d.b.a- New Orleans

July 15, 2008
A fair bottled selection, though pricy. A poor selection of taps and the Belgians they have are costlytake note that the prices for those are for an 8-ounce glass, not a pint.

April 5, 2008
Kind of out of the way of the more touristy places off Bourbon - more of a local and hippy neighborhood. No food - had dinner at Snug Harbor up the street on recommendation of the girl tending bar here. Pretty good live music going on this Saturday night, with a pretty good selection of bottled beers - including quite a few good Belgians. Can’t remember how many taps there were. As BeerBelcher said, lots of other good spirits available, too.

April 4, 2008
The New Orleans d.b.a. seemed north of the most tour-isty parts of Bourbon Street, and was maybe a 15 minute walk from Harrah’s/Riverwalk. The inside is a bit dark, and appears to be living a double-life, trying to cater to both the small beer geek-ery present in New Orleans while simultaneously competing with non-beer-savvy bars down the road with live music and drink specials. I visited with Flyer during non-peak hours, early on a weekday. The beer-list was a decent size but not too exciting. It was almost exactly the same as two other beer bars I went to during my visit (Bulldog and Delachaise), which seemed to indicate that these three bars all bought all craft/imports their local distributor carried, but that there is a lot of room for distribution growth for other craft/import brands in this city. Wendy, our bartender, was friendly and demonstrated some knowledge and enthusiasm for beer. The three beers I had were all from bottles, and the glassware available at the bar resulted in some strange pairings – I had an IPA, a pale ale, and a brune, all from a Schneider Weisse branded weizen glass. They did have a nice selection of other liquor (scotch, cognac and the like), came off as caring about beer, and Wendy made us feel welcome and well-taken care of. From what I saw, this place offered the best home-away-from-home for beer geeks visiting New Orleans.

April 3, 2008
I visited three craft beer-oriented bars in New Orleans, and all had virtually the same menu. Only d.b.a. had a bartendress knowledgable enough to explain that these were the best to be had from the local distrbutor. Wendy did know her beer. The NOLA d.b.a. is kind of a pale cousin to the one in Manhattan, but given the limitations of operating a good beer bar in the south,we’ll excuse that. The atmosphere is beery, unpretentious and woody, with chalkboards displaying the menu. Very limited selection of rarities (such as a Finnish stout). But good beer only needs a toehold to eventually flouirsh, and in NOLA that toehold is d.d.a. Worth going out of your way for.

March 20, 2008
New Orleans does not seams by any means to be a beer heaven. However this bar situated in a quet area close to the Franch Quarter does has a moderate good selection of European beer. Unfortunately the selection of domistic Amarican beers are not very great. The late afternoon I was there the service from the people in the bar was exelent.

February 28, 2008
Big selection of tap and bottle beers for New Orleans, plus, there’s live music almost every night. On lovely mucially vibrant Frenchmen Street, this is the beer lovers best bet in the French Quarter area. Walk in and get a Cantillon, listen to some smokin’ music, pour your remainder in a to go cup and meander across and down the street to hear some more music, and when your cup runs out, go back and get an aged Thomas Hardy bottle or Rogue or Abita on tap and do it all agian...this place rocks!

March 16, 2006
Actually a real dissapointment. I expected this to sort of be a beer mecca, but they don’t come close to having the best selection in the city- That would be Cooter Brown’s. Despite what the previous rater stated, there is nothing here that is unique to this bar. Low marks for service because when I asked the bartender for an Affligem Blonde, she didn’t even know what or where it was.

August 18, 2005
Awesome place. Frenchman street is a hella of a lot better than bourbon street. DBA has a lot of beers that you cannot get anywhere in the city. Live music. very fun bar

July 23, 2005
Let’s face it, no one goes to New Orleans for the beer - however, if you happen to be in the French Quarter and you’re really "jonzin’" for a decent pint of ale this place is probably your best bet - it looks almost identical to its New York counterpart (boards, bar layout, tables, etc.), minus the hand pumps, which disappointed me - they don’t have anything that will make a typical ratebeerian jump for joy, but you can get a nice glass of chimay, la choffe, rogue or unibroue, which is, trust me, better than you’re going to find anywhere else in the south - the croud seems much younger and more layed back than the croud at the NY dba, but this is NO, and EVERYONE is more layed back there (let’s face it, us new yorkers are uptight) - in short, if you want a place to relax, get out of the heat and have a decent beer, take the short walk off the French Quarter to dba.

July 15, 2005
Good sized bar close to the main strip. We were there on July 3rd and it had been raining so there were only about 4 other people other than our group. Other than the some of the Abita beers they didn’t carry much I hadn’t seen or had, but they did have a huge selection. All the inventory is written out on huge chalk boards and the bottle selection is a big part of the inventory. The bar itself was actually very nice. Lots of wood accents and manly decor. My kinda place.