NOLA Brewery – New Orleans, Louisiana

NOLA Brewing Co.

NOLA Brewery is chilling in an industrial area along the Mississippi River on Tchoupitoulas Street (which is fun to hear in navigation apps). It’s spacious yet comfortable. Nestled inside is a restaurant called McClure’s BBQ that is delicious and worth visiting in its own right.
I tried six of their beers across the spectrum and was overall pleased. Everything was classically well done though I was a little underwhelmed by their 7th Street Wheat. Then I tried their sour cherry ale, Piety. It knocked everything else out of the park! Extra tart but still flavorful and complex, aged in red wine barrels for a little more body. Every sip was an aneurism of happiness. I bought a bottle of it and carted it all the way around the south for a week and a half to drink with friends in Ft. Lauderdale, it was a long but worthwhile wait.

The Beers:

• Blonde – light, crisp and well balanced.
• Irish Channel Stout – dark and thick, with a decent coffee flavor that didn’t overpower the malt.
• Hop back Cadillac – an Imperial IPA (east coast style), at first smell it had floral and pineapple notes, but a lemon hoppy flavor. A hazy beer with a low fizz and maybe something herb-y in the background?
• 7th Street Wheat – this beer was one of the lightest tasting wheats I’ve tried. Low scent profile, and nothing more than a subtle standard malt/hop flavor. It wasn’t bad, if anything it tasted like a well crafted Bud.
• Toasted Almond – brown ale with a strong coffee flavor harmoniously blended with toasted almond. Dark, fizzy and crisp; it had all the flavor of a porter with the body of a brown ale.
• Piety – as stated above: aneurysms of happiness.
• Mr. Beet – a blonde ale brewed with ginger and beets. I hate beets, apparently unless their fermented. This beer tasted more like a sour or even a Prosecco of sorts. It was dry yet sweet, and herbal with the earthy hints of beet. Unique and complex and tasty!

It was easy to see afterward why all the recommendations for NOLA leaned heavily on their sours more than anything else. They’ve got the classics down but they’ve taken sours to new levels!

Have you ever been to NOLA Brewing, what did you think?