You were warned several months ago that I am not the world’s best Cajun dancer.

Last Sunday afternoon Dorsey and Laurin, Byron, Lucius Fontenot, Brandon Broussard, Mona Oglesby, Stephanie and I drove out to the levee inHenderson.  Lucius was going to take some photos of several of our beers in their natural habitat (next to giant platters of Cajun food and also grasped by the club’s dancing couples).  Afterwards we planned to get a quick bite to eat and a few drinks before the start of the LA-31 Dance Competition Finals.  The competition had bracketed the contestants down over the last several months at several of Acadiana’s favorite dancehalls.  Now there were only eight couples.  The winner at Pat’s that night was to win a seven day cruise provided by Le Voyage travel.

And the Sunday competition was shaping up to be a boiled crawfish and beer fueled contest between old school two-stepping and young gun, freestyle jitter-bugging.

At seven, the band High Performance kicked off their evening show with a one-two-three, old school waltz.  Now, I love to waltz more than just about anything else on the planet, so grabbing my bride we headed out to the dance floor.

You might have heard that I look like an arthritic tin man whose been left out in the rain (without the benefit of beaucoup amounts of WD-40 sprayed on his joints) while I dance…an arthritic and rusty tin man with a curious lack of rhythm.

My peculiar twitches and bizarre jerks aside, we glided in circles around the hardwood floor at Pat’s.  Octogenarian couples waltzed past us like they were supped up Mercedes Benz’s going downhill on the Autobahn.  

Then High Performance kicked off a rousing two-step.

If I stepped on you or your spouse’s feet, or if I either elbowed or pitched my wife into your significant other, I do apologize, I advise you wear protective gear if you find yourself on the same dance floor while I’m jitterbugging.

About an hour into the set, Steve Riley announced the beginning of the Dance Off.  Seven couples confidently strutted onto the dance floor for the first round of the two round competition.  Fans of the various duos were holding up signs pledging their support and the applause was deafening.   The band started off with an old school waltz.

There were two strategies exercised by the rival couples.  About half of the contestants danced old—school Cajun; a foot-dragging and smooth gliding waltz.  The other half danced a slightly more contemporary waltz, showier footwork, more flashy twirls and spins.  After this first waltz, High Performance jumped right into a pretty fast two-step.

And two steps are where you part the true dancers from arthritic and rusty tin men.

The dancing was finer than anything you ever saw on Dancing with the Stars – and when it was over, the panel of expert judges had whittled the field down to three couples.

The band had to take a twenty minute break (yes even Cajun musicians need to go to the bathroom) so all of the Bayou Teche Brewing crew staggered to the bar to get another round of cold bottles of LA-31s.  When the band returned, they immediately fired up an up-tempo waltz as the first song for the final two dances of the competition.  Three styles of dancing were represented by final couples.  One couple was old school, dancing clutched to each other like you watched your grandparents do.  The second couple was younger, forsaking the old school style of dancing for a newer, flashier and dancing open and away from each other form.  The third couple waltzed a style somewhere in the middle between the schools, taking the best moves from each.

I’m glad I wasn’t one of the judges; I know I could not have picked a winner.

The band headed immediately into a very quick two-step.  The dancers really stepped up their game – this was their last chance to impress the judges before the cruise was awarded.  It became brutally competitive – I joked to our crew that next year we’d have to build an octagon-steel cage for what was becoming the Cajun Dance version of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  And I think I could win that one, what with my stepping on the other dancers toes, and knocking their spouses off the dance floor with my wild elbow gyrations and funky and out of time head-butts.

And in the end, old school proved victorious.  The unanimously chosen, winning couple of the 2011 LA-31 dance off was Charlotte St. Romain and Tony Lavergne.  The applause for them and all of the dancers was thunderously well deserved.    I trust they will enjoy their hard-won seven days on the Le Voyage providedCaribbeancruise.  

And I’m sure they will need all seven of those days to recuperate from this year’s competition

If you’ve been looking for a six pack of our first seasonal release, Courir de Mardi Gras let me apologize.  We definitely did not anticipate the incredible demand for this beer.  We brewed seventy-five barrels of our crafted version of a Biere de Mars, thinking that would fill all of the orders up to the start of Lent and leave us a little extra for our own imbibing too.  We are totally out of Mardi Gras beer just after a week of sales.  We sold every drop, not even a bottle left for ourselves.

We’ll brew a lot more next year. 

*Special thanks to Le Voyage Travel for the grand prize, a 7-day cruise that went to the winners of the dance contest.  When want to book a cruise give them a call:337 224 6927.

Everyone’s been busier than the proverbial one legged man in a butt-kicking contest at our petite farmhouse brewery.  Along with our friends at Valcour records, my family just released our first seasonal/collaboration project.  Our side of the collaboration was of course a beer – one that we have christened Courir de Mardi Gras.  Courir is crafted in the style of a Biere de Mars, a centuries old style of French farmhouse ale.In France this style of beer is brewed in pretty-small batches on farms, thus insuring that not many of them are imported to the states. While we brewed multiple small batches of the beer to refine the recipe, designed the packaging, and labored to get everything approved by the Feds and States we distribute to, the guys at Valcour were busy working on the companion cd, the Best of Valcour Records, Volume I.  It was a lot of work, getting the CD and Biere out before Mardi Gras, but I think everyone’s gonna dig it -the CD and the beer are both a lot of fun, and tastefully perfect for Mardi Gras get-togethers.

Just before Christmas we also released the last of our LA-31 series of beers.  At New Orleans’ famous Rock and Bowl we helped put on a fantastic evening to raise money with (and for) our good friends at Louisiana Folk roots – they do so much in the preservation and promotion of our Cajun culture.  At that party (fabulous music guests Corey Ledet and the Lost Bayou Ramblers) we released our newest beer – Mello Dubbel.  In collaboration with Mello Joy Coffee we are crafting a Belgian Dubbel style beer that is spiked with their signature, dark French-roasted, and very Cajun coffee.

Umm, not to brag, but both beers are pretty freaking good.

We’ve also been working on the new brewery; currently framing in and sheet rocking the tasting room and production offices, and also a lab.  We are likewise are doing all of the planning and wiring and plumbing to get ready for the brewery equipment coming later this year.

And working on some other, top-secret beer projects.  Arnaudville is fast becoming the Area 51 of beer.

So, Stephanie and I had been laboring all morning, separated like we each were in solitary.   If we absolutely had to communicate, it was by shouting at each other up and down the stairwell.

We had not shouted a kind word to each other all morning.

Dorsey was on the road working with our distributor in Biloxi for the Top of the Hops festival coming up on the 28^{th of} February.  Byron was draping theneck hangers on bottles of our Courir de Mardi Gras beer.  These hangers allow for the free download of two songs from the Valcour website.  Cory had been working away on some new packaging changes for some of our core brands, plus starting work on the next – way too cool, and top-secret seasonal.

Stephanie and I had skipped breakfast – opting for a couple of tall mugs of Dark Roast Mello Joy coffee.  Nearing noon, my beer belly started to announce that it was empty – but I still had about seventy emails to answer – and new ones coming in.

“Damn, I’m hungry,” I said out loud.

Stephanie still clicked away at the computer upstairs

I shoved enough of the piles of papers and old mail, samples of barley and marketing products, and the accumulated reminders of everything we had to get caught up on that covered our kitchen table aside -just enough room for two place settings.

Then I went into our ice box.

I emerged with a couple of Honey Crisp apples (worth all of the hype), and a too-large stick of home-made venison sausage.  I sliced both, and then washed some bon-bon sweet grape tomatoes dressed with nothing but a little sea salt, and set them on a very nice platter of  mixed olives, Brie cheese,and some very nice crackers. Even with the backdrop of unfinished work, the platters piled high with food started to calm me and my increasingly impatient stomach.

I called up to my overworked and severely underpaid partner – it was past time for her to take a little break.  While I waited for her to get to a stopping point, I pulled out two bottles of Courir de Mardi Gras beer from the back of the fridge, and poured them into a couple of fancy-pants Belgian beer glasses.

Being a French style of beer, of course it appreciated being on the same table with the casually arranged platters of food.  When working out the recipe, I did not foresee how well this francophone ale would pair with all of the disparate flavors of a cobbled together lunch – not only did it pair with each unique food, it united them.  I was in foodie heaven, wearing a little black beret and stereotypically laughing like one of the French cartoon characters in Ratatouille.

Freshly sliced straight from the garden tomato is tough to pair with many beers, near impossible with wine – but the Biere de Mars laughed at the tomato pairing throw-down.  I’m bummed that this beer is only going to be available until Lent – just before we start harvesting the really great tasting tomatoes from our little spring garden.

Stephanie and I enjoyed our respite – we mocked the ever-increasing size of our inboxes while eating and drinking leisurely. I tried to convince her that a second Courir de Mardi Gras Biere would maximize our afternoon’s efficiency.

She didn’t buy that, but she didn’t argue too much either.

http://ahamoment.com/moments/1724

Victoria, Texas – The Tour du Teche took its act on the road last weekend, bringing Cajun food, beer and music to weary paddlers in the Texas River Marathon.

This is a 39-mile race on the Guadalupe River from Cuero to Victoria. The race is sponsored by the Texas Water Safari and is considered a prelim for that world-famous 260-mile ultra marathon held on the San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers in June.

With the blessings of the Water Safari people, six of us went to Victoria and set up a hospitality area at the marathon finish line.

Timmy Guidry of Timmy Guidry’s Catering cooked a huge cauldron of jambalaya. TDT executive director Nicole Patin brought a display of rack cards, entry forms and maps, along with her personal play list of Cajun and Zydeco music broadcast through two speakers the size of Army footlockers. We iced down LA-31 and  Passionné  beer donated by Bayou Teche Bieres in a pirogue, and Ray Pellerin hauled all of it to South Texas in his motorcycle trailer.

Alan Broussard of Breaux Bridge and Trey Snyder of Parks served as goodwill ambassadors for TDT and The Teche Project, which is dedicated to the overall health of the bayou.

We ran into several old friends from last year’s Tour du Teche, and made bunches of new ones. Water Safari official Jerry Cochran it appears the top three six-man boats in the Texas River Marathon are planning on entering Tour du Teche II this October.

This year’s race will be held in stages Oct. 7-9. There will also be shorter side-races, including a pirogue marathon on Friday.

Registration is open. See www.techeproject.com.

As American palates continue to become more sophisticated, many have discovered that craft beer is the perfect complement to food. Wine Spectator wrote of the combination potential, in the March 2011 issue, “One reason for beer’s versatility is that beer makers have more to work with than wine makers. Particularly in the United States where they are less fettered by tradition.”

With the success of craft brewers and their fuller flavored beers, it was only a matter of time before beer and food pairings gained attention. Today, many of the best restaurants in the world have made room on their menus for craft beer and food pairings. Even Food & Wine magazine is recognizing craft beer’s tremendous potential: “The results [of collaborations] are often beers that are as complex as wine and just as food friendly.”

During SAVOR, Bayou Teche Brewing will be serving LA-31 Biere Pale paired with Shrimp in a Blanket. The chefs responsible for the beer and food parings feel that the beer’s malt offers up a slight nuttiness and sweetness that will complement the natural salt of the shrimp. The grit cake blanket will finish up the balanced bite. Also poured will be the brewery’s Boucanee smoked wheat beer which will be served with Poblano and Corn Salsa. The light cherrywood smoked beer and the roasted poblano pepper of the salsa will combine to give one short burst of intense smokiness before the beer takes over and calms the palate.

This year’s educational salons at SAVOR will feature the participation of well-known chefs and craft brewers and require a separate ticket purchase. Just 11 breweries are honored with participation in these small, very limited ticket Salons and Bayou Teche was chosen. Their Salon – whose tickets sold out in 20 minutes is named, Joie De Vivre (Joy Of Living): Beers Crafted For Cajun, Creole And Foods Of The Deep South; will feature their  passion Passionné fruit beer and Boucanne paired with oysters, andouille, Spanish and Dutch cheeses, and raw oysters. The Brewers Association website warns this year’s attendees to get there on time before everyone from Bayou Teche Brewing eats all of the oysters!

Father Brown, Dorsey and Laurin at Lafayette Mardi Gras

Well I woke up Sunday morning

With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.

And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,

So I had one more for dessert.

The opening lyrics of Sunday Morning Coming Down by Kris Kristofferson (though I think I’ve only heard the Johnny Cash version of the song) pretty much sums up how many brewers start our Sabbath morning.  Saturday nights are usually pretty busy for us, meeting the folks interested in our crafted beers at beer festivals and dinners, hanging out at the bars and nightclubs that have our beer– and of course it would be rude not to throw back a few pints with fellow beer enthusiasts.

Also the occasional night cap when you finally make it home.

A Sunday morning hangover is a common, work-related injury of the brewing profession.  I guess it is something we all learn to not only live with, but develop our own cures for.

I don’t so much have a cure, but I do have my own Sunday morning hangover routine.  I wake up pretty early and quietly trudge downstairs, dragging my bare feet to our still dark kitchen.  On our breakfast table there is a tiny little AM/FM clock radio that I tune to KRVS 88.7, the public radio station in Lafayette.  On Sunday mornings from seven to nine is one of my favorite radio shows – Le Reviel hosted by Louis Michot.   Louis is also the violin player and vocalist for the Lost Bayou Ramblers and always plays a great collection of traditional Cajun songs.  He also broadcasts the entire show in Cajun French.

If we could get every radio station in Acadiana to carry his Sunday morning show – I would not have to hang-over fumble with the tiny dial on our kitchen radio.

Feeling a little more like myself thanks to the radio’s toe-tapping two steps, I pull out my large, very well seasoned, cast iron Dutch oven and start a batch of couche-couche. It takes all of about thirty minutes to get a batch just right, so about 20 minutes into it I’ll plug in my old General Electric percolator – filled with Mello Joy dark roast (the strength depending how hung-over a state I am in).  The sounds of coffee perking, and the aromas of the frying cornmeal and coffee, along with Cajun French music coming from our little radio takes me back forty years to pre-dawn summers in Grandma and Papa’s little kitchen.

To a time well before I could legally drink beer.

By now my little girl and wife have usually made it downstairs.  Sipping from big cups of Café au Laits, my wife and I rush to get the hot bowls of couche-couche to the table.  My wife always pours Steen’s syrup on hers, while I prefer two sprinkled on tablespoons of very refined table sugar.  All three of us look forward to that magical moment when the couche-couche is sweet and hot and the milk ice cold, and rushing we each swallow the first several spoonfuls because we know soon everything will be tepid and mushy in our bowls.

Those first spoonfuls are Heaven though.

Speaking of Heaven, we have to finish our Sunday breakfast before nine thirty, because Father Brown’s Mass is at ten thirty.  Catholics cannot consume anything an hour before Mass (though I think when I was a kid the fast started the night before).  Father Brown also has Mass at seven and eight, but I don’t think these times were devised for worshipers who consumed too many pints of craft beer the night before.

Father Brown’s the best and he always gives us enough to ponder on for the next six days – and he also enjoys craft beer and is a great supporter and friend of our little brewery.

His Mass always prepares us for the hard work of the week ahead – and by the time it ends the occupational hangover has pretty much been cured.  Our theme song is a little less depressing Sunday Morning Coming Down and something a little more upbeat.

Maybe ZZ Top’s Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers.

Bayou Teche Beers are now available in much of Mississippi, and we look forward to meeting more of our supporters and beer fans there.  Great things are happening in the Deep South when it comes to craft beer and I want to give ya’ll a big Merci Bien for helping us be a part of it.

What separated us from most of the other families getting together that day was that we had presents for one another! Pappa made sure of that. It was a tradition he wanted continued. Funny, people of his parents’ generation would not have thought those presents odd at all.

New Years day was planned around a large midday meal (called diner in those days), with the accompanying black eyed peas and cabbage, and multiple dessert dishes and demitasses of café noir. After the extended meal and multiple exchanges of “Bonne Année” presents were exchanged among the members of most Cajun families.

I just googled “Cajuns exchanging New Years’ Gifts” and the couple of hits I got suggest this Cajun tradition was one that was brought over from rural France, and was practiced there since Roman times. Pappa did not like the way most of his neighbors (and his own grandchildren) were forgetting this old custom. To him, we were adopting the ways of  les Américains (what he called English speakers, a term more insulting than Yankees).

You see, we were getting presents on Christmas – and to the older folks that practice was sacrilegious on one of the two most holy days of the year. On Christmas, past generations in Acadiana would stay up for Midnight Mass, and then prepare for a thoughtful day celebrating our Saviors’ birth– and a very large midday meal in his honor.

By the way, this year in Arnaudville, Father Brown’s Christmas Mass rocked. He’s the best.

The last fifteen or so years my father has renewed the New Years’ custom his father so stubbornly held on to. My wife and I still exchange presents on Christmas – we do have a son and daughter who would move out if we did not. And they look forward to New Years at my Mom and Dad’s house (and a second round of gifts for them), continuing a Cajun tradition that goes back centuries.

We would like to thank everyone who has helped us start up the brewery this year – all of our family, friends, the supporters we have met during our travels around Louisiana, the retailers, bar and restaurant owners who continue to believe in us, folks at all of the distributors, the three people who read my blogs, and everyone who has stopped by the brewery to say hello. We appreciate all of the help more than we could ever express.

And for those lucky enough to try one of the few cases of our most outlandish beer yet (a test batch of a very high alcohol Christmas seasonal ale, squeezed out of a single oak barrel and spiked with a very secret, and in many States, illegal ingredient), don’t worry, it will be available next year in larger quantities. If I get my Christmas wish and the fine folks at the Federal Offices of the TTB approve the formula in time.

My brothers and I, our wives and family would like to wish everyone in theBayou Teche Brewing community a Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année.

My grandfather would head out to his farm, working until dinner time.  Dinner was served at noon, and it was the big meal of the day.  Grandma would have two or three home-grown vegetable dishes ready, plenty of rice and gravy, maybe a roast, or a baked chicken and if my brothers and I had been good all morning there were mounds of French fries and a pitcher of homemade Zatarans root beer on the table for us.

I don’t know when we started calling the noontime meal in Acadiana lunch.  I guess lunch is what you eat when you live by a clock, “we have one hour to grab lunch.”  Dinner at my grandparent’s house was an event, often with visitors, boisterous laughter and long conversations, with no one looking at their wrist watch to see how much time was left till work started again.  Coffee was served after dinner and as the conversations wound down, my grandfather would always head off for his nap.

He was not alone in his daily nap routine; all of the old Cajun men we knew would head off after a hard morning’s work for one.  They always woke up to start the afternoon like it was a brand new day.

It had been a long time since I took a nap.

All of us have been very busy at the brewery.  Byron, Cory and I are brewing up batches of our smoked beer, Boucanee.  After each batch is ready there is also the kegging of the fresh beer and cleaning the fermenters and tanks, and then delivering of the filled kegs to our distributors across the state.

All of the work is done by hand and there is no air conditioning in the work areas of our little brewery.

Every weekend and many weeknights there are beer dinners, festivals, tastings and sales meetings with our distributors for Dorsey and Laurin to attend.  If we are double (or triple) booked, then my wife and I, or Byron and Cory would head out after brewing.

We are loving every minute of it.  We have met and made so many new friends, and enjoyed visiting with people passionate about craft beer, and about our Cajun and Creole heritage.

But a nap would be good.

Over the three day labor day weekend my wife and I, and our little daughter (with SpongeBob boogie board, SpongeBob beach towel, SpongeBob videos, SpongeBob fruit snacks, SpongeBob toothbrush, and toothpaste, and assorted SpongeBob products) loaded up in my wife’s little car and headed west to a condo on Galveston beach.  We turned off our cell phones and did not bring anything that would remind us of the work piling up at our little brewery.  LA-31 T-shirts and Koozies not allowed.

We did not even bring any LA-31 to drink.  Three days without my favorite beer would be a difficult cross for me to bear. 

We built a few sandcastles with our little girl and watched as the waves slowly eroded her fortresses.  We then jumped in those waves laughing with our little girl as she tasted the water of the Gulf for the first time.  Playing in the condo’s swimming pool is how we spent our afternoons and our daughter enjoyed soaking in the hot tubs in the evening; I’m sure she’ll want one for Christmas.

The second day there I got a nap, got another one on the third day, nice.   The old Cajuns we knew growing up were right about a lot of things – the importance of the daily nap was one of them.

We are now back to work at the brewery, and though we cannot always squeeze in a daily nap, I caught Byron napping under a mulberry tree and our son Cory sleeping on the tasting porch after our two beer lunch yesterday.

Our grandfather would be proud.

Thanks to Erica for use of the condo and access to her fully stocked pantry.  I especially appreciated the six packs of St. Arnolds and New Belgium beers she got for me – those beers made the two afternoon naps even more pleasurable.