For people outside of Louisiana, there is a fascination with wild New Orleans nights, steamy swamps and alligators, boiled crawfish and gumbo, and down-home cajun music. However, many people don’t realize that there is a vast diversity to Louisiana’s culture based on where you happen to be in the state. 

New Orleans has it’s own style and heritage, while the areas North and Southwest tend to fuse with the heritage and culture of the states that they border: Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. And, now that the states’ population of craft breweries will move into double digits this year, there is now a brewery to compliment each part of this culture.  So, when you think of “cajun country,” you need to understand that you are talking primarily about south-central Louisiana, both in and around the city of Lafayette, LA.

About 20 minutes northeast of Lafayette, is Arnaudville. Just south of Arnaudville, on Louisiana Highway 31, you will find the home of Bayou Teche Brewing as well as the three Knott brothers (Karlos, Bryon, and Dorsey) who have, along with head brewer Gar Hatcher (previously of Lazy Magnolia in MS), created a truly unique brewery and family of beers that capture the essence of cajun culture and craft beer like no other! 

In Cajun Country, food is the focal point of all celebrations and Bayou Teche has created a line of beers that will compliment every facet of real cajun cuisine. Their flagship beer, LA-31 Bière Pâle, was brewed to compliment popular cajun dishes such as Red beans and rice, jambalaya, sauce piquant, shrimp Creole, chicken and sausage gumbo, hot boudin, boiled crawfish, fried seafood platters, crawfish bisque and etouffe, and catfish court bouillon. According to Bryon Knott, this is a beer that changes style as you move through a glass, so it’s more like three beers in one.

Another great beer that compliments food is their Saison D’Écrevisses (Crawfish Season), which is a belgian style ale that has been carefully crafted to perfectly compliment a hot tray of boiled crawfish. It’s a little spicy and a common question they get is, “Does it have crawfish in it?” The answer is no (duh) it does not, but it does go perfectly with a spring afternoon crawfish boil and some cajun tunes from bands like our buddy Rusty Metoyer (pronounced Met-twy-er  – like McGuire).

And, while many of their beers were brewed to compliment foods, one of their special batches that we got to sample was actually brewed to emulate a popular traditional cajun dish. “Maque Choux” (pronounced mock-shoe) is a well know side dish in Cajun Country and, while the ingredients and preparation style can be widely debated, everyone agrees that corn is the primary ingredient. So, while sitting around a family meal, the fellas thought, “Why not brew a Maque Choux beer?” So, they mixed corn, pepper, and a little sun-dried tomato to release their special, small-batch, Maque Choux. This one in only available at the brewery, but well worth the visit.

Something else that is unique to Bayou Teche is that they don’t just emulate beers from specific french cultures, like many Pacific Northwest brewers have very successfully done with Farmhouse style ales, they are actually preserving their existing heritage. 

A great example of this is “Bayoust,” a collaboration that Bayou Teche did last year with the Brassiere La Bambelle in Arnaudville’s french sister city, Jausiers, France.  Bayoust was collaboratively brewed between the two breweries and was intended to capture the essence of the staple crops from both countries. Since the owner of the La Bambelle brewery actually harvests his own buckwheat, both corn and buckwheat were used in the recipe. The name is a combination of the two rivers on which each brewery sits: Bayou Teche running in Louisiana just behind the brewery and the Oust River in France. The beer will be available as the official beer of the Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, LA on April 23rd to 27th, so you better get you a road trip going ASAP!

While we have seen a lot of international collaborations happening in the beer world, such as the International Arms Race collaboration that we we wrote about a couple of years ago between Flying Dog and Brew Dog, or Due South in Florida going to Spain to do a collaboration with Edge Brewing, Bayou Teche has done something unique in that they are actually bridging a gap between the past and the present culture of Acadiana (what they call the area).

Bayou Teche is definitely not a brewer that stands too long on it’s laurels. Despite having won several awards and having two of their beers selected for last year’s Savor Beer Pairing, they continue to innovate and grow. A new bottling line was just arriving as we visited the brewery and they were already thinking about what summer will bring (beside heat).

And, speaking of heat, it is damned hot in Louisiana, so you might think about making a trip this spring while the crawfish are large and the weather is mild.

Laizes le bon temps roulez!

Want more? Check out our interview with Bryon Knott:

{youtube}Q16vhidZMy0{/youtube}