Celebrating our 100th Anniversary

We’re thrilled to celebrate our 100th anniversary in 2023! And we’re commemorating this milestone by giving back to the community that has sustained us – through a year’s worth of exciting events. Stay tuned as we announce more events in the coming weeks and months!

Camellia Beans & Second Harvest: A Pack-A-Thon (January 9th, 2023)

On January 9th, 2023, the first Monday of Carnival, we began a year-long partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank as part of an effort to end food insecurity in New Orleans. As part of a Camellia Bean/Second Harvest pack-a-thon event, 100 volunteers (including local celebrities and public figures) came together to pack 2,000 bags of beans and rice for those in need in our community. And over the course of our centennial year, we’ll donate beans for one million meals.

Working to End Food Insecurity

Our ongoing desire to ensure adequate food resources is deeply embedded in our company’s cultural values. Camellia regularly lends its support to food distribution programs, community kitchen meal services, nutrition education, shelters, food banks, schools, and public benefits – ensuring families have a meal on their dining table at all times.

Camellia Beans & Dooky Chase: Two Icons Turn 100 (January 7^th, 2023)

Two icons turn 100 years old! On January 7^th, 2023, we helped honor the life, work, and legacy of Chef Leah Chase – Queen of Creole Cuisine. Called “Grateful to You” Day, this free and open community event celebrated and memorialized Leah Chase’s 100th birthday (and ours) by serving up fried chicken and red beans & rice to the community, courtesy of Dooky Chase and Camellia beans. We were thrilled to join forces with the Chase family to commemorate this occasion.

Camellia Beans & Charter Schools: Red Beans Month (March 6th, 13th, 20th & 27th, 2023)

Councilmember Freddie King III of District C and Camellia Beans came together — just like Red Beans and Rice — to honor New Orleans culinary culture in March with “Red Beans Month”. The goal was to share the tradition of Red Beans and Rice and its significance with the next generation of New Orleanians, through an initiative with charter schools and InspireNOLA schools.

Camellia shared an 8-minute documentary short film with the schools on the history of Louis Armstrong’s favored dish and provided a free and nutritious meal of Red Beans and Rice to students and faculty on Mondays, March 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th. The film presents insightful interviews with historians, authors, journalists, filmmakers, and respected tastemakers of the city, including Dr. Jessica Harris, Poppy Tooker, Stella Chase, Lolis Elie, Vance Vaucresson, and Rien Fertel.

We visited Alice M. Harte Charter School, Dorothy Height Charter School, Dwight D. Eisenhower Charter School, Frederick A. Douglas High School, Harriet Tubman Charter School, KIPP Leadership, L.B. Landry High School, and New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy. It was a joy and a pleasure to share our love of red beans and rice with amazing children from our local NOLA community!

We are excited to announce the kick off of Chef Jay Ducote’s Red Beans & Rice Tour of Texas! Our man Jay, along with his Bite & Booze crew and fellow Louisiana brands, will be touring through Texas for the next two weeks to cook up authentic Louisiana-style Red Beans & Rice.

Jay and his team have packed up 250 lbs. of Camellia brand Red Kidney Beans and will be popping up at several brewery locations across Texas. Jay’s notorious giant cast iron pot will be bubbling over with our beans and an array of southern favorites like Slap Ya Mama and Supreme Rice.

Read on to see where Jay and his team will stop near you!

Wednesday, January 25th – Bakfish Brewing, Pearland, TX, 5 – 9 pm

Sunday, January 29th – Salt: New American Table, McAllen, TX, 5 – 9 pm

Thursday, February 2nd – Independence Brewing, Austin, TX, 5 – 9 pm

Saturday, February 4th – New Republic Brewing, College Station, TX, 5 – 9 pm

Tuesday, February 7th – Grapevine Craft Brewery, Grapevine, TX, 5 – 9 pm

Find out more about the details, and see photos of each pop-up on Jay’s Facebook Event Page.

Jay Ducote is a chef, writer, speaker, entertainer and hugger based out of Baton Rouge, LA. He’s got a long bio, but to keep it short, he was a finalist on Food Network Star in 2015 and does big things in the food and beverage world. He runs a culinary media company called Bite & Booze (www.biteandbooze.com) and pretty much eats and drinks for a living. You can find out more about him at www.jayducote.com.

Unfortunately, 40 Arpent Brewery closed its doors in 2017.

Brew Dat Red Bean Ale!

Red beans and rice — a perfect match. Red beans and rice washed down with a cold beer — an even more satisfying pairing. But how about red beans and rice in your beer?

40 Arpent Brewing Co.’s critically acclaimed Red Bean Ale is back, and with Camellia Brand red beans playing a starring role in the recipe, it’s a must-drink for local beer aficionados! Brewed in a warehouse along historic St. Bernard Parish’s riverfront, just a stone’s throw away from Fats Domino’s old house in the Lower 9th Ward, Red Bean Ale epitomizes the tastes of New Orleans.

Locally Made, Locally Brewed, and Universally Appealing.

And it doesn’t get more New Orleans than Camellia Brand red beans. Using 25-lb. sacks of beans, brewmaster Michael Naquin cooks them for more than four hours in pursuit of that unmistakable creamy texture. Then he adds the beans — along with equally huge portions of flaked, oat-style brewer’s rice — to the grain mash and hits the “Delicious” button.

“It’s got a hoppy-earthiness to it at first,” Naquin has said of the beer. “But then it ends with a dry biscuity flavor. That’s the idea behind the beer — I want to surprise people. They see the color and think it’s a heavy beer, but then it’s actually light, palatable, and sessionable.” In other words, Red Bean Ale is a easygoing beer with wide appeal, even for non-connoisseurs.

Red Beans Ale Tasting Party Rolls This Monday, June 1, at World of Beer.

Thirsty yet? Now’s your chance to sample 40 Arpent’s Red Bean Ale at the World of Beer in Metairie, at 4100 Veterans Memorial Blvd. And come hungry, too, because on Monday, June 1, the beer emporium is sponsoring what it calls “a perfect beer and food pairing.” To celebrate the newly released version of this unique ale, World of Beer is serving up heaping helpings of classic Camellia red beans and rice along with 40 Arpent’s red bean brew!

But that’s not all. Since Red Bean Ale contains only legumes and rice, but no meat or other vegetables, 40 Arpent is intent on giving tasters an unforgettably spicy experience at this launch party. Brewery staff will be loading up World of Beer’s special infuser with wood chips soaked in hot sauce and liquid smoke, along with Summit hops rich with onion and garlic flavors, to distill that definitive New Orleans culinary experience into every glass. Beer lovers won’t find this magically infused concoction anywhere else!

And you too can become an honorary 40 Arpent brewmaster! The brewery will be giving away a free official company work shirt complete with the distinctive green 40 Arpent logo.

Do not miss this only-in-Louisiana launch party! Although bottling plans are in the works, for now this seasonal Red Bean Ale comes but once a year!

40 Arpent Brewing Co.
Red Bean Ale Tasting Party
June 1, 2015, at 6:30pm
World of Beer
4100 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, LA

Unfortunately, 40 Arpent Brewery closed its doors in 2017.