Gnarly Barley Hosts Third Annual Gnarly Gras Festival

By: Thomas Hailey

On Saturday Feb. 23, the Gnarly Barley Brewing Company hosted Gnarly Gras, a beer-themed Mardi Gras event, at their Hammond Location on 1709 Corbin Road.

The event was open to all ages, as well as friendly dogs, and included live music from two New Orleans brass bands; there were also fun activities for children such as sidewalk chalk, face painting and balloon animals, as well as catering from two local restaurants.

Zak Caramonta, owner of Gnarly Barley Brewing Company and a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University, hosted the event. “I love beer,” he said, adding, “I like making things, you know? I like craft beer, so I figured why not see if I can make a living off of this?” Caramonta and his wife Cari started Gnarly Barley Brewing Company in 2014 and began the Gnarly Gras event in 2016.

What inspired them to start this operation? “Why not?” was Caramonta’s reply. “I mean, we got good music, we got great beer, why not?” And obviously the people of Hammond agree with him. The event started at noon and continued well into the night, with hundreds of people in attendance.

“We have about six hundred people here today,” explained Patrick Carnegie, one of the Gnarly Barley employees. “I’ve seen about seven or eight hundred before,” Carnegie noted. Parking was taken up almost immediately, and cars began to fill adjacent parking lots and the shoulder of the road, with some people even choosing to park long distances away and walk to the event. The venue was packed with people through the evening; even when it started to rain, people continued to pour in.

“We sold out of almost all our food,” said Nicole Griffin, an employee of Creole Tomateaux, one of the caterers of the event. “We sold out of King Cake within the first twenty minutes. We’ve had over a hundred customers today.”

Throughout the event the crews of the Creole Tomateaux and Taco Jerks, the other vendor in attendance, repeatedly had to revise their menus as they sold out of various items. And customers were continuing to be drawn not just from Hammond, but from surrounding towns as well, coming from as far as New Orleans to be in attendance.

Finally, the event also featured wonderful performances by two New Orleans brass bands. The Big Fun Brass Band played from twelve to three, and the Pocket Aces Brass Band picked up from four to seven, with a second line in between and recorded music broadcast throughout the brewery to fill in gaps.

Events like this one are planned to continue well into the future, with the soonest one being Gnarly Barley’s five-year anniversary party, planned for May 11. A full calendar of events can be found at gnarlybeer.com

Originally published at medium.com on March 11, 2019.