One can forgive Red Door head brewer Matt Meier for looking a little worn out of late. After all, he has a baby boy at home, in-laws in from way out of town, and for some reason, he decided to brew five brand-new beers for his brewery’s fifth anniversary party this Saturday.

Meier has not been at Red Door for all five years of its existence, but he said he is proud of how far the brewery has come.

“It’s huge, I’m particularly proud of it, that’s why I mouthed off and volunteered to do — I can’t say that anybody brought that up, it was my own doing, now I’m kicking myself a little bit — but let’s go do this, release five beers,” he said. “Don’t expect anything like that for six. I’ll do like one anniversary beer a year.”

All joking aside, Meier said he was pretty confident that such a feat was doable.

“From last year’s anniversary party to this year’s I’ve got a year under my belt here, so I knew what we’re capable of doing,” Meier said. “Even though I secretly doubted we could pull it off, I tried to keep those thoughts quiet.

“(But) I want to reiterate, never again.”

Red Door will be open at its usual time Saturday before the events begin later in the day.

“It’s going to be a big one,” Padilla said. “We’ll be opening at 7 like usual that morning. All the festivities will start kicking off around 11 a.m. wW’ll release our first beer of five new releases starting at 11.”

That first beer earned a particularly good name.

“The first one we’re going to release is a California Common,” Meier said. “We’re going to call that one ‘Another Matt.’ Between (owner) Matt Biggs and myself, we decided that was not enough Matts. We started talking to the guys from Villa Myriam that have a Matt. Broken Trail has a Matt. Somehow there was a thread conversation between Biggs and myself from another Matt giving a fourth Matt’s contact info. It just kind of got out of hand there a few weeks back, so being that it’s a California ‘Common,’ a common name, we’ll just call it Another Matt.”

The other four beers will be released one every two hours (see the full schedule below), but the exact order has not been determined.

“This is in no particular order (from here on),” Meier said. “We’re also doing a DIPA that we brewed with Beer Creek, we did another collab with them. We were on the waiting list with GABF to do a collab beer, our name never came up, but we did the beer anyway. That one is using whole leaf hops that they brought down I believe from Stone Lizard hop farm.”

An in-town hop farm will also be represented.

“We did an India Pale Lager and that is wet hopped with Tom Brewer’s hops over at Red Hat,” Meier said. “What else do we have going? Oh, we’ve got an Oktoberfest, Pröst Malone. That will be our Oktoberfest this year.

“And then, finally, my awesome neighbor who works at General Mills has been stockpiling me with Cinnamon Toast Crunch for months. We’re doing a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cream ale on nitro. I don’t even remember what we decided to call that one. Name to be determined. Forty pounds of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (will be) in that one.”

UPDATE: The missing names have arrived courtesy of Ali Cattin — Red Creek DIPA, Illusion of Flannel (Wet Hopped IPL), and RU Cereal Holmes? (Cinnamon Toast Crunch Nitro Cream Ale). Also, Rude Boy Cookies will be on hand with special cookies paired with each beer release because the universe is a good and just place.

Padilla highlighted a few of the special events throughout the day.

“As far as other events during the day go, along with that first beer release at 11, we’re also going to release our anniversary glasses that day at 11 while supplies last,” he said. “Starting at (noon), we’re going to have a beer and climate change lecture with Mark and Asa Stone.

“At 1:15 we’re going to have live comedy with Kevin Baca of the Slumber Party Boys. At 2 o’clock the first of our five bands are going to start.”

Much of the action will take place out on the patio on the west side of the building.

“At 4 o’clock we’re going to have a pop-up market out back,” Padilla said. “We’re going to have crafts, live art, Cutbow Coffee is going to be out there serving. Kamikaze food truck will be there along with the Sidedoor Kitchen. Sidedoor will be open all day long. Kamikaze will be there a little bit in the afternoon.

“We’re also going to have a game area outside with a ping pong table, cornhole, possibly a water balloon area. We’ll see if it’s out there or not. I’m going to say it is. We’ve got a jam packed day full of events.”

The entire event will be happening simultaneously with the Cantero Brewing First Anniversary Block Party on the other side of Interstate 25. The Red Door staff said they hoped there might be some cross-traffic between both parties.

“People will be in the neighborhood for one, possibly both,” Meier said. “It will be a good day to get out and drink some beer.”

The full schedule for the festivities at Red Door Candelaria is as follows:

• First beer release, Another Matt (California Common) at 11 a.m.
• Lecture on beer and climate change by UNM/CNM professors Mark and Asa Stone at noon
• Second beer release at 1 p.m.
• Kevin Baca performs stand-up comedy at 1:15 p.m.
• Kelsey Manning and Luke Morrison perform at 2 p.m.
• Third beer release at 3 p.m.
• Abigayle and Peter perform at 3:15 p.m.
• Pop Up Market starts at 4 p.m.
• Sloan Armitage performs at 4:30 p.m.
• Fourth beer release at 5 p.m.
• KSL RNG performs at 5:45 p.m.
• Fifth beer release at 7 p.m.
• Wholehearted performs at 7:30 p.m.

Thanks to Matt and Johnny for the interview.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister