Dixie Brewing Company (New Orleans)

By 2005, Dixie Brewing Company was the remaining brewery in New Orleans, the only one left from the city's production heyday of the 1940s & 1950s. As was the case with most American cities, as time passed, most of her regional brewing operations either closed down or were bought out in the consolidations of the 1960s and 1970s. Regal (closed 1961) and Falstaff (closed 1978) had seen their sales die away as Louisianians, like the rest of America, switched their drinking loyalties to major national brands, like Budweiser and Miller. Dixie had limped along since the 1970s, and even with a short-lived, and ultimately failed attempt to diversity its portfolio in the 1990s, introducing new and unusual recipe offerings, like Crimson Voodoo, continued to lose market share and faced general consumer indifference towards its remaining brands (Dixie, Dixie Blackened Voodoo, and Dixie Jazz Light). However, a small, loyal core did keep the brewery in business, if not in the black. The damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent looting of every shred of the brewery's copper, seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle for the brewery to overcome.

In spite of the catastrophic 2005 events, Dixie reappeared in 2006, and continues its line with contract brewing (Minhas Craft Brewery of Monroe, Wisconsin and in Europe, through Pierhead Imports operations in the United Kingdom). Through the use of cypress wood, Dixie products have maintained their distinctive taste and body profiles.

Dixie Brewing Company was established in 1907, and after ownership changes, is currently controlled by the Bruno family of New Orleans, Louisiana. The current owners were either too impoverished or unwise to maintain property insurance on the brewery, and the huge building continues to set derelict and closed at its Tulane Avenue (U.S. Highway 90) location. It seems doubtful that Dixie will ever resume brewing operations in New Orleans.

As an interesting note: like as happened with the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in the 1970s, Dixie was beset with a disastrous incident of selling a bad batch of beer, this supposedly caused by floor-cleaning fumes that tainted the product, which began the concerted decline of the company. Another example of Dixie's poverty is that in the mid-1990s, production of canned beer ceased when Dixie was unable to afford new equipment which would allow them to can beer according to the updated national trade design standards that had been adopted. Many, like my grandfather, who only ever drank Dixie in cans, then abandoned the brand, choosing to buy other canned beers rather than switch to bottled Dixie.

It is unclear what the long-term future holds for Dixie Brewing Company.