner Watts – only adds to the impressiveness of its
courageous approach to a difficult market.
The crack of Noon the
next day found me en route to Abita Springs, the small town about 45
minutes from New Orleans that is home to Abita Brewing. Now a quarter
century old, Abita still suffers from a certain degree of familiarity
breeding contempt, with locals and frequent visitors alike so
conditioned to seeing the brewery’s flagship – and admittedly rather
pedestrian – Abita Amber that they tend to discount its other brands.
It’s
an understandable prejudice, but like most such judgements, one which
leads to the exclusion of some very good, even exceptional beers. The
brewery’s Restoration Pale Ale, for instance, while hardly
hammer-over-the-head assertive, offers perfumey aromatics guaranteed to
enchant any drinker patient enough to take them in. Similarly, the
brewery’s Jockomo IPA benefits from the untreated spring water used in
its the brewing – and the brewing of every Abita beer – to develop a
character that might seem a trifle light to the dedicated hophead, but
nonetheless delivers a fine and well-constructed portrait of its
component hops.
Where I find the brewery really hits its stride,
however, is in its Select and Big Beers series. The former is a
draft-only choice that changes every few months and varies considerably.
During my visit, it was an Imperial Oyster Stout developed by a local
homebrewer, arguably a little light on the saline-edged oyster side, but
making up for it with a perilously silky and approachable body. The
current Big Beer is the company’s 25th Anniversary Double Dog, a 7% ale
which balances its vanilla bean favouring with chocolaty, plummy malt
and drying hoppiness.
Returning from the brewery, I had a
scant half-hour to freshen up for the main event, the Boudin & Beer
party thrown to kick off the weekend-long Carnivale du Vin. Benefiting
the Emeril Lagasse Foundation, which funds food-oriented programs for
local youth, including Cafe Reconcile, a hospitality training program
for at-risk youth, this year’s was the 7th annual Carnivale, but the
first ever Boudin & Beer. I was delighted to be able to take part.
It
was an event that offered more than sufficient value for its $75
admission price, with a multitude of stations serving boudin – a
traditional sausage usually made with pork and rice – cooked by over two
dozen chefs, including Mario Batali, Lagasse, Donald Link of the
ultra-hot Cochon restaurant, and the legendary Paul Prudhomme. (My
favourite, however, were the boudin balls served up by Gautreau’s chef
Sue Zemanick!) Washing it all down was plenty of Abita beer, of course,
but also local wines from the Presqu’Ile Winery, which I didn’t try, and
whiskies from The Glenlivet, which I most assuredly did, plus a handful
of assorted cocktails.
All told, it was a spectacular event and a
pretty exceptional Friday. And, I had to admit, well worth the 1,800 or
so mile detour. |
