Sad news has come in today that the City of Albuquerque has put a halt to all keg and growler sales at Tractor Brewing’s Nob Hill Taproom. Due to a complaint from a Nob Hill resident about Tractor violating a neighborhood ordinance, the City has decided that growlers now count as “packaged liquor,” which is not allowed to be sold anywhere in Nob Hill, save for certain locations that were “grandfathered” in (such as mega-conglomerate Walgreens). This is the same reason Kelly’s has never sold growlers and likely why no one has ever opened a brewery on Central Ave. in the heart of downtown, which has the same restrictive zoning laws (Marble sits two blocks north of the extent of the downtown zone, luckily).

One could sit here and complain about the City once again cracking down on a successful local business, but as always, there are probably two sides to this story. Rest assured that over the coming days that the NMDSBC will be taking a look into how this happened and what can be done about freeing the good folks at Tractor from this restrictive regulation.

To beer loves throughout town, now is not the time to abandon Tractor. It is time for the entire beer-loving community to show its support, lest more government red tape reaches out and starts strangling some of our other beloved microbrews here in town.

— Stoutmeister