Abita and Hurricanes

An early example of American craft brew, Abita has been making some excellent beers since 1986. Located just outside of New Orleans it has certainly become the choice beer of New Orleans. On a trip to New Orleans last year, I got a chance to try a bunch of their beers. They have an awesome variety, although in Chicago we only see the turbo dog, amber, and purple haze. I think my favorite was a barley wine, which isn't listed on their site. Let me try google real quick...ahh there it is, called the allygator it is a fine example of a barley wine. Barley wine is a very strong beer defined as:Barley wine is an English-style of ale characterized by a high original gravity, resulting in a high alcohol content, more typical of a wine than a beer (10% by volume is typical). This requires special yeast with a higher tolerance for alcohol. Barley wines are often full-bodied, highly hopped, with a residual malty sweet character. They can vary in color from a light copper to a deep brown. Barley wines can often improve in bottle for years.
hmmmm all I know is it will get you drunk. I also just noticed that Abita is currently up and running, although many of their employees are missing.
Now my non beer related rant. What the fuck has gone wrong with the government of this country. They have lost perspective of their primary function to the point they have now decided that the people of New Orleans are nothing but a bunch of refugees. If we are the greatest country in the world, how is it that we can't take care of our own people in midst of a great natural tragedy such as a hurricane. Many factors have lead to this being so terrible, amongst them...Most of the national guard is elsewhere in the world, our energy policy has caused us to completely change the natural face of the bayou (new Orleans natural protection from hurricanes)and caused us to have a severe economic dependance on oil and refining, bipartisan politics leads the feds to do nothing well, and finally our great leader has been on vacation for 5 weeks. This tragedy is only a sign of trouble on the horizon for our culture. We have come unhinged and seem to act like the dictators we are supposedly fighting.