Lazy Mag bottles roll into town

Great news, Calhoun County beer fans: Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan Brown Ale is now available in bottles here.

After we finished cleaning up the reception hall following the wedding tonight, my fellow groomsman and I headed to the Grub Mart at Mountain & Pelham in Jacksonville (click for a map) to restock my nearly empty fridge. I was shocked to see a pile of the Lazy Mag sixers on display in the middle of the floor. The Southern Pecan previously had been available only on tap in a few select places around the county. Props to Supreme Beverage for bringing the good stuff our way,

Anyone seen the bottles available anywhere else around town?

Today's column

Also available at our Web site, annistonstar.com.

Pitcher This: Laissez les bonnes bières roulez

01-23-2008

If you're of the sort who's usually looking for any excuse to throw a party, it has probably not escaped you that Carnival is upon us, and Lent is looming.

And given that many celebrations in observance of the above involve alcohol, it's a safe bet that readers of this column planning to partake are looking for the proper brew.

Consider what follows a few beads from the beer-suggestion float.

• Is there a better way to celebrate Carnival and the approach of Mardi Gras than outside, on the street with other revelers? Who knows? Better yet, why bother trying anything else?

If you're headed for the coast, why not skip New Orleans and head for North America's original Carnival celebration, in Mobile. That city also was home to Alabama's original brewpub, The Port City Brewery opened not long after the state made brewing in restaurants legal in 1992. Sadly, Port City closed in 2001, but was followed in the same location in 2004 by the Cannon Brewpub, which lasted until 2006.

The good news is that Hurricane Brewing Co. has picked up the mantle, and is celebrating its first anniversary in the same location as its forbearers on Dauphin Street downtown. The brewery is in a massive, three-story historic structure, with a pub-style lounge on the first floor and sit-down dining upstairs.

Apart from the building, one other thing has remained the same through all three iterations: head brewer Todd Hicks.

Hicks says Hurricane's brews tend toward British-inspired ales. If you're there for Carnival it would only make sense to sample the seasonal Flying Debris Mardis Gras, described as an extra special bitter.

The menu is full of pub-style fare, from fish and chips (Southern-fried, of course,) to sausage plates to the regionally appropriate seafood and po' boys. For desert, perhaps step outside and catch a flying Moon Pie.

If you can't head south for a proper celebration, there is some Gulf Coast representation on local store shelves:

• The Abita Brewing Co. in Abita Springs, La., is just a stone's throw from the Mardi Gras ground zero that is New Orleans. They're one of the oldest craft breweries in the country, and claim to be the oldest in the Southeast, founded in 1986.

You'll find at least three Abita brews in local stores, including the company's original Amber, an Oktoberfest-style lager. It's fairly light-bodied, somewhat malty, and without much of the hops presence one might expect from a microbrewer. Abita's Purple Haze, a raspberry-flavored wheat beer, and Turbodog. Turbodog is a dark brown ale, nearly a porter, with lots of chocolaty, coffee-ish malt and just enough hops to offset that sweetness.

• Lazy Magnolia Brewing is in Kiln, off the Mississippi coast where there's just as much French Catholic history as in New Orleans and Mobile. The brewery's Southern Pecan Brown Ale is a sweet, malty treat. Available on tap locally, and now in bottles elsewhere in the state.

One good beer deserves another (or three)

A fellow beer-loving colleague came into work yesterday with a nice surprise. When I got my first six-pack of Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan Brown Ale last weekend, I picked up some for him too. He's driven as far as Starkville, Miss., looking for their Party Pigs before, so the least I could do was get him some while I was in Birmingham.

He returned the favor with a self-built sampler of beers from New Belgium Brewery. I'd had their famous Fat Tire Amber Ale, of which my colleague is an evangelist. But I'd never seen any of their others. He picked some up on a recent road trip and was kind enough to share. Included was two bottles each of their Abbey, Trippel and 2-Below Winter Ale. I had the Abbey with dinner of baked salmon and Camembert last night, and it was nice. New Belgium says you'll taste fig, caramel and clove. I couldn't help but think of apples (I get that from a lot of ambers, too). I'm looking forward to the others.

The wait is over

We told you here on the blog that Mississippi's Lazy Magnolia Brewing was putting its Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale into bottles for the first time in December. Well, a shipment made its way to Birmingham the week of Christmas. I ventured out to the Whole Foods grocery there on Saturday, and finally picked up my first six pack.

The packaging is nice, with a simple, classy label and two Southern "characters" featured on the carrier - the guitar-strumming dude you see pictured here, and a buxom blonde caught mid-laugh on the other side.

As for the beer, it's a bit sweeter than I recall from the taps and Party Pigs I've sampled before. Still, it's full-bodied, nicely nutty and very tasty. I look forward to finding it on shelves closer than an hour away, and to tasting more of Lazy Mag's brews from bottles.

Breaking beer news: Lazy Magnolia in Calhoun County

Got word from a friend a couple weeks ago this was coming, and it finally arrived yesterday. Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan is now available on tap at Cooter Brown's Rib Shack in Jacksonville. I had two pints last night, and it was worth the wait.

A quick check of Lazy Magnolia's Web site reveals that it's also available at the 19th Hole, the club restaurant at McClellan's Cane Creek golf course in Anniston. That makes me wonder if it also may be down at the Mellow Mushroom in Oxford. Any alert Pitcher This readers been to the 'Shroom lately? Add a comment by clicking below to let us all know.

Lazy Magnolia was one of three Southern microbrewers mentioned in my most recent column in The Star. I first came across them at the Magic City Brewfest in Birmingham back in June, and fell in love at first sip.

As good as the above info is, even better is the news that Lazy Magnolia will soon be distributing bottles for the first time. Folks at the brewery in Kiln, Miss., say to look for it on shelves in December. I'll keep my eyes peeled and post here if I spot any in Calhoun County.

Today's column

Pitcher This: The South will rise … for first time

(By the way, Pitcher This is now available for free in its native habitat, our newly-free Web site. Here's a link to this week's column there. -bc )

The Anniston Star

11/7/2007

Renewal after a fall is an essential theme in Southern identity.

The image of rebirth from figurative flames is powerful in a region that still remembers actual flames, and that image is applied to everything from city seals to literature.

Of course, to get to that image of rebirth, a thing has to be born for the first time.

That may be what’s happening across the South now in craft brewing as the drive for quality, locally produced beer that’s swept much of the nation finally gathers steam here. Three Deep South breweries hope they can enjoy the rise, and maybe just skip the bit about a fall and subsequent rise from the ashes.

All three of these breweries — Mississippi’s Lazy Magnolia Brewing, Georgia’s Terrapin Beer Co. and Huntsville’s Olde Towne Brewing — have been founded in the last five years and are on the leading edge of what could become a surge in Southern brewing.

Sadly, Olde Towne will have to make a real rise from the ashes. The brewery, founded in 2004, burned in July, halting production. Don Alan Hankins, founder and brewmaster, says the company has decided to build anew and hopes to be brewing again by June.

New equipment, Hankins says, will give him more control over the quality of his bottled beer — perhaps making it taste more like the draft product — and allow the company to fill 90 bottles per minute over the previous 20. That should help Olde Towne fill more orders, putting more Alabama-made beer on store shelves throughout the region.

Lazy Magnolia also hopes to get more from its Kiln, Miss., plant on the Gulf Coast. Brewery boss Leslie Henderson says a new bottling line could have the first Mississippi-made six-packs on shelves by Christmas. Since its 2004 founding, the company has produced only kegs and 2.25-gallon jugs of its beers, including its signature Southern Pecan, which is flavored with the staple nut.

Henderson says she believes Southern brewers are feeding off each others’ success.

“The South is about to turn into the great haven of microbrews,” she says. “Once you see one brewery achieve success in an area, it gives you courage and a model to go after.”

Athens, Ga.-based Terrapin, founded in 2002, also is counting on new equipment to build on the early success of its Rye Pale Ale. President John Cochran said the company is now moving into a brand-new brewery, Terrapin’s first. The South has lagged behind the rest of the country in beer culture, Cochran says. But that’s starting to change.

“I’d like to think beer’s finally going to be accepted in the Southeast,” he says. “This year, craft beer seems to have really turned the corner.”

Hankins, like his peers in Georgia and Mississippi, doesn’t see the other brewers as competition. The more choices there are on the shelf, the more likely consumers will be to try something new, he says.

“And eventually somebody’s going to pick up our beer,” he says. “The more beer the better.”