The Ale Runner

Here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, The Chimes Restaurant and Tap Room is an icon. Many an LSU student spent their formative beer years in The Chimes, a list that includes myself. I was first introduced to craft beer (and bad European lagers) at The Chimes back in the mid-1990s when I was an LSU student. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I completed their Around The World challenge, where you drink 60 beers from 20 countries over the course of a few months. In college, I used to stick to Guinness and Murphy’s, with the occasional foray into Abita Turbodog and Purple Haze.

However, as craft beer became more popular and more beer-centric restaurants and bars opened, The Chimes tried to hold on to their formula of mostly European lagers on tap with some of the more popular craft. This approach really hurt The Chimes as a beer destination as places like The Bulldog, The Cove, and most recently, The Pelican House opened in Baton Rouge. No longer was The Chimes THE place to go for beer in Baton Rouge. As recently as a few months ago, I walked in and had trouble finding a single draft beer on the wall that excited me. It was boring and tired. And that was a shame, because The Chimes has what is probably the best atmosphere. It’s family friendly, non-smoking, and just a place you can sit around for hours while munching on really good food and drinking beer.

This past Sunday, The Chimes embarked on a project to revamp their entire draft beer lineup. After the brunch rush, they shut down their draft beer lines for a huge makeover. A new draft system has been installed over the past several days, allowing them to up their offerings from 52 taps to 80. The focus has also changed. Gone are many of the tired European macro lagers, and in their place more American craft beers. There’s a big local focus, yet there are still plenty of national and international favorites. The whole system should be online this Thursday night, December 5th. Starting in early 2014, the Around The World program will come to a close, with a new American craft focus on beer destinations and landmarks.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to see The Chimes update their craft beer offerings. It now jumps back to the top of the list of my favorite beer places in Baton Rouge. The food has always been top notch, and now the beer is there to match it. One of my favorite aspects of The Chimes is that their standard serving is a 20-ounce imperial pint, and there are no frozen pint glasses (hint to all the other beer bars here!). You can also get your favorite beer in a smaller 10-ounce glass.

Check out The Chimes offerings on their BeerMenus.com page, which is now updated with all 80 tap listings. They have done a great job of updating that menu and printing new menus for the taproom itself, which is huge for someone trying to figure out what they’d like to drink.

I’m looking forward to getting over there very soon to enjoy the new offerings. Hopefully if you’re reading this in Baton Rouge, you’ll go check them out soon. And if you’re going to be in town over the holidays, go visit The Chimes for a laid back and family friendly beer experience.

What follows is the December 4th edition of my weekly column written for DIG Magazine.

Shreveport’s Great Raft Brewing will open their tasting room to the public on December 20th. This is great news for craft beer lovers in north Louisiana. Their three flagship beers (Reasonably Corrupt, Southern Drawl, and Commotion) will all be available as well as five more specialty and one-off beers. Pints, samples, and growler fills will all be available for sale. For more info, check out the press release below:

Great Raft Brewing Opens First Local Brewing Tasting Room Dec. 20 
- Ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9:30 am, open to public at 4:00 pm
- Craft brews, brewery tours available Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lindsay Nations, Press Contact
info@greatraftbrewing.com
703-606-0518 (mobile)

Dec. 4, 2013, SHREVEPORT, La. – Great Raft Brewing will feature eight craft brews in the Shreveport area’s first local brewery tasting room that opens Fri., Dec. 20.

The Great Raft tasting room will initially feature three flagship beers with an additional five taps devoted to a variety of one-off and specialty beers. The 2,500 square foot tasting rooms seats up to 75 patrons and is part of Great Raft’s brewing operations located in Shreveport’s Fairfield Historic District.

“The Great Raft tasting room will provide a unique experience for beer lovers, and it gives us the opportunity to engage directly with the community about our beers. We are also excited to use this space as a way to increase the awareness and enjoyment of a variety of beer styles,” said Lindsay Nations, vice president and co-founder of Great Raft Brewing.

To commemorate the grand opening, the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce will perform a ribbon cutting at 9:30 am, and the tasting room opens to the public from 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm. The celebration will also feature food trucks from local Shreveport establishments. In the tasting room, customers may purchase 64-ounce containers, known as growlers, filled with fresh beer to go. Customers can also enjoy 5-ounce samples and 16-ounce pints on site.

“As the newest Louisiana brewery and only tasting room in Shreveport, we are excited to give both local and regional beer lovers an opportunity to enjoy a pint of local beer just feet from where it was made,” said president Andrew Nations.

Following the grand opening, the tasting room will be open on a regular basis on Thursdays and Fridays from 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm and Saturdays from 12:00 pm – 8:00 pm. Tours will be available in early 2014.

Great Raft’s current beer lineup is a black lager named Reasonably Corrupt™, a pale lager named Southern Drawl™ and an American pale ale named Commotion™. A house saison will soon be available, and other specialty beers will be announced as they are released.

In addition to the brewery’s tasting room, Great Raft beer will be available in wholesale kegs through Eagle Distributing of Shreveport for local restaurants and bars. BeginningDec. 9, Great Raft will be on tap at area bars and restaurants as the brewery celebrates its launch week. A full list of launch week events is available atwww.greatraftbrewing.com.

About Great Raft Brewing: Great Raft Brewing is a Shreveport, La.-based craft brewery dedicated to making creative, authentic beer and helping to build a great beer culture within communities it serves. Co-founders Andrew and Lindsay Nations are Shreveport natives with a passion for beer. Born from their desire to bring exciting, flavorful, fresh craft beer to their hometown, Great Raft Brewing is bringing the craft brewing tradition to Northern Louisiana.

Information about Great Raft Brewing can be found at www.greatraftbrewing.com. Learn more on Twitter https://twitter.com/GreatRaftBeer and Facebook www.facebook.com/greatraftbrewing.

The latest in Abita Brewing’s Harvest series hit shelves today. According to the label:

Abita Grapefruit Harvest IPA is a brilliant golden IPA with a subtle zest of grapefruit flavor and aroma that enhances the strong hop character. This bright, snappy brew is made with real Louisiana Ruby-Red grapefruits, pale, pilsner and caramel malts and cascade hops.

What do I think about it? It does pour a brilliant golden color. The cascade hops are evident on the nose, with some grapefruit aroma. The initial taste is a bit of hoppiness, then it hits you: tons of grapefruit. If this is “a subtle zest of grapefruit,” I’d hate to see what they consider a big dose of grapefruit. It really overpowers the hoppiness that defines an IPA. I’m not saying this is a bad beer. It’s actually very refreshing and easy to drink. It’s just got too much grapefruit for my hophead tastes. If they’d dial back the fruit and up the dry hopping, this would be a real winner.

Abita Grapefruit Harvest IPA is a good effort. I’m much more of a hop-centric person, and they get lost in this beer. So I would like to see the hops featured more than the grapefruit. But if this gets people to try an IPA, then it’s probably a good thing.

This one earns 3 bottle caps out of 5 from me.

Abita Brewing recently announced a limited release series of bourbon barrel aged beers. The first in the series, Bourbon Street, will be released to select draft accounts this week.

From Abita:

Bourbon Street Stout is an Imperial Stout that is aged in Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon barrels. Our Imperial Stout is brewed with a combination of pale, caramel, chocolate and roasted malts. Oats are also added to give the beer a fuller and sweeter taste. The roasted malts give the beer its dark color as well as its intense flavor and aroma. After fermentation the beer is cold aged for 6 weeks. This is necessary for all of the flavors of the malt and hops to balance and produce a very smooth flavor.

After the cold aging the beer is transferred into the bourbon barrels. It is then aged for another 8 weeks to absorb all of the flavors from the barrels. The result is a strong stout that brings out the roasted flavors from the malt and the warming toasted, vanilla, and bourbon flavors from the barrels.

I’m stoked to try this one out. This is more of what I want to see out of the flagship craft brewery from Louisiana. I wish this was going to be bottled and sold at retail, but this is a good start. Hopefully we’ll see more of this kind of stuff from Abita in the future.

Look for Abita Bourbon Street Stout on draft at Pelican House and Bulldog in Baton Rouge beginning Tuesday, and at Chimes and Chimes East Thursday and Friday.

Parish Brewing announced yesterday that their Grand Reserve will be released at a special event at the brewery on Saturday, December 14th. Check out all the details below.

IT’S OFFICIAL – GRAND RESERVE DAY IS DECEMBER 14

Come join us at our brewery taproom on Sat, December 14 to partake in this year’s release of our Grand Reserve. Doors will open at 11 AM and you will be able to purchase bottles of our 2013 Grand Reserve. This year’s batch was brewed back in June and has been maturing in our brewery cellar since then. Once this batch is gone, it will not be available again until next year when we release the 2014 vintage.

On Grand Reserve day, we will have the following available at the brewery:
- 750ml bottles of ’13 Grand Reserve for purchase to take home. ($15 per bottle)
- Draft ’13 Grand Reserve ($6 10oz or $3 5oz)
- Cask of ’13 GR ($6 10oz or $3 5oz)
- Vintage ’12 GR ($3 5oz only) for a side-by-side comparison to this year’s vintage – if you’re into that kind of magnificence.
- All of our other currently available beers – Draft South Coast, Envie, and Canebrake plus 750ml bottles of Dr. Hoptagon.

Food trucks will be on site.

If you’ve been to our brewery taproom, you may have already signed up on the reserve list, to reserve up to 3 bottles for purchase here at our taproom on GR day. If you’re not on that list, and you’d like to be, please email corey@parishbeer.com with your name, how many bottles you want to reserve (up to 3) your email address, and phone number. We don’t think a reservation is necessary as we should have enough bottles to go around, but if you would like to guarantee a bottle, we have that option available to you.

We will still be shipping a lot of bottles through our normal distribution channels and retailers in the following week if you cannot make it out to the brewery.

We’re looking forward to a great day enjoying great beer with you all. Cheers!

Several weeks ago, I got a package from SweetWater Brewing. It’s always nice to have the UPS guy bring packages from breweries. Anyway, it had a couple of bombers in it, the FestivAle, which had  been bottled and waxed earlier that week, and the latest in their Dank Tank series, Red Hot Mama. That one was of particular interest  to me, since I’m a Widespread Panic fan, and this was obviously named for the same song. In fact, the story of the beer ends  with the lyrics from the song, “Ride on, Red Hot Mama, girl, you sure look good to me!”

Tonight, I finally got the opportunity to open it. Red Hot Mama is described as an imperial red ale with 8.6% ABV and 82 IBUs. It pours a dark crimson color with just a bit of head. The aroma has some toasty biscuit aroma as well as some citrusy hops. The taste isn’t overly hoppy, but some nice caramel notes with a noticeable bitterness on the back end. I would never have guessed 8.6% ABV by the taste, as this one goes down easily. It drinks more like a 6% beer, with a medium body.

All in all, a good beer. I was hoping for a bit more hoppiness from it, but it’s still a really nice effort. As someone who isn’t a huge red ale fan, this one is one of the better ones. So glad to have it available on shelves here in Louisiana. If  you’re a Panic fan, pick this one up for the bottle alone.

Big thanks to Seth Herman, the Sales Director for SweetWater for sending me this beer. Appreciate you!

I’d give this one 4 out of 5 bottle caps.