(10-14-2021 09:04 AM)ragin4u Wrote:  

(10-13-2021 06:07 PM)CajunFan3406 Wrote:  

(10-13-2021 04:39 PM)geauxcajuns Wrote:  

(10-13-2021 04:28 PM)CajunFan3406 Wrote:  

(10-13-2021 10:51 AM)geauxcajuns Wrote:  That’s a long list for us.

It really isn’t for Louisiana though. We don’t have that many craft breweries and most that we do have are slightly above average. Parish and Urban South would be the only two who I’d say make great beers that could compete with the heavyweights out West and on the East Coast. New Orleans is the only place in the state with an actual craft beer scene where I’ve seen new breweries pop up and older breweries working to make better beers due to increased competition in the area. As a frame of reference western North Carolina has like 4 times as many breweries as the entire state of Louisiana. Comparing craft breweries with some of our conference mates may be a losing effort as we would likely only beat out Arkansas and maybe South Carolina in that arena, we would be fighting neck and neck with Alabama, and would get whipped handily by Texas, NC, and Georgia.

Parish
Bayou Teche
Gnarled Barley
Urban South
Tin Roof
Abita

All offer some really good beers.

Letter grade as follows for each you mentioned:

A+
C+
B
A
B-
C+

As I mentioned previously, Parish and Urban South are really the only two standouts. Your list omitted NOLA and Great Raft which I would give both a B letter grade. The quantity of breweries is low on a per capita basis when compared to many other states and the quality is lacking as well. I travel very often and visit breweries during my travels, for example in the last month I’ve been to 14 different breweries outside of Louisiana so I have a pretty good grasp on this topic. Also speaking in terms of truly local breweries, Lafayette proper has nothing. That’s absurd for a city of its size. Our saving grace is we essentially have the best brewery in the state down the road in Broussard.

Broussard IS Lafayette, baw.
The answer is anything Parish brews is the best. Ghost, Envie, Canebrake, Reve Stout, etc I'm not a fan of fruit beers or sours but I hear Parish's offerings are great.
Cajun Brewing operated off of Bertrand for a while and made really good beers. They could not get their distribution right, I guess, and they faded out.

Broussard is Broussard, Lafayette is Lafayette. I live in Mid-City, on the best day I can get to Parish in 20 minutes, that isn’t in Lafayette. Cajun Brewing was 2 minutes from my house. Their beers were very average and they went too big too fast and found themselves with a buttload of beers on shelves that weren’t selling. My good friend who works at Parish foresaw their demise about 6 months before it was announced because he heard the rumors through their contacts at Schilling about how poorly Cajun brewing was selling. Still, that was the only brewery in the city of Lafayette, and I stand by my comment that it is absolutely absurd that a city of our size has no brewery within the city. I know of some of the reasons why things are that way, and it is largely due to city government making things cost prohibitive to that type of business operating within the city.