Photo by Jon Butts.

Parleaux Beer Lab’s newest experiment combines brews and yoga

On Sunday mornings, some people like to throw their hands up in prayer in a room lined with church pews, others like to lower their hands intro prayer position in a room lined with microbrews.

You can find people of the later persuasion at Parleaux Beer Lab every Sunday at 11 a.m. where Ryan E. Stevens leads his weekly yoga classes. Each class is free of charge, though donations are appreciated, and followed by $1.00 off a pint of beer for attendees.

“I just thought [Parleaux] would be such a wonderful space to bring yoga to, and really this community which includes a lot of different kinds of people,” Stevens said. “Not everybody can afford yoga because, unfortunately, yoga is pretty expensive. So I thought I could offer something that would not only serve myself … but serve the community that I live in.”

Parleaux joins The Tchop Yard, which offers a free a “Spirited Yoga” yoga class at 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday, and others in marrying the spiritual liberation of yoga to their own alcoholic libations.

New Orleans is not the first city to stumble upon this fateful coupling, nor is the United States the first country. “Beer Yoga,” a yoga class in which participants drink beer throughout their practice, was born at Burning Man Music Festival and popularized in the famously beer-loving Germany. It has now spread to places like Australia and Thailand.

The difference is, in New Orleans, at places like Parleaux and Tchop Yard, the beer comes after the bending, modeling its relationship between beer and yoga after the one grown closer to home in Charleston, SC.

“Besides the obvious safety issues, for me, its more about pratyahara, removing yourself from your body and sort of you know realizing that you are not your body because you can observe [it]….” Stevens said. “When you’re having a sip of beer as your in your warrior, you’re taking your attention maybe away from all of that stuff … But I think that I love beer, and, after doing yoga, beer is awesome.”

Stevens prefers the chance to create community that he said comes from drinking after practice rather than during. After each of the five free yoga classes Parleux has hosted so far, Stevens said he has has met and conversed with new people both from the Bywater neighborhood where Parleaux is located and beyond. He said he hopes to grow the yoga class to fill the entire brewery’s indoor and outdoor spaces in order to create an opportunity for people to come together and share experiences.

“… Honestly, like when you’re in a class, in a studio-like environment, or in a brewery, and you’re on your mat with, you know, 10, 15 other people, breathing, sweating, feeling uncomfortable, it solidifies the strands that hold our community together in a lot of ways,” Stevens said. “… So yoga is the world’s best icebreaker, honestly, is what it comes down to.”

Parleaux will also offer a donation-based Pilates classes every Monday at 6:30 starting July 10. The classes will be taught by April Dupre, a wellness coach and founder of the health and wellness company Footprints to Fitness as well as a previous member of the New Orleans Saintsations.