Ex Novo beer garden begins to take shape in the heart of Corrales

The framework for this shade structure, and more, is now visible in the future beer garden at Ex Novo Brewing.

During a recent, as in Monday night, visit to Ex Novo, members of the Crew noticed some new additions to the area around the future beer garden out in front of the brewery building in Corrales. With nothing much else going on to start our week, I trekked back across town to get a better look in the daylight and found even more to this growing project.

There are now a number of converted shipping containers (we saw one the night before) that will make up much of the beer garden’s physical structures. One will become the bar, that general manager Stevo Jeter told us will become his semi-permanent home away from home. It will come complete with multiple taps, a sink for cleaning, and even a small sandwich station for making paninis and the like. The bar will face out to the east, sparring poor Stevo from being blinded (and/or scorched) by the setting sun.

The future outdoor bar for the beer garden, with the bathrooms right behind it, and the brewery behind those.

Behind that to the west will be the bathrooms, one each for men and women, so no one has to hoof it across the parking lot to the existing taproom when ye ole bladder fills up with beer.

The other two containers are aligned just to the north of that bar, and will serve as shaded seating areas for the gaming zone. The exact type of games is to be determined, but Jeter said cornhole is a strong possibility.

These former shipping containers will provide shade and seats while folks enjoy the outdoor gaming area.

To the south of all these is the framework for a bigger structure, one that will serve as a shaded seating area looking over the most garden part of the beer garden, looking east toward Corrales Road and the Sandia Mountains beyond.

At the moment, it is all pretty clearly early in the construction process. You kinda have to use your imagination to see exactly what will be there in due time, but at least now one can get a sense of the future alignment of where everything is going to be. For anyone that donated to the crowd-funding campaign, us included, it is a great sign to see where our donations are going.

A look at all the structures in place from the parking lot.

If we get any additional details from founder Joel Gregory (he was in a meeting during my visit, because my timing is generally terrible), we will update this story or post a future article. And, of course, we will keep monitoring the progress of the beer garden and sharing more pictures and information as it becomes available.

Any questions? We would be happy to pass them along to the Ex Novo team.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister