New Orleans Brews

Keeping with the city tour and snatching everything from the same well, our friends at the NY Times also profiles the reemergence of New Orleans breweries. This is near and dear to my friend Stephanie's heart, so here you go:

"Founded in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans in 1907, the Dixie Brewing Company was still sputtering along when Katrina upended the city. Its old brick building on Tulane Avenue was left stewing in 10 feet of water, and when the flood finally receded, looters moved in to haul off anything of value, including a copper kettle 16 feet in diameter. The brewery these days, with its imposing metal dome, is nothing but a spooky shell.

Heiner Brau brewed for Dixie for about six months, but was ultimately unable to keep up with demand. Its beers, including the popular Blackened Voodoo Lager, are currently shipped around the country from the Minhas Craft Brewery in Monroe, Wis. Dixie’s owners, Joe and Kendra Bruno, are eager for it to return to production in its original home. “We believe that it belongs there,” Ms. Bruno said recently by phone."

NY Times on the Portland Economy

The New York Times profiles my second favorite city, using the scaled back expansion plans of its famous book store as a microcosm of the nation's economic woes:

"Portland, a metropolitan area of 2.2 million people, affords an ideal window onto the spiral of fear and diminished expectations assailing the economy. The area has long attracted investment and talented minds with its curbs on urban sprawl, thriving culinary scene and life in proximity to the Pacific Coast and the snow-capped peaks of the Cascades. In good times, Portland tends to grow vigorously, elevated by companies like the computer chip maker Intel — which employs 15,000 people in the area — and the athletic clothing giant Nike.

But in recent months, Portland has devolved into a symbol of much that is wrong. Housing prices have fallen more than 14 percent since May 2007, according to the S.& P./Case-Shiller index. Foreclosures more than tripled last year, according to RealtyTrac. The unemployment rate for the metro area surged from 4.8 percent at the end of 2007 to 9.8 percent in January 2009, according to the Labor Department."