Top Of The Hops 2011 - Cajundome, Lafayette

Whew... Top Of The Hops... see, what had happened was, I had been drinking.  A lot.  31 new beers in fact at this past festival.  Yeah, that puts a large dent in the 365 in 2011 goal, with a month's worth of new beers in one afternoon.

You would think I wouldn't remember them all at that point, but you're wrong!  Apparently my memory for beers is a well oiled machine.  Anyway, a couple of Saturdays ago I took off with Mandi, Jay, and Jeremy and we headed down to the Cajundome to do some beer tasting.

The first thing I did after we got in was head to the Parish Brewing table.  Andrew has been a friend of the BR Beer Scene since the beginning and I knew he had a black IPA to try, and it did not disappoint!  Rich roasted malts with a bitter hop bite, I thought it was very well done and a great start to the day.  Andrew also had a hop infusion machine, pumping his Biere Amber through fresh hops and into your glass... and interesting contraption that created a sort of beer/hop tea.  It was tasty, and quite different than anything else on the day.

Andrew and Eric at the Parish Brewing booth.

Some other highlights of the new ones to me included the Brouwerij Het Anker offerings, several beers from the Sherwood Forest Brewery, several new offerings from Shmaltz Brewing, and I was able to finally try the NOLA 7th Street Wheat and Flambeau Red Ale!  The brews from Zea also made an appearance with their full lineup... I knew Zea was doing their own beer (although I believe contract brewed by Covington) but had never tried them before.  

Zea brews on display.

The NOLA tap handle.

After hitting up all the new ones I could find, it was time for some old favorites like Chimay, Stone, Unibroue, Affligem, and more...

That's a lot of empty Affligem bottles!

You can never go wrong with Unibroue.

All in all, a fantastic afternoon, capped off by a nice meal at Jolie's after the drinking was over.  I'll definitely be back next year!

Cheers!

Top Of The Hops - Lafayette - Tomorrow (April 9th)

Hello everyone!  If you're looking for something to do tomorrow and feel like trying a bunch of beers, I'd recommend the Lafayette Top Of The Hops festival from 2 to 6 tomorrow!  I'll be there, and I've heard good things about the North Shore festival over in Mandeville.

 

The brewery list for Lafayette is out now, and here are a few of the ones I'd highly recommend:

Brooklyn

Chimay

Delirium

De Ranke

Gouden Carolus

He'Brew

NOLA

Parish

Samuel Smith

Southern Star

Stone

Unibroue

 

You can't go wrong with those, and many of the other standards like Rogue, Sierra Nevada, Grimbergen, Abita, Saint Arnold and more... I'm also excited to see a few breweries I don't know very well... new beer is always a good thing!  Some of them might be fantastic, but you won't know until you try.

Upcoming Beer Events In And Around Baton Rouge!

A few events coming up soon that any beer lover might want to check out:

March 25th (Tonight!): Baton Rouge Pub Crawl - Benefiting the American Red Cross Japan Relief Fund.

Some of you might remember the Abita pub crawl dispute a while back that was quickly dropped... well this time Abita is actually sponsoring the pub crawl to benefit aid to Japan.  It starts at Happy's at 7, check out the website for the details and rules. 

March 26th (Tomorrow!): Zapp's International Beerfest

 

This has been a popular event for years now and tickets are limited to 1,500 only to prevent over-crowding.  So, buy them in advance (like, right now) if you want to attend.  The weather should be perfect, and be sure to check out the homebrewers, they are usually some of the best brews and the first to go.

April 9th: Top Of The Hops in Lafayette

  

This will be the third Top Of The Hops festival so far this spring, and the beer list (if it's close to the North Shore list) looks to be pretty outstanding.  There are a lot of great Belgian ales on tap and plenty of microbrews that we don't normally see around here.  I'll be attending this one, so find me and say hi!

 

 

 

Also... no specific date, but look for the NOLA Irish Channel Stout in bottles!  I saw some at Calandro's yesterday to I know they're around town.

Some Local Beer Links...

First off, be sure to check out The Beer Buddha's Top Of The Hops ticket give away!   The give away is in particular for the North Shore edition of the Top Of The Hops beer festival. The breweries for 2011 haven't been announced yet, but there were a lot of good beers to try last year!  Unforunately this one is March 19th so I'll be busy with the St. Patrick's Day parade, but there is also the Top Of The Hops in Lafayette on April 9th so maybe I'll see some people there!

If anyone is planning on hitting up the North Shore tasting you might want to consider taking the bus to and from via The Avenue Pub on St. Charles Street.  Details can be found on Facebook here:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/AvenuePubNOLA  but it's a good way to minimize driving, parking, and maximize the beer! 

 

Also... another post from The Beer Buddha, about a Schmaltz Brewing beer dinner hosted by the Martin Wine Cellar location in Metairie.  Looks delicious, and should be some pretty good beer that hasn't proliferated the BR market yet.  Maybe the Martin Wine Cellar in Baton Rouge will be hosting similar beer dinners in the future?  We can only hope!

Enjoy, and happy drinking!