“We ended up going with a liquor distributor, but they didn’t really know how to do beer,” he explains. In the meantime, Coco had to get creative in building an infrastructure for such a brand-new industry. The opposite is true now, but it took a long time for local palates to develop. “When we started the brewery, I would bring beer to a party - like our Brown Ale or Blonde - and at the end, all the Miller Lite would be gone and nobody would have touched ours.” And those few who did drink beer were incredibly loyal to one of four national macrobrews. The hurdle they faced was a big one: New Orleans has always been a party town, but locals and tourists alike were going after Sazerac cocktails and 3-for-1’s on Bourbon Street. “When we started, the only beer you would see anywhere besides Bud, Miller, or Coors was Abita Amber,” Coco recalls. After months of discussions, the two reached an agreement to found NOLA Brewing Company. “I was going to do it with a good friend of mine…and his wife was like, ‘No, you’re not taking my husband away to go work on this brewery - this is a horrible idea.'”įortunately, his friend was able to put him in touch with Peter Caddoo, a former Dixie brewer for 18 years. Obviously, Coco needed help from someone with more expertise. I mean, I can make a beer: It will be alcoholic and you can drink it,” he says with a laugh. There was just one problem, he explains: “I had brewed beer, but I was terrible. “I was like, ‘Oh man, what am I doing? I’m not gonna open a preserves company - I’ll open a brewery!'” “I was drinking Dixie beer one day, and I saw that it wasn’t made in New Orleans anymore - it was made in Wisconsin,” says Coco. That is, until 2008, when Kirk Coco, a native New Orleanian, came back to his hometown after a decade in the Navy and began drafting plans for a preserves company. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the last Old Guard standalone brewery in New Orleans, Dixie Brewing, was flooded beyond repair, and Louisiana beer was on the brink of extinction. regions, Prohibition decimated the local brewing industry. After the nationwide alcohol ban was repealed in 1933, local beermakers struggled to regain a foothold. By the 1950s, the city had only four local beer brands. This wasn’t always the case: Once home to dozens of breweries, the Big Easy had become the largest beer-producing city in the South by the 1880s. Despite its deeply rich and advanced gastronomic culture, New Orleans has an unfortunate history of lagging behind when it comes to beer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |