Beer: The Times-Picayune covers 175 years of New Orleans history
Published: Thursday, February 02, 2012, 5:08 AMNew Orleans was once the brewing capital of the South. Swiss immigrant Louis Fasnacht opened the first brewery in New Orleans in 1852 where the Cotton Mill apartments now stand. It closed by 1876. 
Workers inside the bottling plant at the Union Brewery in the mid-1930s. Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Beer's history in New Orleans gallery (13 photos)
An influx of German immigrants around 1850 led to a rapid expansion of commercial breweries. By 1890, there were 30 breweries in the city. But refrigeration, pasteurization and improved transportation put relentless pressure on breweries to merge or close, as did changing tastes by consumers. The New Orleans Brewing Co. was the result of an 1890 merger of six smaller brewers at the site of the Louisiana Brewing Co. It operated a vast complex at Jackson Avenue and Tchoupitoulas, and a second facility was in the old Weckerling Brewing, now part of the National World War II Museum. Among its brands was Eagle Beer. The brewery closed in 1949. Falstaff, which moved into Louisiana in 1936 by buying the local National Brewing Co., dominated sales in the 1950s and ‘60s. During that time, Falstaff, Dixie, Jax and Regal held 80 percent of the local beer market. Regal was made popular by its jingle, “Red beans and rice and Regal on ice.” It was produced at the American Brewing Co. brewery on Bienville Street, today the site of the Royal Sonesta hotel. American closed in 1962. The old Jax Brewery on Decatur Street was turned into a shopping and dining complex in the 1980s. Dixie was the last old-line beer to be brewed in the city, as well as the last major independent brewer in the South. Katrina flooded the brewery, which was then damaged by looters. Dixie is now made in Wisconsin. But beer brewing has returned to south Louisiana through microbrewers such as Abita, NOLA Brewing and Heiner Brau. Leave A Comment
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