Tag Archives: new orleans

how did it get to be 2022 already?

it’s been a long time since I wrote in this blog. i’m still drinking NA beer and trying out new ones all the time but i guess my fascination with writing reviews about each one has dwindled. (i’ll try to get back to that this year.)

nothing remarkable has been going on with my health, which is of course good news. i meant to write a one-year craniversary post in october but never did. (i posted on facebook about it instead.)

i did start writing a hurricane ida post with a play-by-play from my vantage point inside my house but never finished it, so it sits in my drafts. i think i will keep it there as more of a journal entry for myself. it was quite an experience and the ensuing few months with a partially collapsed shed in my backyard that i looked at every day took a toll on my mental health, but i seem to have made it through. it took a while but i did get a brand new shed and things got back to normal more or less and life just went on and i didn’t write about any of it here on this blog.

and now it’s new year’s day 2022. i first started writing this post on december 17th but didn’t finish it then. it was a week where i began the first two of many holiday cat sits while still having my full dog walking schedule. the following week i started an 8-day overnight dog sit, hopefully the last one of those i’ll ever do. (i will continue dog walking and cat sitting and doing any other petsitting which does not require me to spend the night.) there were a few more cat sits sprinkled in there. work was very hectic for those few weeks, but it was great for my bank account and now i can start to pay down the credit card i filled up with all the vet bills for sticker and stencil’s various ailments of the past several months. (they are both doing better now, thank goodness.)

if you know me then you know i don’t really love christmas. it’s not that i hate it but i think the combo of having a job that is peak busy during the holidays and being single/living alone makes it challenging. in the past i have enjoyed decorating for the holidays but for the 11 years i have lived in this tiny one bedroom rear apartment that doesn’t face the street and has no interior doors or way to keep a christmas tree away from naughty cats, i have not decorated. no one ever comes to my house so no one but me would see it, and during the holiday time i’m hardly in my house because of work so it seems a waste of time, energy and money. i enjoy other people’s decorations though. and i try to get my little rituals in – christmas eve for a few hours with one group of friends, and christmas day for a few hours with another – but aside from that, it’s just a whirlwind of a month of working where i try my best to not get sick.

sadly, i was not successful with that this year. i got really run down from my work schedule (late nights, early mornings, bad sleep, poor eating) and it remains to be seen yet (still waiting on the results of a PCR test) whether it’s omicron (covid) or not. i have symptoms that come and go but for the past week i’ve had severe fatigue, off and on runny nose, a cough and occasionally a scratchy throat, and i experience what feels like hot flashes but they don’t register as a fever with my digital forehead thermometer. oh, and i had a serious headache for a few days, which was actually the most alarming of symptoms because i just don’t get headaches… except when something is really wrong. (like when i had meningitis and discovered my brain tumors!) so i’ve taken two rapid tests, a few days apart, which both came back negative, and i went for a PCR on Thursday hoping to get the results back in time to partake in new year’s eve festivities. the results have still not come in and my symptoms have been so inconsistent it’s been hard to tell if i actually have something or am just worn out from working too much. i did end up going over to some friends’ house last night for a couple of hours but i kept my mask on even though we were outside and there was a strong breeze, and i kept my distance from everyone. i took a rapid test right before i went (negative) and felt fine when i went there but my energy waned pretty quickly and i came home around 11pm. i was in bed before midnight.

and here we are, january 1st, 2022. happy fucking new year. i want to be optimistic about what’s in store this year for all of us but it’s hard to do with omicron raging through new orleans and the country/world at the moment. but hey, mardi gras is on this year! which means we have a six day lull between the end of the christmas/new year’s holiday and the beginning of the carnival season which begins on thursday, 12th night (epiphany). bring on the king cake! the joan of arc parade is on and i guess we’re gonna go and just keep our masks on the whole time and try hard not to be in a thick crowd. not sure how mardi gras is gonna go but i think a lot of us are hoping omicron will have peaked and maybe passed for the most part by the height of carnival parade madness. more concerning is the pussyfooters’ blush ball, which i have a vip ticket for, which is on january 28th. crossing fingers!

i guess that’s enough of a longwinded post for now, to get me caught up. i’ll make a separate post about what has been percolating in my mind creatively and what i’m otherwise working on for 2022. go eat your black eyed peas and cabbage y’all!

how did it get to be july?

i seem to have run out of steam writing regularly on this blog, now that work has picked up (it’s been a month solid of back to back overnight dog sitting) and also now that i’ve sampled over 60+ NA beers and have settled on a handful that i rotate between regularly. but i thought i’d offer a few news tidbits and a quick review of something new-to-me i picked up this week.

first, did you know it’s dry july? i’d never heard of it before but started seeing other NA beer bloggers writing about it, so figured i should investigate. well, turns out what started in july of 2008 by three guys in australia as a motivation to abstain from drinking for a month and buy their local hospital a new waiting room TV has turned into an annual fundraiser “aimed at challenging social drinkers to change their habits for a month and make some healthy lifestyle changes” while raising money for cancer patients/charities. over the years they’ve raised more than $60 million for various organizations across australia and new zealand!

there does not appear to be a similar foundation set up in the U.S. (yet), but nothing is stopping you from taking a pause from alcohol for the month and donating to your favorite cancer charity and/or asking your community to support you in your efforts by also making a donation. if you decide to do it, definitely drop a comment on this post and i’m happy to boost your efforts!

did you also know that today is national independent beer run day? yeah, me neither. it seems to be just a marketing ploy by the brewers association to promote and sell craft beer, “calling on beer lovers to seek the independent craft brewer seal and purchase craft beers produced by small and independent breweries for their independence day festivities” – buy hey, why not?

of course i’d love to support a local indie craft brewery today (or any day), but sadly none in my area are brewing non-alcoholic brews yet. (skip down below for an update on that topic.) so i will just have to participate by stocking up on some independent craft NA beer from out of state – perhaps a run out to total wine is in order?

i feel like i have already done my part this week though by finally receiving my second order from athletic of their pride month beer rainbow wall (i managed to score a 12-pack when it was briefly restocked last week – it’s gone again); i really love that beer! and i also made another between-clients pitstop in to elio’s uptown to pick up a 6-pack of untitled art’s NA juicy IPA. since i seem to be enjoying the fruitier NA IPAs on these hot summer days, i thought it was worth a try.

i kinda love it! it’s so smooth and has a great mouthfeel, good body. and though it definitely has some grapefruit flavor and a bit of a bite, it’s not super bitter. the combo of citra and mosaic hops is delicious and at 90 calories/19 carbs it has some substance but not too much. i had one yesterday in the middle of my dog walking day and it was a real rejuvenator! once again thanks to pelican craft brands for distributing UA’s NA offerings around town. now if i could just find their watermelon gose!

on the local front, second line brewing is neighborhood brewery and when i was drinking alcohol, their beers were my favorites. though they aren’t brewing an NA… yet, i did manage to ask them about it on an IG post and their response was at least encouraging: “you’ll often see larger breweries making NA beers because they have the infrastructure in place with the necessary equipment to filter out ALL the yeast before packaging – otherwise, you risk continuing fermentation. unfortunately we’re not there yet – just means we have to keep growing so we can make some tasty NA beer :)”

so that makes three local breweries who’ve given me a positive response about potentially brewing NA in the future – second line, zony mash and faubourg. and nola brewing has their NA hop’d teas, which i need to check out. i still maintain that urban south seems the most likely to be equipped/positioned to try NA brewing, but they’ve never responded to my queries about it. maybe i just need to drop in one day and ask.

regardless, we here in NOLA have come a long way already in the 7 months or so that i’ve been drinking NA and documenting my journey. the selection continues to grow at total wine all the time, local groceries and liquor/wine stores are carrying more varieties of NA and keeping them stocked, and you can much more frequently find at least the macro breweries’ NA options at local bars and restaurants. it’s not as much progress as in some other parts of the country, but new orleans is always behind the times on most trends, so i guess it makes sense for this one too. until we catch up, i guess i will just continue to sample the ever-widening array of craft NA available from around the country via beer mail!

enjoy your 4th of july holiday weekend! and tell me what NA brews you’ll be drinking in the comments. cheers!

finding NA beer in new orleans – an update

in my fridge right now!

if you’ve been following my adventures in #NAcraftbeer over the past few months, you’ll know my biggest complaint is how hard it is to find any of this stuff locally here in new orleans. total wine is pretty much it right now, in terms of buying any of the smaller craft NA breweries, though the more commercial craft and macro NA options are getting easier to find. (i.e. sam adams just the haze, brooklyn brewery special effects and lagunitas IPNA are regularly carried in local grocery stores now, next to all the heineken 0.0, bud zero, coors edge, odoul’s, sharps, buckler, etc. and heineken 0.0 and lagunitas IPNA are starting to pop up on restaurant menus and bar beer lists too. so if you like any of those, then i guess it is getting easier to find NAs. but i’m a craft beer snob and want the good stuff from the smaller indie craft breweries, so i won’t be happy until NA beers from breweries like athletic, wellbeing, bravus, rightside and ceria can be found readily around town.)

i’ve been reaching out via email and fb messenger to a bunch of the local craft breweries to find out if anyone has an NA in the pipeline. most haven’t responded to me but the few who have did indicate they are aware of the trend/buzz in the industry and are intrigued by the idea but due to equipment costs and other additional costs of brewing an NA, don’t have one scheduled anytime soon. but it was at least nice to hear it’s on their radar. (zony mash and faubourg were the two who have responded to me so far; nothing from the rest of them. as i start to make my way back out into the world, now that i’m vaccinated, i will try to stop by places in person and ask.)

earlier today i sent emails to pelican craft brands and crescent crown, two of the biggest craft beer distributors in the city. i’m not alcoholic beverage industry savvy, though, so if there are other local beer distributors i should be reaching out to, please let me know in the comments. (as far as i can tell, glazers only does wine & spirits here in new orleans, but correct me if i’m wrong.) i don’t really know any other ways to lobby those in the industry here to make more good craft NAs available to consumers, and i don’t have any clout whatsoever – i’m just a random NA beer drinker who writes a blog that no one reads – but i’m doing what i can. maybe if we all start requesting our favorites everywhere we go, we’ll make some headway.

i have however been pleasantly surprised since i started writing about NA beer how many friends and social media contacts have reached out privately or commented publicly that they too are refraining from or cutting down on alcohol and are either interested in or are already drinking NA beer! i really thought i was alone in this when i first started and i just decided to write about it to document my journey mostly for me. but i was also hoping it might be helpful to others – and maybe it has! definitely gives me a little inspiration to keep going.

but, come on y’all, do chime in and tell me what YOU are drinking? what NAs are YOU enjoying?

selection at whole foods broad

finding NA beers in new orleans

this topic is so frustrating it needed its own post.

when i first started this NA beer adventure back in the fall, i began by ordering direct from breweries online. this seemed the easiest way at first to check out some of these brews. athletic brewing is smart enough to offer free shipping if you purchase two six packs – well, it’s of course not free cuz they just build the cost of the shipping into the price of the beer ($12.99/six pack) – but still, some of the other breweries charge high prices for their beer AND add on shipping. some you have to buy a whole case to get free shipping. so it can get very expensive, especially when you don’t even know if you’re going to like what you are purchasing!

then, add in all the problems that come with shipping. USPS is still having trouble so every time i order something that ships through the postal service, it takes forever to get here. (i currently have a tasteNA sample that was sent out last monday stuck in post office purgatory in mississippi for who knows how long, as tracking hasn’t been updated in more than two days.) and even when private shipping like UPS is used, it’s still a major headache and there are delays. here in new orleans, i’m always worried any delivery will get stolen off my porch if i’m not around to grab it as soon as it’s delivered. (has happened before.) i live in a rear apartment and i can’t seem to train any delivery service to actually drop packages on my back porch or at my door – they are always thrown on the front porch somewhere or sometimes even my neighbor’s back porch, so if i don’t stay on top of when something gets delivered, it can easily go missing. yesterday i left my dog sit to wait at my house specifically because UPS gave me a 3 hour window that my athletic beer delivery would arrive in, and via the app i watched the truck drive all over midcity and my neighborhood for hours without dropping my box off. (it finally arrived at 6:10pm, almost 3 hours later than they told me it would and after i’d already gone back to my dog sit.)

in addition to all this, i have received dented and leaking cans in shipments, and when much of the country suffered from severe cold weather in recent weeks, i read dozens of stories online of frozen beer arriving at folks’ doorsteps, cans completely burst open. i imagine the extreme heat will also be hazardous in the peak of summer.

so because of all the stress getting my NA beer shipped causes me, i have undertaken the even more frustrating task of searching out the various retail outlets around the city where it seems likely i might find NA beer, including grocery stores, specialty liquor/beer/wine stores, and even corner convenience stores. my findings have been disappointing across the board as to what is currently stocked, and i have endeavored to speak with beer managers and purchasers at many of these outlets to request they order beers for me, with mixed results.

i feel like i sound like a commercial for total wine these days because they have turned out to be the only place in town that carries a decent selection of NA beer, including craft varieties from the smaller breweries. during dry january they stepped up their NA marketing nationwide and have since added a singles shelf where you can sample individual bottles from packs, which is enormously helpful in determining what you might like or not. the downside is that they are out in metairie almost to clearview, so a hike from midcity, and they don’t seem to restock very quickly when they are out of things, which is often. i have yet to track down the beer manager as she is never there on the days i am out there, but i will keep trying. i did have a good convo with another worker in the beer department who said he would leave her some notes and the names of some of the beers i’m hoping to have ordered. (mostly bravus peanut butter stout and ceria’s grainwave, but brew dog beers would also be nice. maybe big drop, untitled art, or any number of the new small breweries popping up every month.) but they are still my best bet for finding something to drink.

(at least I don’t mind giving them my money, as the goods unite us app scores total wine highly and 100% democratic in its corporate contributions.)

grocery stores i’ve checked out: rouses on carrollton only has a few macros like o’douls and buckler and sharps, maybe heineken and bud. no craft, at least the last time i was in there a couple of months ago. (i stopped shopping there for political reasons.) i did not speak to a beer manager but i probably should go in there just to ask, as the more retail that carries craft NA the better for the scene in general here in NOLA.

i have looked at winn dixie on carrollton, roberts fresh market on claiborne, dorignac’s, and the big easy fresh market, which has a surprising amount of craft beer but like the other groceries, only has a few macro NAs, the more mainstream commercial brands that i’m not interested in. i haven’t found a beer manager at any of these places to speak with yet.

i have, however, spoken to beer managers at whole foods both on broad and arabella station, asking them to beef up their NA selections. (i also checked the metairie whole foods for selection but did not speak to anyone there.) the photo at the top of this post is of the selection at the whole foods on broad in midcity. both uptown and midcity carry brooklyn brewery special effects and IPA, as well as lagunitas IPNA, plus a few more mainstream NAs like heineken and beck’s. i asked each of them to order specific beers, like athletic, ceria or bravus, and they basically said they weren’t familiar with the NA craft beers and would see what they had available to them to order… that they can’t order what isn’t on their distribution lists. i haven’t been back yet to check if they’ve gotten anything in.

i’ve been in to martin wine cellar uptown and was disappointed with their meager NA selections, and on a whim stopped in at a convenience store at the corner of broadway and claiborne that i knew stocked a lot of craft beer. (probably since it is close to the universities.) they didn’t have anything but the guy working there was really nice and wrote down all the brewery names i mentioned and said he would see what he could order. i pass by there every day in my work travels so will definitely follow up with him.

and lastly, i’ve been in a few times to 504 craft beer reserve, a place that literally stocks hundreds if not thousands of craft beers. i really thought if anywhere in town would have a good NA selection, they would be the place. but no, they had maybe 4-5 options, mostly macro or commercial import, nothing craft. i spoke twice now with one of the guys who does the ordering and the second time he actually wrote stuff down and took my number to call me back when he’d researched it, to see what he could get. i’ll report back if i ever hear from him.

there’s lots of other places yet to check but the story i keep getting from the folks i do talk to is that distribution is limited for these NA craft breweries. the buyers at the national chains (like whole foods) tell me that even when a brand is available in other parts of the country at their stores, it’s not always available to us here. and they always point out they don’t have a big audience for NA so it’s not worth it to them to order a lot of new and different NA beers. they are all uneducated about the burgeoning NA craft movement but sadly most don’t seem interested in learning about it.

personally, i think local retail is really missing out on a LENT promotion opportunity. dry january comes at a really bad time here in NOLA cuz of carnival season, so it’s not as big a thing here as it might be in other parts of the country. but lent is a missed marketing opportunity, as tons of people give up alcohol during lent and might be open to trying non-alcoholic options during this time. grocery and liquor stores should have end caps promoting NA beer and spirits. it just seems dumb that they don’t. but as with most things, new orleans tends to lag behind the rest of the country, so i guess the NA craft beer trend is just one more thing in that category.

i will keep trying to educate and plant the seeds of interest in NA brews in retail outlets around the city. i feel like a one-woman NA promotional machine! if you are reading this and are in new orleans and interested in craft NA beer, please try to speak with the beer managers at whatever retail outlets you shop at to let them know there is interest. i think the only thing they will respond to is direct pressure from shoppers, and it needs to be more than just me asking repeatedly.