December 15, 2009
DBA is the only real beer bar that has a genuine live music option. One half of the bar is stage/performance, the other true beer bar. Their draft selection is primo, if not expensive. And therein is their achilles heel: prices. It’s a pricey place to drink, but if you’re going there, you’re likely going to see music, so the premium goes with the territory. Go early, so you avoid the cover. First sets are usually free. Also, look for the window seats, as they give you a bird’s eye view of Frenchman street.

December 14, 2009
Whenever I go to Frenchmen street for some jazz music I seem to end up at DBA. It’s the only establishment remotely resembling a beer bar in the area. There are 30+ taps featuring mostly domestics (plenty of locals too) and a ton of bottles, which unfortunately are also domestics. It’s a bit pricey but so is everything on Frenchmen. If you’re looking for a good live act and good beer though, this is your best/only bet in the French Quarter/Frenchmen area.

September 21, 2009
Located on Frenchmen Street in what is apparently a hip N.O. neighborhood, d.b.a. seems like a great hangout for locals. They have live music most nights from what I could gather, but I was there too early for that (opens at 5 daily). The place is split into two main rooms, with the bar wrapping around both sides; there is also a smaller, loungey room up by the bathrooms. The bartender was very nice and helpful. I was one of a few traveling beer drinkers and had a couple drinks with a guy from Portland, Oregon and a guy from the New England area. There were 30 or so taps and probably just over 100 bottles, so not quite the selection of Cooter Brown’s, but a few different offerings and a lot more liquor bottles. I went with Abita’s Jockamo IPA and Harpoon’s Leviathan IPA. Fun place, recommended for travelers who don’t want to be bombarded with the Bourbon St. scene.

March 1, 2009
Visited on a Thursday evening during Mardi Gras. This pub is located in a neighborhood area just outside the french quarter, so it was nice to move away from the throngs of people to a quieter area of town. By the time we arrived at 8pm, live music was already playing and there were a good 15 or so people in the bar. Reasonable ambiance with a really solid beer selection, likely the best we saw on our recent trip. Nice bottle selection too. Definitely a walk if you are staying on the south side of the quarter but worthy of a trip for sure.

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 [ Updated August 18, 2009 ]
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.b.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!