Urban South Brewery

Urban South was founded in 2016 by Jacob Landry and Kyle Huling, two LSU graduates, and is now the largest brewery by volume in New Orleans. Landry's account of why is worth hearing: the seed was planted during a year he spent in Europe, where he understood for the first time how big the chasm was between the beer his ancestors drank and the mass-market stuff he grew up with in South Louisiana. Huling brought a decade in beer distribution and a lifetime in the city. The taproom is at 1645 Tchoupitoulas Street in the Lower Garden District, serves smash burgers from its in-house Urban Smash counter, runs happy hour weekdays from 3 to 6, and is genuinely set up for families — it advertises private parties and children's birthdays. It opens at 11am daily, until 9pm most nights and 10pm on Friday and Saturday.

It was the first brewery in New Orleans to brew a non-alcoholic version of its own beer, and the two it makes are both 0.5% ABV. N.A. Holy Roller is the one that matters: a hazy IPA using the same Mosaic, Citra and Centennial hops as the flagship Holy Roller, at 60 IBU, and the brewery's own line is that it lets you keep your halo polished without sacrificing flavour. N.A. Charming Wit is the wheat beer counterpart. Neither is priced on the website. There is something worth flagging for anyone bringing children or avoiding intoxicants generally. The same beverage page that lists those two non-alcoholic beers also carries a THC Beverages section immediately above the Non-Alcoholic heading — nine hemp-derived seltzers at 5mg of THC per can, in flavours including NOLA Cola, Lemon Lavender and Peach Spritz. The headings are distinct and the dose is printed on each line, so the labelling is not misleading. But the two sit adjacent on one page in a taproom that hosts children's parties, and no warning or age-policy text appears near either section. Read the heading above whatever you order.