14 Things I Think I Learned from Gretna Heritage Festival

Another weekend, another festival. Instead of boring you with details, I’ll hit a few highlights from the Gretna Heritage Festival from this past weekend. Since the format for the 33 Things I Learned from French Quarter Festival worked out so well, I’ll try to give you the 14 Things I Think I Learned from Gretna Heritage Festival (it’ll be like Food Network’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate, but trashier, and with worse food).

1. Gretna Heritage Festival celebrates the heritage of, well, um, well I’m not really sure, but they do like trains.

2. Gretna is the Jersey of New Orleans. Even E! is getting in on the action and will begin filming Real Housewives of the Westbank next month. Flat bills, Affliction shirts, pencil goatees, trashy, black-haired baby mamas, and drunk toddlers- it’s all here.

3. Molly Hatchett is no longer “Flirtin’ with Disaster”, he’s down right catastrophic. At least they band still has sweet flowing locks.

4. As terrible as they sound now, the band is still pretty Amurrican. They even pulled a few marines out of the crowd and brought them on stage, one of which gave a rousing Forrest-Gump-like speech.

5. Criminals are given exemptions for Gretna Fest.

6. Every gas station in Mississippi with a deep fryer has a chicken on a stick. It’s easy- deep fried chunks of chicken, potatoes, pickles, and onions all on the same stick. South Louisiana’s version is just skewered chicken tenders. What the hell.

7. They do love there corndogs here. I’ve argued once that not all LSU fans smell like corndogs, I may have to change my stance on this issue.

8. All the other traditional state fair fare is here- funnel cakes, turkey legs, and every other thing Boomhauer would fry, including kool-aid. Oh yeah, that’s right, deep fried kool-aid.


9. On top of the fried goodness, the festival offers up some of South Louisiana’s specialties, if only someone could learn to spell boudin.

10. I went 25 years of my life without seeing Tracy Lawrence. I have now seen him twice in two months. I have a problem.

11. I spent 25 years of my life listening to Bad Company on Z106.7 out of Jackson, MS. I have now seen them once. I do not have a problem. Brian Howe can still bring it (sorry for the poor audio quality).

12. Westbankers love their cover bands. Chee Weez and Bag of Donuts drew bigger crowds than Bad Company. Both COVER Bad Company. Hopefully this makes sense to you, because it’s something I can’t comprehend.


13. The Beer Garden let me down. Since the tent was set up directly in front of the German-American Cultural Center, I had high expectations. I’m pretty sure an old man in suspenders and 2 measly German beers on tap doesn’t qualify as a beer garden.

14. I was not let down by the city views from atop the levee at the foot of Huey P. Long Avenue.

Brew Day: Pumpkin Stout

The first weekend of October also marked the first sign of fall weather since I returned from North Dakota. The cool, crisp air usually entails football games and day-long tailgates that are usually followed by someone pissing in a black garbage bag in The Junction (you know who you are). Unfortunately, State was playing at Georgia this weekend (if you can call really call that playing), so I had to figure out another way to take advantage of this awesome weather while also satisfying my obsession with fall.

A quick trip to Martin’s Wine Cellar on Friday afternoon provided motivation for the weekend. The cooler and “beer wall” were lined with fall installments of seasonal beers- Oktoberfests, harvest beers, and even Brooklyn’s Post Road Pumpkin. I grabbed one of each of the autumn-inspired beers from the shelves and tucked them away into our fridge.

Once home, the afternoon supplied perfect weather for porch drinking. I then realized that this cool weather would also lend itself well to brewing beer, especially in a not-so-well-insulated, 100 year old house. Since I’ve been trying to get this Bovina Brewing project off the ground for awhile now, this seemed like the perfect time to get this thing moving. After quick trips to Brewstock and Rouse’s we had everything we needed to make our first batch of beer (and hard cider) in almost 3 years. With ole punkin’ heads hiding in every corner of the grocery store, it was only natural that our first brew would be a Pumpkin Stout (witty name to come later). It’ll be almost a month and a half before this brew is ready to drink (hopefully by the Alabama home game), but just from the initial smell and taste before it got thrown into the fermenter, it looks like this is going to be one awesome seasonal beer. Pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg hit me all of my senses right up front. Hopefully this project will be the beginning of good things to come.

The brewing didn’t stop there; we also brewed up a smaller 1 gallon batch of hard apple cider that should come in handy when we feel like we can't drink any more of the mulled apple cider vodka during the upcoming holidays. Anyway, below is a quick rundown of the Pumpkin Stout. Hopefully, a few months from now, or at least by Thanksgiving, I’ll be able to hand a few of these out at Tyrone Biggum’s next 5 o’clock free crack craft giveway.




PUMPKIN STOUT
3.3lb Briess Traditional Dark Liquid Malt
1lb Munton’s Dark Dry Malt
1lb Briess Traditional Dark Dry Malt
0.5lb Dark Brown Sugar
0.5lb Flaked Barley
0.5lb Roasted Barley
1oz Fuggle Hops (60 min)
1.5 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice (15 min)
60oz. pumpkin, roasted (15 min)
11g Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast