Eats

This week in awesome: Bayou Teche Brewing's Courir de Mardi Gras

by Walter Pierce

"There were so many outstanding and famous beers in this year's competition, we are just elated."

The little brew house in Arnaudville that could, Bayou Teche Brewing, walked away from the 2012 World Beer Championship with a silver medal in the Biere de Garde - Ale category. The competition is hosted by the Beverage Tasting Institute and pits some of the world's finest craft beers in blind taste tests by a panel of judges.

"We just got the news. We opened a few celebratory bottles from the last six pack of Courir that we had set aside for a special occasion," says Bayou Teche brewmaster Karlos Knott in a press release touting the accolade. "There were so many outstanding and famous beers in this year's competition, we are just elated."

Courir de Mardi Gras scored an 87 on BTI's 110-point rating scale. Judges noted the seasonal beer's "bright buttered raisin toast with a crisp medium body and a nice peppery frisee and radicchio-like hop finish." We don't know what that means, but it sounds delicious.

Courir de Mardi Gras is the first seasonal brew by the Arnaudville brewery, produced a couple of months before the Carnival season. Knott characterizes it as an artisanal version of a Biere de Mars, ales that have historically been brewed in small batches on French farms.

The beer is actually something of a marking innovation, released in conjunction with a "Best Of" CD by Valcour Records, an Acadiana company that specializes in Cajun and Creole music by new and up-and-coming artists. And while the collaboration between the brewery and the record company was a first, Knott says it won't be the last: "This was the first of many beer/music collaborative projects we have planned with the innovative trio behind Valcour records."

Bayou Teche's Courir de Mardi Gras ale will be distributed in 2013 before and during the Mardi Gras season in the Gulf Coast states and Georgia.

Learn more about the brewery at its website.