NEW ORLEANS – Dixie Beer officially changed its name to the Faubourg Brewing Company last year – and the new branding is about to make its debut. Jim Birch, the brewery’s general manager, said the tap handles at Dixie’s year-old, $30 million facility in New Orleans East will be switched out on March 26. Faubourg kegs will ship to bars shortly thereafter and the new brand’s cans and bottles will arrive in stores about a month later. The Dixie logo near Interstate 10 has already been painted over.
Brewery owner Gayle Benson decided to retire the name Dixie this past June amid the national conversation about social justice issues because of the name’s association with a romanticization of the slavery-era South.
The decision came just three years after Benson and her late husband Tom purchased the brewery and a few months after the debut of a new 85,000-square-foot brewery.
“When my husband and I acquired Dixie Beer in 2017, we recognized that we were investing in more than a brewery. We were investing in a strong and resilient community,” said Benson in a release. “When the team embarked upon this journey in June, we understood that our new name must encompass the spirit and diversity of all of New Orleans unique neighborhoods.”
The 114-year-old brewery said it has engaged with hundreds of New Orleanians for help with the rebranding process and it received more than 5,400 submissions with suggestions for new names.
“Throughout this project, there were brand name suggestions that kept coming up in conversations with our team as well as the community, and one of them was ‘Faubourg,’ said Birch. “Our products have always brought people together, and we believe, like so many others, that ‘Faubourg’ is a unifying name that celebrates every corner of New Orleans. Our beer has been served in this city’s neighborhood bars and markets since 1907 and we look forward to the next 100 years.”
