Dixie Brewery and Tap Room (New Orleans, Louisiana)

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www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2018/08/dixie_brewery_n...

New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson, who purchased the iconic beer brand with her husband, Tom Benson, a year ago, gathered Tuesday (Aug. 7) with Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city leaders to announce plans for a new Dixie brewery at a vacant industrial site in New Orleans East. Tom Benson died in March, before plans for the new brewery were finalized.

The company expects to invest roughly $30 million to turn the 14-acre property into a brewery and tap room, generating about 60 jobs from the start, possibly more as it grows, Saints President Dennis Lauscha said. Construction should take anywhere from 18 months to 2 years, Lauscha said.

Gayle Benson said her husband was determined to make Dixie Beer a symbol of growth and change in New Orleans, particularly in New Orleans East. She promised the same determination.

"He is smiling today knowing that Dixie Brewing Co. is playing a small part as a catalyst for economic growth in a critical part of our city," she said.

The new brewery will bring production of Dixie Beer back to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, which displaced the brand. Dixie, founded in New Orleans in 1907, hired a Wisconsin brewer to keep producing the beer while it struggled to stay afloat. Dixie Beer returned to local store shelves in August 2017, but the beer continues to be brewed out of state, now at Blues City Brewery in Memphis, Tennessee. Meanwhile, Dixie's original brewery on Tulane Avenue has been converted to a brand new research facility, which will open in August as part of the Veterans Affairs hospital complex.