[StBernard] STOUT COLD

[Westley Annis]

STOUT COLD
Brews News: 40 Arpent Owner Talks Arabi Opening, New Stout & Delacroix Ale
by Sam Nelson


If you stand on the flood wall on the levee outside 40 Arpent Brewing
Company's warehouse, you can see downtown New Orleans.  It looks distant
across the river's bend, but the parish boundary line is only a few blocks
away.   
 
St. Bernard Parish has never had a legal brewery that Michael Naquin knows,
but in early April, his business, 40 Arpent Brewing Company will become the
first manufacturing brewery to distribute beer from Da' Parish when it
releases its milk stout and Delacroix Ale on draft.  It will also mark the
first brewery to open up in Greater New Orleans-south of Lake
Pontchartrain-since NOLA Brewing Company was founded in 2009.
           
Naquin grew up in Bayou Blue outside Houma, but moved to New Orleans in
2001.  He lived in Mid-City, a few blocks away from Acadian Brewing Company
on Carrollton. 
           
"I went to the brewery, bought a growler, and the next day I went to Brew Ha
Ha and started brewing.  That's how it all started," Naquin said.  His first
brewed beer was an Irish Red Ale, which inspired the Red Bean Ale he plans
to release in late April.
           
Naquin has home brewed for more than a decade, but his main job has been as
co-owner with his wife, Emily, of Bee Hive Hair Studio in the Lower Garden
District.  
           
Before cutting hair, Naquin had gone to South Central Louisiana Technical
College to study refrigeration.  He fixed daiquiri and ice cream machines in
stores until he grew tired of it.   A friend persuaded him to become a
barber, which is how Naquin met Emily.
           
"There were no barber colleges here so I had to go to cosmetology school,"
Naquin said.  The first salon I worked at I met my wife. That was thirteen
years ago."
           
Now, Naquin splits his time between the salon and the brewery, which Emily
also co-owns.
           
"I still cut hair three times a week, but I'm going to be doing less and
less of that," Naquin said.
           
When Naquin and his wife tried to open the salon in 2005 they had several
issues with the permit process that made opening difficult and inspired
Naquin to open his brewery in St. Bernard Parish instead of Orleans.
           
"I've lived in Orleans Parish for 13 years. I love Orleans, but after
opening one business in Orleans Parish, I was feeling less likely to do it
again," Naquin said.
           
Naquin said he had little problem communicating and working with St. Bernard
government.
           
"I actually thought it was pretty easy," Naquin said.  "The problems I ran
into were more because nobody had opened a brewery here."
           
Naquin noted there are challenges in opening a brewery in Orleans or St.
Bernard Parish because of an education gap between government and brewers-as
evidenced by Courtyard Brewery's recent permit process-but he expects that
gap to lessen in the near future, which will make the process easier in both
parishes.  
           
"How lucky would you be to open a brewery here six years from now?  They'll
probably have a stream-lined process where you can swipe your Louisiana ID
card and get a permit printed out," Naquin joked.
           
Naquin did not want to wait six more years, though. He had previously worked
at NOLA Brewing and also worked under Patrick O'Neill at Zea Rotisserie and
Brewery and Tom Conklin at Crescent City Brewhouse.  He was eager to brew
professionally full-time and found it made more financial and personal sense
to open his own brewery.
           
"I love brewing beer; that's why I wanted a job at a brewery," Naquin said. 
 
In 2011, he started 40 Arpent Brewing and began searching for a location.
He named the brewery after a 40 Arpent canal he grew up along.  An arpent is
a French unit of measurement that is still used in parts of Louisiana.
Naquin first used the name when he brewed 40 Arpent Pale Ale for NOLA
Brewing's Beer Not Bullets event in summer 2011.
           
A few days after Hurricane Isaac, Naquin found his future warehouse along
the river bank in Arabi.   
           
Naquin finds personal relevance in the history of Arabi.  Arabi began as a
stockyard, but businessmen wanted to be free of control from Orleans Parish,
so they seceded into St. Bernard Parish.  Later, Arabi became a raucous
drinking and gambling area where the workers at Domino Sugar factory lived.
The factory still operates and looms over the area, but the neighborhood is
much quieter, almost pastoral in parts, especially by the river.
           
Naquin's brewery is across the street from the levee and flood wall in a
small warehouse with green trim.  Inside he has several plastic kegs of 40
Arpent Stout ready to be shipped.  In the corner is a ten barrel brew house,
which he bought from East End Brewing Company in Pittsburgh. 
           
The stout was served at the New Orleans International Beer Festival in
Champions Sqaure on Saturday, March 22.  The Delacroix Ale, however, is
still fermenting, Naquin said. 
           
The 40 Arpent Stout is a milk stout brewed with Mount Hood hops and milk
sugar at six percent alcohol by volume (ABV).  
 
The Delacroix is an abbey ale with seven percent ABV with fruity esters and
Styrian hops.  Naquin plans to release it annually for Lent, and then
replace it around Easter with his Red Bean Ale.  
 
For the Red Bean Ale, a red ale, Naquin cooks around 50 pounds of red beans
in a large kettle in his home for six hours, and then dumps the beans into
the mash grain.
 
"The first time I made it we used dry beans, and it made the beer too
cloudy," Naquin said.  "It didn't affect the taste, but I looked at it and
thought, I wouldn't want to drink that.  We started cooking the beans.  That
made all the difference.
           
"I'm probably not the first person to use red beans in beer, but we're most
likely the first manufacturing brewery to use it," Naquin said. 
 
Since red beans are an uncommon ingredient in beer, 40 Arpent Brewing had to
get federal formula approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade
Bureau.  Now, Naquin is only awaiting label approval before he can start
brewing the beer, which he expects to be ready on draft in late April for
the end of Lent. 
           
Naquin has many recipes ready for future production, and he plans to rotate
drafts at his warehouse for brewery tours.  He thinks the brewery will be
ready for tours in late April.  He plans to brew about 800 barrels the first
year.   
 
Naquin expects the Delacroix Ale and 40 Arpent Stout to appear in bars
around April 5 and the Red Bean Ale to come out around April 25.   Crescent
Crown Distributing will handle 40 Arpent Brewing's account, but would not
comment on locations or roll-out plans.