After donuts, we hopped in the car and headed to Abita Springs to tour the Abita Brewing Company. Diana said her friends had gone before and said it was fun, so we figured we'd stop on our way to New Orleans. I love their Strawberry Harvest beer, which I had for the first time in Pittsburgh. We waited outside on the patio for a few minutes before being called inside for the tour.
This is how we spent most of our weekend. Kids these days. :P
Inside, the tour guide told us to grab a cup and start filling. Basically, we grabbed a cup and got in line behind the bar. It was a fill your own glass tour, which was pretty rad (PS. The tour is free). I hadn't been on one like this yet - all you can or want to drink, basically. Diana is showing the different ingredients that go into the brews.
Behind the bar, they had suggestions of how to mix the beer on tap to get some different flavors. There were about 7-8 different beers on tap (including the Christmas Ale, we were ahead of the seasonals, since I had a glass of Fall Fest the day after I got back to le 'Burgh), plus their Oak Aged Pecan Harvest ale (it was delicious), and the very last tap was Abita's own root beer (perfect for the non-drinkers in the group).
After we grabbed a glass (I got Purple Haze for my first go-round), we hung out and took some photos. The red bottle cap in the Louisiana cap map shows the location of Abita.
About 2 minutes after this, someone comes inside and says to the tour guide, "There's a group of 80 bikers making their way inside now" and then the place was packed. Diana and I ran up quickly before the group came and got more beer. I went with the Christmas Ale and then grabbed a taste of the Turbodog. We hung out and waited for the tour to begin, they showed us a short video, we ran up and grabbed more beer after we saw the line dwindling and before we knew it we were on our way into the brewery.
Yup, that's us.
After the brew tour, we drove over Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans. We parked in the French Quarter and walked over to Ralph & Kacoos for some lunch. We shared blackened alligator for an appetizer. So if you're counting, I've both eaten and held an alligator on this trip. After lunch, we walked over to Jackson Square and just wandered around the French Quarter a bit.
We made our way down to Bourbon St. and had a hurricane from Pat O'Briens and then attempted to walk over to Cafe du Monde for some beignets. Took us a little while to get there, but we made it and the beignets were delicious.
After our beignets we decided to call it a day. Jason and Diana drove us around the city for a little tour before we left.
The last place we stopped was the entrance of the old Six Flags New Orleans. It was abandoned before Hurricane Katrina hit and never reopened. Diana said they've been using the location to film a few movies. Must be pretty cool.
I'd love to be able to visit New Orleans again someday. There are so many more things to see and do, it was definitely not possible to do them all in just a few hours. Plus, how can we resist going back for more beignets? Not possible.
My dad was just there a week or so ago, you might have been there at the the same time!
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