The current renaissance may be a far cry from the paucity of local beer culture in the twentieth century, but prior to Prohibition, the city’s access to shipping channels and a burgeoning German population combined with New Orleans’s general joie de vivre to create what was known as the “Brewing Capital of the South.”
It speaks to the city’s reverence for history that the return of 110-year-old Dixie Brewing has created a wave of excitement. New Orleans’s iconic beer had been contract brewed in Wisconsin since 2005, until the production moved to Memphis earlier this year. In July, Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints football team and the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team, announced that he had purchased a majority stake in the formerly local brewery with the intention of bringing production back to New Orleans.
The Lay of the Land
New Orleans has gone from slim pickings to local beer options spread throughout the city’s many neighborhoods. Over the past two years, the number of breweries and brewpubs in the city has gone from four to eleven (twelve, if you count the city’s first cidery), with several more planned.