Local brewery featured on TV show tonight

Bayou Teche Brewing is one of the Louisiana breweries to be showcased in tonight’s (Wednesday, Aug. 20) Esquire Network episode of “Brew Dogs.”
In this NOLA themed episode of the show, hosts James Watt and Martin Dickie create a New Orleans-inspired beer using local ingredients like Rose of Jericho (the “resurrection plant”) and mayhaw fruit, brewed entirely on the back of a fan boat in the bayou.
After a brief time out from brewing they compete with Bayou Tech Brewing’s Karlos Knott to see who could make the best craft beer pairings with local Cajun cuisine.
The show ends with the Brew Dogs continuing to the French Quarter to reveal their revival beer and convert a few local craft beer fans along the way.
To get a feel for the local beer scene, the producers reached out to several breweries in the state, including Bayou Teche Brewing.
“They wanted me to coordinate with the other Louisiana breweries’ beers to use in the episode.” Knott said. “The producers wanted a list of our favorite beers and a nice sampling list of the best beers brewed by all the other Louisiana breweries. I pretty much drafted a list of most of the beers produced by Louisiana Craft Breweries for them to choose from. They then winnowed that down to three or four from each of the rest of the breweries in the state for the show’s hosts, James and Martin to sample when they arrived.”
The producers were so struck with Knott’s knowledge of local beers and Cajun and Creole cuisine that they asked him to film a separate segment.
“Then I was asked to do a Cajun and Creole food pairing throw down with James and Martin – me against them,” Knott said.
The producers had heard that Bayou Teche Brewing was known to craft beers that are inspired by South Louisiana’s foods and crafted to pair easily with them. The idea for the segment was for Knott to pick three of the brewery’s beers, while James and Martin picked three (any beer from around the world) to for the competition.
“I was nervous,” Knott said. “I did not want to lose – and let me tell you James and Martin took it very serious. What you won’t see on the show is all of the smack talking coming from those two between courses. It was brutal!”
The segment featured three courses of Creole Cuisine prepared by Chef Kristin Essig at New Orleans’ Sainte Marie restaurant.
Knott said that when he showed up at Sainte Marie for the pairing, he was treated like a movie star and the staff at the restaurant bent over backwards to make everyone feel at home. Chef Kristen Essig created three amazing dishes, said Knott.
“If I wasn’t so nervous from thinking about competing with the Brew Dogs on the upcoming beer and food pairing contest I would have ate bucketfuls of each course.”
A few weeks later the film crew also came out to the Arnaudville brewery to film there.
“We brewed a test batch of Shrimp and Grits beer for them (brewed with hominy grits and shrimp) and fed the crew boudin, red beans and rice and gratons (cracklins), and the shrimp from the beer.”
The filming took the better part of a long, hot humid South Louisiana day, and the film crew was dripping with sweat, so Dorsey and Laurin Knott from the brewery took them on a boat tour of the Atchafalaya swamp to cool off.
The concept for each “Brew Dogs” episode is conceptualizing and creating a beer that represents the city visited in the most off-the-wall way possible. Producers reached out to NOLA Brewing’s to plot New Orleans’ swamp water based beer – brewed on two airboats in a swamp near the city, with water from that swamp.
For more information contact Karlos Knott at (337) 303-8000 or karlos@bayoutechebrewing.com.