Spending a week in rural Mississippi can soothe the body and soul. Of course there is more to soothing than just sitting around the camp site. We enjoy doing and seeing as much as relaxing. Since this is our third time visiting this area, we have seen and done pretty much all interesting attractions. That is except Lazy Magnolia Brewery.

On a beautiful fall Saturday, we head to Kiln, MS and the brewery. We do our homework and knew we had to take a tour and tours were every hour. Okay maybe we did not do enough homework. Arriving 30 minutes before a tour, we found out there is nothing and we mean nothing to do, eat, drink or see without taking the tour first. In fairness to the brewery, it has something to do with Mississippi alcohol laws – they cannot sell beer at the brewery. So we realized you take the tour, buy a glass and they give away beer for a cost of $10. Or at least that is our theory.

The tour was the typical brewery tour. Yet we did learn that Lazy Magnolia brews and bottles beer for other small breweries who have not built brewing facilities yet. In fact one of our favorite breweries, Bayou Tech Brewing, began their brewing and bottling at Lazy Magnolia.

Lazy Magnolia is the oldest craft beer brewery in Mississippi beginning in 2003. In fact, they are the first packaging brewery since prohibition was enacted in 1907.

So back to our waiting. We did find a bench made from pallets and sat. Very hard seating but better than standing. One of the brewers is making mead wine using honey and blueberries. He was offering samples, which he said offering wine was okay but not beer. The wine was excellent. Not overly sweet like some meads. It would be a great summer afternoon sipping wine.

Tour waiting

After the tour you are given a beer card with six samples and a beer glass. Head over to the bar and start tasting. The samples are 6 ounces, which for us is a beer. Needless to say we did not use all our samples. This is not because we did not enjoy the beer. John was driving and Laurie is a cheap drunk. We generally carry snacks in the truck and luckily we had some. Now we could drink beer and eat peanut butter pretzels. We met a couple from Mobile on their way to New Orleans. They has cheese fish snacks in their car. So we enjoyed beer and beer snacks for a couple of hours.

Beer Taps

The beer. Laurie’s favorite beer was Freeze Warning. The description is an ideal ale with complex brew flavors including fig, plum, raisin and dark malts. All combine to give a pleasantly warm finish. It was rich, dark and very flavorful. Laurie also had to try Jefferson Stout. This is a sweet potato cream stout and yes it was excellent.

John’s favorite beer was Lazy Saison. The brewery says there are two seasons in the area – summer and football. This beer fits both. It is a medium body Belgian style ale with dry, peppery and floral notes.

We enjoyed a lazy fall afternoon sipping beer, meeting new friends and munching snacks.

If you enjoy beer, especially Lazy Magnolia, check out our magnolia earrings at Cajunville.

Magnolia Earrings by Cajunville

Tour Guide Kerry

Beer in Waiting

Bottling Machine

Entrance