Beer lovers willing to make the drive have a rare appointment this weekend: Zwanze Day, the annual worldwide celebration of Belgian lambic, returns Saturday with the Avenue Pub in New Orleans once again serving as the Gulf Coast’s host venue — one of just 36 bars on the planet pouring this year’s release.
A once-a-year lambic
Held annually since 2008, Zwanze Day is the creation of Jean Van Roy, fourth-generation brewer at Brussels’ famed Cantillon brewery, who blends a one-time beer each year meant to capture the self-deprecating humor of his hometown. The 2012 edition revisits the original 2008 recipe: rhubarb soaked in twenty-month-old lambic, a tart, wine-like beer the brewery describes as delicately balanced between acidity and the fruit’s sharpness.
The Avenue Pub on St. Charles Avenue kicks things off Friday night with a list of rare sour beers from around the world, then joins 35 of the 36 participating venues in tapping the 2012 Zwanze simultaneously at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Alabama brewing news closer to home
Back in Alabama, the craft scene keeps moving. In Tuscaloosa, the state’s newest brewery, Druid City Brewing Company, debuted its beers during last Friday’s surprise Alabama Shakes show at Egan’s Bar — fittingly scrappy beginnings for the smallest brewery in Alabama, which produces just 3.5 barrels per batch. Early releases are finding their way onto taps at Egan’s, Wilhagen’s and the Alcove.
Closer to Mobile, representatives from Huntsville’s Blue Pants Brewery and Straight to Ale spent the month visiting retailers and distributors, with both breweries hoping to see their beers on local taps and shelves before year’s end — potentially the first wide Huntsville distribution to the lower part of the state.
Montgomery’s Railyard Brewing Company has been brewing on-site since November 10, with brewer Kade Miller already having produced an Irish red, oatmeal stout, Scottish wee heavy, honey porter and hazelnut brown — making it, for now, the closest in-state brewery to south Alabama.
And in Fairhope, Baldwin County’s own Fairhope Brewing Company received its first equipment shipment this week; the tasting-room bar is built and the brewery remains on track to have beer ready by year’s end at 914 Nichols Ave.