Back in 2021, when the New Mexico Brewers Guild held its first social since the pandemic lockdown, there was an unfamiliar couple hanging out amongst all the brewery owners and brewers at Boxing Bear Firestone.

I was eventually introduced to Jeff Tomlinson and Stefanie Luna, who were preparing to make the leap into the brewing world and open their own place somewhere in town. Fast forward two years, and this past week I got to sit down with them inside their almost-ready space, Flock of Moons Brewing, in the middle of the Bricklight District at Harvard and Central.

While it seemed like this was a recent dream for the couple to open their place, it was actually one that Tomlinson and his longtime friend Jay Harmon, who is the third member of Flock of Moons’ ownership, came up with a long time ago.

“The original plan was to be one of the first (breweries),” Tomlinson said. “Jay and I, back in the 90s, we kind of met through a mutual friend. We worked at Quarters on Wyoming and Central. Us and another friend decided we wanted to open a brewpub in the early/mid-90s. We put together a business plan, we thought it kicked ass, we thought people would give us money. That never happened.

“We didn’t have our own money. We didn’t have credit, we didn’t have experience. We were 90s slackers, man. I think if we had a little more ambition, we could have pulled it off and been one of the 10th or whatever back then.”

While Flock of Moons did not take flight back then amongst the likes of Assets Grille, Il Vicino, the first Rio Bravo, Bavarian Lager Cellar, Kellys Brew Pub, and all the rest, it will become the 48th operational brewery in the Albuquerque metro area here in the modern era of craft breweries.

“So here we are, 30 years later, we put a little money together, we got a lot of experience, and COVID hit,” Tomlinson said. “I had some downtime just sitting at home. I worked from home at my job at the time. Stef and I got to talking, and hey, do you want to start the dream.”

“I think a lot of dreams were born out of COVID,” Luna said. “(Jeff said) I feel like I’m not doing the thing I’m supposed to do and want to do. I’ve got one big career change left in me. If I’m going to do that, it’s brewing beer, and opening a brewery. That was a lot of conversations. Jay was a part of all of that.”

“I reached out to Jay,” Tomlinson continued. “Jay has been in the beverage industry for 30 years. For the last 20 years, he’s been working for a beverage importer bringing in some of the good European beers. But, he had left that, and he was going to open a beer bar in Oregon. COVID hit, they had just signed a lease, and they got out of that. I called him up and we started talking. We said let’s do it. Why don’t you move down here and open a brewery with me?”

Wanting to open a brewery is one thing, but actually making the commitment and finding the right space is another. The trio did not settle on the former Winning Coffee space at 111 Harvard SE right away.

“We looked at quite a few places,” Tomlinson said. “We were originally looking for a larger space, something more in the 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot size. But, this really checked the boxes for being in the condition we wanted, had the feel or vibe that we wanted. We knew this was available for quite some time when we were looking. Oh, it’s 3,000 square feet, it’s going to be a little tight, no patio at the time, it was a parking lot back there.”

The more they looked, the more the owners realized that maybe they should take a second look at the former coffee shop, which had closed after the double whammy of A.R.T. (Albuquerque Rapid Transit) construction and then the lockdown.

Tomlinson even had a past connection to the block.

“Next door here, where 505 Spirits is now, in the 90s there was a camera shop,” he said. “I was a photo student at UNM at the time and I worked at the camera shop. I fell in love with this building. I said at the time I wanted to own that building and have a business there. I’ve always had kind of a little love affair with this building. It’s awesome, it’s got really good energy. I’m really excited that it worked out for us to be in here.”

There was still the issue of how they would fit their planned brewery and taproom into a space that was about half the size of what they wanted. Once they got inside the building, though, an important discovery was made.

“We took a second look at it,” Tomlinson said. “Maybe we can make it work, maybe we can scale down our ambitions. And, we got a peek inside, and we realized oh, hey, there’s a partial basement. That’s a game changer. That gave us a place to put our keg cooler and storage. Maybe this can work if we can figure out a patio. We thought maybe a small patio on the sidewalk can work. But then, we met with the landlords, and we proposed turning part of the back parking lot into a patio.”

“We asked for like three spaces,” Luna said. “They were like, yeah, we can give you some parking spaces.”

“Or, maybe we just turn the whole parking lot into a patio,” Tomlinson added, which was exactly what happened for both Flock of Moons and its neighbor, 505 Spirits.

In the end, it all came together, and a lease was signed.

“I can’t think of a location in town that I’d rather be,” he said. “You have the vibe, the feel, the energy in this building. I love the neighborhood.”

Once the Flock of Moons team got inside and started working on demolition, they soon came to realize that having the brewery on the north side and the taproom on the south side would not work, for a variety of reasons. Luna said that originally they thought that since the Winning kitchen was in the northwest corner, that was where the plumbing could most easily be upgraded for the brewhouse.

It left the taproom side too constrained, however, and ultimately they reversed the layout.

“Finally, (we said) what if we move the brewery to the (south) side and it’s literally one storefront, and the taproom is one storefront,” Luna said. “That’s when it really clicked, a vision of what it would look like.”

“I think on our part (it was) some naïveté and inexperience with commercial real estate, the amount of stuff you can actually change in a building and landlords don’t necessarily care,” Tomlinson added.

“They recognized no matter who was going to come in here, it needed work,” Luna said. “It had deteriorated pretty considerably. There was a lot of (pipes) leaking, there was water in the basement. There were some pretty big problems that needed to be addressed. I think they realized if it was every going to be something (again), it needed to be changed.”

Once the basement was structurally reinforced, the concrete slab was poured for the brewery, followed by the trench drains, piping, and ultimately the installation of the equipment including the 7-barrel brewhouse.

“The building needed work, but we didn’t have any major surprises, structurally,” Tomlinson said, though he did note that not all the equipment he wanted was able to be brought in just yet.

“Some of the things that changed was because the building needed more (work) than we thought, so we had to make some concessions,” Luna said.

“I’m surprised how so much stuff from our plans actually worked,” Tomlinson said. “The brewery feels, you look at it on paper, it feels like it has more room than you do. We have a fair amount of space, but as we hopefully get more tanks in here, it’ll get a little snugger in there, more challenging to maneuver.”

Once the taproom moved to the north side, it came together as the trio had hoped. They gave credit to Formative Architecture and their contractor, Insight Construction, into making it work even better than they had planned.

“I would have probably just done a big rectangular room, but the small features that they made create a space for the bar,” Luna said. “Those were things I would have never thought about. Running this on an angle, it’s just a small thing, but it feels very custom.”

Luna did get to have one feature restored that she loved about Winning Coffee, the tin ceiling.

“That was my favorite thing about the building,” she said. “I wanted to keep them. We tried to figure out the ways that we could restore the ones that were there. There was pretty significant rust, which is hard to do in New Mexico. They had been cut open. We decided we wanted to do (new) tin. We found a company that makes tin ceilings and they fit this sort of lattice that was in place already for the tin ceilings.”

With so much of the construction done, Tomlinson and Harmon were able to get to work on the beers. The first four — a Vienna lager, New Mexican lager, New England-style IPA, West Coast IPA — are now in the fermenters.

“This week, getting the four beers brewed, that was big, that was huge for us,” Tomlinson said. “We worked with a consultant to help us pick out our equipment. He came out Sunday and Monday and helped us brew our first two batches. He’s really familiar with our system. That was really great.

“Jay and I were on our own yesterday and the day before yesterday, brewing our two IPAs. It feels really good having that done, and beer in the fermenter. I feel like a semi-legit brewer. The proof is in the pudding when we see how it tastes. That was a big obstacle, and a lot of work to just get to that point.”

Tomlinson said he has a tropical stout, Czech pale lager, and a non-traditional rice lager on deck. Ultimately, though, he cannot say what beers will become lineup regulars, and which will rotate in and out.

“It’s hard to say,” he said. “Are we going to be busy, are we going to be slow? Are we going to sell through our IPAs and New Mexican lager and then have to re-brew those right away? Or are we going to have time to experiment with more?”

“It’s the million dollar question,” Luna added.

“I’ve got a lot of recipes from my home-brewing days, so there’s other things I definitely want to brew,” Tomlinson said. “I don’t necessarily want to turn the same brews over and over. We’ve got 16 taps. I’d like to fill them up with our beers. We’ll have some guest taps to start off. We’ll have a variety to go with what I’ve got in the tanks. We tried to come up with a good lineup for early summer.”

Flock of Moons will not have a kitchen, but there is a port for a food truck to operate off the patio, and customers are always welcome to bring in food from neighboring restaurants like 505 Spirits, Cheba Hutt, and Salt & Board. We noshed on a charcuterie board from the latter during the interview, and it truly felt like a natural fit for the brewery, as Tomlinson said.

“You can bring food in, you’re welcome to,” he said. “We’d like to be able to support the Bricklight restaurants around here as much as possible.”

Live music and spoken word are possibilities for entertainment, Luna said, but in many ways, the customers themselves will decide what they want. Flock of Moons is aiming for a neighborhood pub vibe, not dissimilar from the likes of Sidetrack, Thirsty Eye, ReSource, and more in other parts of town.

“One of the things we loved about Winning and that people loved was that it really was a neighborhood place, and there’s a lot of foot traffic,” Luna said. “It’s a quiet street in a way, but it’s the people who live around here, the people who go to (UNM) and the people who live down the way. They peek in, they want to know what’s going on. You want to hold space for that to be organic. I would love to have spoken word here, things that this neighborhood asks for.”

“We just want to be a neighborhood brewery,” Tomlinson added. “I don’t want to chase growth and expand. If we can make all the beer here and sell all of the beer we make out of here, I will be as happy as a clam. The goal is to be a neighborhood, community brewery, and tap into that.”

Flock of Moons has just started the process of hiring its staff, and the beers are fermenting away, so the hope is now to have a soft opening or two in the near future.

“We’re definitely going to have a soft opening,” Tomlinson said. “We definitely want it to be in June. We sat down before you came in and asked what do we need to do to have a soft opening before the end of the month. It’s still a lot. We’re so close. I think we’re going to make it happen. I don’t have a hard date for you, but hopefully June.”

At the end of this long road from dream to reality, both Tomlinson and Luna said they can truly appreciate how amazing it is to have seen the Albuquerque metro beer scene grow so much over the years.

“I really feel like every brewery I’ve been in, and we’ve been a lot over the years, now I have a newfound respect for what it takes to open the doors,” Luna said. “All the late nights, the dreams, the hopes, the scary moments.”

“The sheer amounts of courage and doubt that builds up to that moment,” Tomlinson said. “I knew it would be hard, but it’s been way harder than I could have imagined. Kudos to everyone who has done this.”

A big thanks to Stefanie and Jeff for the interview and tour of the space. We look forward to returning to try those beers during the upcoming soft opening. When they pass along the exact day(s) and time, we will be sure to share it for everyone.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister