With Fly Llama wrapped up, we officially ended our afternoon in Mississippi, headed back across state lines into Louisiana and stopped at the most well known brewery in the state; Abita Brewing Company. Abita Brewing Company, originally of Abita Springs and now located in Covington, has been producing beer since 1986.
Abita Brewing Company
Abita is known for their use of local ingredients, commitment to sustainability and of course Purple Haze – one of the most popular raspberry brews in the US. Unfortunately for us, we landed on a day without tours, bummer. Even without a tour, we looked forward to getting our hands on beers outside our general distribution. In this case, the AndyGator, Strawgator and Bourbon Street Barrel Aged Imperial Stout ended up on our flight alongside a fresh Purple Haze.
Bourbon Street BA is 100% the beer to get your hands on. BSBA is insanely smooth and delicious, also it was aged in Pappy Van Winkle barrels. For those of you who don’t know Pappy, that’s kind of a big deal.
The sun is setting quickly, and we are eager to get back to NOLA. We have a pure boozy bourbon street rager dinner reservation to get to. However, there is one more stop on the list – mostly because of the name. Chafunkta Brewing Company of Mandeville is just a slight detour from the bridge back to NOLA, but a worthy stop for some local color.
Chafunkta Brewing Company
Chafunkta’s large warehouse was in the middle of a renovation, but the open air taproom was rowdy with live music, board games and tons of dogs. Scoring high marks on Google Maps (4.9) and better than average on Untappd (3.78), we can understand the appeal. The best brew on the flight was their 3XPBC Beer Inoculum; an 8.2% Imperial Stout. 3XPBC was brewed to celebrate their Nine Year Anniversary! It’s description states the imp stout is a “triple peanut butter cup beer” and oh did it scratch the peanut butter cup itch. Probably one of the best peanut butter cup stouts we’ve had in all of 2022 (and now 2023). Happy Anniversary Chafunkta, we wish you many more!
That’s no Pond!
Geographically speaking, Abita and Chafunkta are “across the pond”, making travel to these breweries from NOLA either prohibitively uber expensive or requiring a rental car – maybe a bus if those exist. We did zero research on the bus thing. I’m sure you’re thinking, it’s just a pond or a lake and there’s a road right through it! That is Lake Pontchartrain.
Lake Pontchartrain is a large, brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is not a true lake, but rather a tidal basin that is connected to the Gulf of Mexico. Lake Pontchartrain is also one of the largest wetlands in the United States!
The bridge you see on Google maps is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Which is one of the longest bridges in the world at 24 miles long! Quite the feat of engineering in our humble opinion. Driving 24 miles, in what can only be described as open water, is just as daunting as driving the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Also if you have to pee, well, you’re SOL on that front because with the exception of emergency pull overs, there is no where to stop.
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