There was a time “back in the day” (don’t you just hate that phrase but hey it applies here) when one of the aspects of going to New Orleans meant drinking the city’s signature brew, Dixie beer.
There was just something to a Southerner about cracking open a Dixie beer. It came in a white can, which in itself was unique, and New Orleans was about the only place you could get it. It was like getting your hands on a Coors Banquet before it became widely distributed across the U.S.A.
Having a Dixie beer was as much a part of going to New Orleans as drinking in the Bourbon Street bars, eating jambalaya and gumbo and wearing Mardi Gras beads.
Plus, there was the element of drinking a beer that proudly boasted about the Southern culture right on the can. It wasn’t fancy – all it said was DIXIE. This indicated two things: it was a cheap beer, the Louisiana equivalent of Busch and PBR, and it let you know you were in some place different than at home.
Now, in this politically correct era, it’s probably not appropriate to have a beer (or any product for that matter) named after a land that was know for slavery. Hell, they even took Aunt Jemima off the pancake syrup bottle.
But we weren’t ever thinking of that shit. Southern slavery never entered our minds; we just wanted to party in New Orleans, and part of that experience was drinking Dixie beer. To us, the South represented hell raisin’ women chasin’ and drinking beer. All to the Southern soundtrack provided by Lynyrd Skynyrd. We were equal opportunity partiers (I still am, by the way).
One day, for no real reason other than perhaps it’s Mardi Gras season , I got to wonder, “whatever happened to Dixie beer?” So I did a bit of research and found out the answer to this question.
The good news is the brewery is still in business. Faubourg Brewing Company was founded in New Orleans back in 1907. It produced Dixie beer for decades but as craft breweries began to flood the market, as well as beer companies becoming huge conglomerates with mergers and mega marketing budgets, it faded from the scene.
Other breweries started brewing Dixie but they did not last long. In 2017, New Orleans Saints and Pelican owners Gayle and Tom Benson bought Faubourg Brewing Company and vowed to revive the Dixie beer brand. But so far that has not happened.
I contacted Faubourg via its Twitter account and received this response: “the Dixie recipe is no longer in production.”
No, the Dixie recipe is no longer in production.
— Faubourg Beer (@faubourgbeer) January 20, 2022
So there’s your answer.
By the way, here is the official definition of Dixie and its history. I know this because I came across this historical plaque one day while in New Orleans. Headed to Bourbon Street with a belly full of a Poor Boy sandwich and a bowl of gumbo, of course.
Cheers!
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