ABQ Beer Week: Blues & Brews beer lists are now available

Once the crowd rolls in, Blues & Brews is jumping every year.

Sunday will mark the return of the annual ABQ Blues & Brews Festival at Sandia Casino, and as per usual, we have done our best to track down the beer lists for the local breweries in attendance.

For those who have not been before to Blues & Brews, it is a sizable festival located indoors at the casino. There are four levels of tickets — VIP ($62), Early Access ($42), General Admission ($32), and Non-Sampling ($12). The latter is for designated drivers and/or music fans who do not wish to drink. Our recommendation has always been for Early Access, since that gets you in an hour early at 2 p.m., where you can take your time perusing the brewery booths to find the beers you like the most or want to try for the first time.

There is also a special NM Distillers Guild event called the Cocktail Challenge. You can sample three cocktails from local distillers with your ticket, or pay an extra $10 to vote on all six, with a full-size pour of your favorite. It all benefits the Distillers Guild, whose members in attendance are Algodones Distillery, Broken Trail, Hollow Spirits, Little Toad Creek, Santa Fe Spirits, and Tractor’s Troubled Minds Distillery.

In a personal plug, I (Stoutmeister) will be selling copies of my book, Albuquerque Beer: Duke City History on Tap, at the NM Brewers Guild tent. It’s still just $20 to learn about how our modern scene evolved and about the breweries from the days before and after Prohibition.

All told, there are 23 local breweries in attendance, with only Ponderosa bowing out (though it is still listed in the program guide). Forthcoming breweries Brew Lab 101 and Ex Novo will be in attendance. There are three other breweries listed as being in attendance that did not provide beer lists. If we ever hear back between now and Sunday, we will update this list, as well as any other last-minute changes.

UPDATE: It turns out that High and Dry, Lava Rock, and Santa Fe will not be attending the festival.

Blue Corn: Peach Gose, Santa Muerte Collab IPA, Gatekeeper IPA, Dry-Hopped Lager, Oatmeal Stout
Bosque: Elephants on Parade, Scotia Scotch Ale, Bosque IPA, Bosque Lager, Pistol Pete’s 1888 Blonde Ale
Brew Lab 101: The Bull IPA, Cherry Bomb Cider
Canteen: High Plains Pilsner, Dougie Style Amber, Flashback IPA, La Luz Wheat
Cantero: Milk Made Amber, North Drain Lager, Cantero Cream Sour, Cantero IPA
Dialogue: Sour Raspberry, Hoppy Imperial Amber
Enchanted Circle: Hells Bells Helles Lager, Angel Fire Amber, Red River Red, Black Lake Bourbon Vanilla Porter, Glory Hole IPA
Ex Novo: Mass Ascension IPA, Most Interesting Lager, Cactus Wins the Lottery
Hops: Tres Lobos, Sourpuss, Honey Wheat, Hop Hill IPA, Chica (Extra Pale Ale), Dad Joke (Kentucky Common)
Kaktus: Helles Lager, Puddle Stomper IPA, James Blonde
Kilt Check: Groundskeeper Willie Cream Ale, Obliviscaris Oatmeal Stout, Outlamber Amber Ale
Marble: Desert Fog, Double White, Cerveza, Double White Triple Berry
Nexus: G-Bird Grapefruit IPA, Beam Me Up Scotty, Coffee & Cream Ale, 8 of 9 Blood Orange American Wheat
Quarter Celtic: Pedro O’Flanagan’s Mexican Lager, Mangose, Crimson Lass Irish Red, Mor-Buck IPA
Red Door: Vanilla Cream, New England IPA, White
Rio Bravo: Beer Against Humanity (IPA), Send It (Pilsner), El Lobo Rojo, Freak Juice (Hazy IPA)
Second Street: 2920 IPA, Agua Fria Pilsner, Boneshaker Special Bitter, Dragon’s Blood Sour, XX ESB, Brutalism IPA
Sierra Blanca: Alien IPA, Green Chile Cerveza, Bone Chiller Brown Ale, Desert Pilsner
Steel Bender: Skull Bucket IPA, Raspberry Dynamite, Lloyd’s 3 O’Clock Kolsch, Compa Los Ranchos Lager, Cinderella Story Dry-Hopped Brett Saison, The Village Wit, Los Ranchos Cider
Tractor: Almanac IPA, New Mexican Lager, Haymaker Honey Wheat, Milk Mustachio Stout, Delicious Red Hard Apple Cider