Abita Christmas Ale Party at the Rock'n'Bowl and Ye Olde College Inn

Saturday night, the roommate and I decided to take a break from the usual night out on Bourbon and check out the Abita Christmas Ale Party at the Rock'n'Bowl (Abita.com). For those of you that don't know, Abita Beer is a Louisiana Brewing company that makes some great seasonal brews using local flavors like satsumas and pecans. Periodically, Abita hosts Bar Crawl events in South Louisiana that are free to register for and attend. Registration entitles you and your pub crawl wrist band to $1.00 beers at the venue.

The event Saturday night at the Rock'n'Bowl was to unveil the Christmas Ale and included in the one dollar special. Unfortunately, neither of us were fond of the Christmas Ale that tasted like Andygator with mulled spice: YUCK! However, several other Abita brews the two of us enjoy were included in the $1.00 special. So after suffering through the Christmas Ale, we swapped it out for one of our usual favorites. :)

After two $1.00 Abita's we still had some time before the band, Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys, started their set. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to go next door to Ye Olde College Inn and taste their Bread Pudding Po-Boy that sold out before we could try it at the Po-Boy Preservation Festival.

When we walked into the Inn, our only concern was whether the Bread Pudding Po-Boy was on that night's menu because we were on a mission. This then caused some what of a panic and taught us a valuable lesson: never ask the hostess if an item is on the menu that night because she will immediately panic and think rumors are abound NOLA that they are our of an item or no longer serving it. After clearing up the confusion we were seated and immediately got to business, ordering a the Bread Pudding Po-Boy and the Creole Bread Pudding. (Don't worry, we got one of each to split because the portions are MASSIVE and super rich!)

Amateur Food Critic's Bread Pudding Review:

- Bread Pudding Po-Boy was phenomenal! It was like brown sugar encrusted french toast! Tasting this explained why it won at the Po-Boy festival the other year.

- The Creole Bread Pudding, however, was a different story and not to my taste: too wet, rich, and buttery. (Keep in mind that this amateur food critic is from Southern California, eats organically as much as possible, and cooks in the Mediterranean style.)

*Even though we did not dine at the Inn, the food looked delicious and we definitely plan to go back for more than just dessert in the future!

After enjoying dessert, we went back to the Rock'n'Bowl to listen to the band before heading to The Roosevelt to meet up with friends, enjoy the Winter Wonderland display, and try a holiday drink at Sazurac.

Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys


I almost forgot to mention that although we did not bowl at the Christmas Ale party, the venue was really neat and we plan to go back and bowl another night!

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