All right, as we detailed last week, it is time for the opening round of our first brewery patio bracket challenge. This is all purely for fun, a way to celebrate our breweries and their efforts to maximize their patios during the current year.

We started with the breweries down south, where 575 Brewing of Alamogordo and Cloudcroft Brewing have piled up a ton of votes so far. After that, we split up the offsite taprooms of Albuquerque between those east and west of Interstate 25, and the results have been awfully close so far. Our third set of brackets covered both the breweries in the Albuquerque suburbs and those offsite taprooms located far from the state’s biggest city. You can still vote in those polls if you have not already.

Today, we get to the two brackets that we intended to start with in the first place. The breweries of the north in New Mexico collectively have access to some of the most amazing vistas in the state. Others are perfectly urban, a collection of adult playgrounds and more. We did run into one issue with the Santa Fe area breweries, where the majority were lumped in with the Northwest, while Beer Creek goes with the Northeast, as their somewhat more rural setting seemed to mesh better with those.

So, a few points we want to make before you all get to the voting:

• What makes a patio the best? That is entirely up to you. It can be the setup, the views, the size, the shade coverings, the staff on hand, or just the beer (and/or food) served there. There are no wrong answers or reasons, but if you want to leave a comment with the poll to tell us why a specific place is your favorite, please do so!
• We ask that everyone vote for a maximum of four brewery patios per poll. If there is only one or two or three you want to vote for, that is just fine. We will narrow these initial lists of eight patios per region down to four, then two, then one will advance to the final rounds.
• You are totally allowed to pick a place just based upon the photos we are providing (credit to each brewery for the photos that we did not have a good patio shot from, which is most of them), even if you have never been there. However, if you have friends or relatives that do not follow us, but live in one of these towns, please share the story links and let them have their say as well.

Polls for each region will be set up to last for one week worth of voting. If there is a tie for fourth place, we will either open it up to a tiebreaker poll, or the Crew will figure out a tiebreaker that is as fair as we can make it. The four highest vote totals per region will advance to the second round.

The bulk of the photos used here are from individual breweries’ social media pages, with a few archived photos from the Crew. A special thanks to our friend, Samantha Ward, for the photo of Comanche Creek.

Northwest Breweries

As one can see from that last photo, the original Second Street won our little “play-in” against its sister patio at Rufina.

So which of the eight breweries in the northern and western portions of New Mexico has the best patio? You make the call, either from personal experience/visits or the photos above.

Northeast Breweries

We do not currently have a photo for the patio at Enchanted Circle in Angel Fire.

So which of the eight breweries in the northern and eastern portions of New Mexico has the best patio? You make the call, either from personal experience/visits or the photos above.

The first round rolls along. Good luck to all the breweries and beer drinkers.

Next up: The battle of Albuquerque begins with the breweries north of I-40, with I-25 as the dividing line between northwest and northeast.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister