As I pulled up to the small red warehouse within the industrial thoroughfare at the corner of Tchoupitoulas and 7th, I saw that I wasn’t the only person suffering from drinking pains at 2:00 on a Friday afternoon. Around 40 people were already there, drinking free beer out of their free NOLA Brewing pint glasses. I grabbed myself a pint and then hit the taps directly across the warehouse from the stash of glasses. Once in front of the tap handles, I had to make the toughest decision of the day.
Feeling pressure from the growing line that had formed behind me, I grabbed a Hopitoulas right before the tour began. Free beer is nothing new to a brewery tour, but the actual tour itself is what set NOLA’s apart from others I’ve partaken in. This was no Pawtucket Brewery, people were WORKING. That’s right, while we were enjoying an ice cold ale, employees were actually doing real work.
It’s a brewery (the only one in the Crescent City). They brew beer. Really good beer. That is all. There were no fancy tasting rooms or frilly gift shops here, just a wide open, dimly lit warehouse with a few tanks and kettles.
NOLA set itself even further apart from its competitors’ tours by providing a guide who actually works at the brewery. She wasn’t a marketing director or a weekend volunteer giving us some generic 5 minute incoherent spill; she was just a rubber-boot-wearing brewery worker. So, when someone had a question about the hop additions in Hopitoulas I was drinking, or the dry erase board that contained the day’s tasks, she was able to answer without hesitation.
I had already heard they were moving to canning their beer by the end of the year, but towards the end of the tour, our guide revealed that they would be releasing a new brew very soon. The Smoky Mary, named after a former Street Car and a ride at the defunct Pontchartrain Beach theme park, is an ale brewed with grains that have been smoked for 2 hours over pecan wood. Wait, wait, wait. I can’t believe I fell for it. I’m off work, 3 beers deep on a Friday afternoon, and I was being tricked into learning something. That shifty NOLA Brewery, forcing me to drink free beer and encouraging me to also learn a little something, too. I will NOT be going back. Who the hell am I kidding? I’ll be back, and it’ll likely be this Friday at 2:00. This time, I’m signing out a keg from the complex checkout system next to the oversized walk-in fridge and most likely starting a premature one-man red dress run training session.
Unless you’re one of the seersucker-wearing guys that takes a 5 hour lunch down at Galatiore’s, a free Friday afternoon is pretty scarce. If you do get a chance to get away from the daily grind after lunch, or you decide you’re going to pull a Ferris Bueller like I did this past Friday, you seriously need to get over to NOLA Brewing on Tchoup for a brewery tour.
