About a month after releasing two original craft brews at the Zapp’s Beer Festival in April, Joseph Picou and Wes Hedges officially opened the doors to the Southern Craft Brewing Company taproom. At a soft opening celebration on Saturday, May 21, Baton Rougeans packed the space at 14141 Airline Highway to get a taste of Red Stick Rye and Pompous Pelican.
Red Stick Rye is the company’s first commercially brewed beer and a recipe that won second place at the 2011 National Homebrew Competition. It includes a rye malt from Riverbend Malt House in North Carolina. The malt uses a rye grain that’s been grown in the South for about 200 years, Picou says.
The pair’s second beer, Pompous Pelican, is a double IPA with 8.4 ABV and features Louisiana raw cane sugar manufactured at M.A. Patout & Son in Patoutville, one of the country’s oldest sugar plantations.
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Pompous Pelican, embodying the “pompous” part of its name, is almost overwhelmingly bold. But hints of fruity citrus and cane sugar soften the brew, giving it a crisp taste. Red Stick Rye is darker and grainier, more malted than hopped. Picou says the goal was to please a variety of palates with the introduction of Southern Craft beers, so he and Wedges went in two very different directions with their first brews.
Picou and Hedges are in the midst of creating a third brew, which will be a honey ale. The co-owners are still in the process of sourcing ingredients, but Picou says they hope the brew will be available by football season.
“We’ve had really good reception for the two brews we do have,” Picou says. “We’re very pleased with how things are turning out, and I think our consumers are, too.”
The taproom is rustic, decorated with a handmade wooden sign of the Southern Craft logo and a chalkboard menu. There are six vintage-style tap handles, the remaining four of which Picou says he hopes to fill sooner rather than later. Southern Craft T-shirts and beer glasses sit on shelves behind the bar.
Quarters are tight for a crowd in the taproom, but the actual brewery is spacious. It houses three vats for brewing, a walk-in cooler and storage space for ingredients—and still leaves enough room for tours and mingling.
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“It’s been an interesting process,” Picou says. “Going from homebrewing and scaling it to this level has been exhausting, but I’m glad it’s finally come to this … a real brewery.”
Red Stick Rye and Pompous Pelican are currently available in draft form at The Bulldog, Parrain’s Seafood Restaurant, The Chimes, The Pelican House, Corporate Brew & Draft and the Overpass Merchant. Picou and Hedges are contemplating bottling or canning Southern Craft beers so they can distribute them to local stores such as Calandro’s or Bergeron’s City Market, but that likely won’t happen until the brewery’s second year in business, Picou says.
Southern Craft Brewing Company is at the Barringer Foreman Technology Park at 14141 Airline Highway. For now, taproom and tour hours are only on Friday nights, but Picou says they will likely expand sometime this summer.
