(Press Release)

ARNAUDVILLE, LA—Bayou Teche Brewing is releasing Miel Sauvage, a French-style ale crafted with honey sourced near their Arnaudville brewery.  In France, farmhouse breweries have crafted a style of beer known as Biere de Miel for centuries – it is an ale brewed with an ample amount of honey from local beekeepers.   Miel Sauvage is Cajun French for wild honey and Bayou Teche Brewing’s new beer is fermented with a beehives worth of honey from their neighbor, Bernard’s Apiaries.

Says Bayou Teche’s brewmaster Gar Hatcher, “We worked with Steve Bernard from Bernard’s Honey and tried several varieties of his locally sourced honey.  We all agreed on one obtained near the Atchafalaya Basin as the best variety for this beer.”  The brewers then worked with barley imported from France and Canada that were known to impart honey flavors into finished ale.  Continued Gar, “after fermentation was complete, we racked our Cajun-take on French honey beer into empty whiskey barrels for aging.”  Joked Gar, “the Miel Sauvage was exiled in those barrels for the same length of time that Napoleon was exiled on Elba.”  In reality, the Miel Sauvage remained in these barrels for many months and while aging the beer picked up notes of whiskey, vanilla and oak.

The label of Miel Sauvage resembles an heirloom patchwork quilt that has been embroidered with three honeybees.  Honeybees were long an emblem of French royalty and likewise three of them adorned Napoleon’s flag of exile.  The Miel Sauvage label was just named one of the best ten labels of the month by an industry website.

Miel Sauvage is a limited release – just one single batch of this beer has been brewed this year.  The ale is sorrel colored and has a pronounced honey aroma and the barrel aging contributes a smooth vanilla oakiness and whiskey flavored booziness.   The beer is available in 22 oz. Belgian style bottles and on tap at special accounts in the brewery’s distribution area.  Dorsey Knott says that Bayou Teche’s artisanal versions of elegant French ales are available in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and New York.  The beer is also available in the Arnaudville brewery’s taproom.

Bayou Teche Brewing will release Miel Sauvage officially on Sunday September 29, beginning at 12:30 by throwing a cochon de lait at the brewery located in Arnaudville, LA. The cochon de lait will be cooked over the wood from the barrels that the beer was aged in.

(Press Release)

As part of Louisiana’s Craft Beer Week, Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne will introduce the Louisiana Craft Brewery Trail on Monday, Sept. 23, as the latest trail produced for LouisianaTravel.com.

Representatives from the seven breweries will be onsite with samples of their Louisiana-made beers. The trail’s breweries include Abita Brewing Company, Bayou Teche Brewing, Chafunkta Brewing Company, Covington Brewhouse, NOLA Brewing Company, Parish Brewing Company and Tin Roof Brewing Company. The new trail can be viewed at www.LouisianaBrewTrail.com.

Reflects Knott, “On our grandparents’ farm, our grandmother would brew a grègue of café noir every morning for our grandfather’s pre-dawn breakfast. At the end of each week, after the obligatory Sunday dinner, she would brew numerous pots of it.  Each and every one of the adults would then sip demitasses of the strong black coffee, laughing loudly and speaking French even louder.”  The Knott brothers wanted to honor that essential piece of their Cajun and Creole heritage with their newest beer.

LA-31 Bière Noire is brewed as an alt-schwarzbier. Though this style of beer was brewed in the East German state of Thuringen for many centuries, the last remaining alt-schwarzbier brewery closed nearly twenty years ago. Bayou Teche’s Biere Noire resurrects this style and  is brewed with a flavorful and historically accurate ale yeast. German breweries today use lager yeast in their black beers.

The brewery uses specially roasted German malts and select American hops that give LA-31  Bière Noire a small bite of noble bitterness and a dry, French roasted coffee flavor. The dark beer pairs with grilled steaks, hamburgers, or sausage po-boys, any spicy blackened Cajun dish, or as Knott says, “a dinner table surrounded by those you most cherish.”

Bayou Teche Brewing has been featuring organizations on the bottom of their six pack boxes that are working to preserve the unique cultures and environment of South Louisiana.  The bottom of Bière Noire recognizes the important work of Louisiana Folk Roots. Louisiana Folk Roots was established to preserve, perpetuate, promote and celebrate our state’s cultural traditions, with a special emphasis on the Cajun and Creole heritage of South Lousiana. Says Knott, “Louisiana Folk Roots mission is to show that Cajun music is even better when accompanied by our dance forms, our food, and our other traditions, especially our beautiful French language.  We wanted to thank them for the important work that they are doing.”

The inaugural batch of  LA-31 Bière Noire is now available in six packs and kegs across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.