If you missed The Week Ahead in Beer, then you missed a weekend chock-full of events. We elected to break out a few of them for a deeper look into all the details you need to know.

First up, the fifth annual Santa Fe Beer & Food Festival is set for Saturday and Sunday at El Rancho de los Golondrinas, running from noon to 6 p.m. both days.

Tickets are $8 in advance for adults, $6 for teens (ages 13 to 17) and military veterans (with ID), and kids 12 and under are free. They highly recommend buying in advance, since those tickets go up to $13 and $11 at the gate.

Breweries will offer up both samples and full pours for purchase. There will also be hands-on hops harvesting, plus local vendors, artisans, and entertainment.

There will be 10 providers of various craft alcoholic beverages, including New Mexico Hard Cider and Leaf & Hive. Of the eight breweries scheduled to be there, half (so far) provided their beer lists.

• Beer Creek: Golondrinas Gold, Abiquiu Amber, Lone Butte Lager, Get to the Hoppa, Picture Rock Porter
• Bosque: TBA
• Little Toad Creek: TBA
• Marble: The Lighter Side Helles, Desert Fog Hazy IPA, Cerveza, Pink Lemonade Lager, Classic IPA
• Rio Bravo: Freak Juice Hazy IPA, Ginger Honey Blonde, Double Stuffed Oreo Stout
• Second Street: Kolsch, Czech Pilsner, 2920 IPA, House IPA, Cream Stout, Monsoon Strawberry Hibiscus Hard Seltzer
• Steel Bender: Compa Blue Corn Lager, Skull Bucket IPA, Hefe Lifting, Raspberry Dynamite
• Tumbleroot: Radio Flyer (Red Ale), Coco Hops (Brown IPA), Sunrise (Japanese-style Lager), Estrella Negra (Mexican-style Dark Lager)

Take note that Second Street will only be present Saturday, not Sunday.

For additional information, head to the website. Otherwise, head on out to Los Golondrinas this weekend for some fun in the sun. Just bring extra sunscreen and stay hydrated.

Marble brews up something special for music festival

The good brewers at Marble teamed up with longtime friend-of-the-Crew Roman Barham to create Burque Rock City Lager, the official beer of this weekend’s Burque Rock City Fest that will take over Inside Out and Launchpad today (Friday) and Saturday.

The lager was brewed in collaboration at the Heights Taproom (there are indeed photos showing that they put Roman to work) and is now available at all three Marble locations, as well as at the two venues. It’s a pre-Prohibition-inspired American pale light lager that checks in at 5.2-percent ABV.

Light and refreshing for a rock festival? Brilliant.

Burque Rock City begins today at 1 p.m. at Launchpad with Nomestomper, followed by bands at the top of the hour alternating between the two stages. The rest of the day features Ojo Malo, Violet Rising, Thunder Horse, Prism Bitch (highly recommended), High Desert Queen (also highly recommended), Supergiant, Early Moods, Fatso Jetson, Electric Citizen, and Brant Bjork Trio.

The Saturday lineup also kicks off at noon, but at Inside Out with THC Worm, then goes back to alternating by the hour. Coma Recovery (highly recommended), Sorcia, Red Mesa (obviously recommended considering the stories we’ve done with them in the past), Abrams, Tenderizor, Greenbeard, Belzebong, Year of the Cobra, Pike vs. The Automation, Yawning Balch, and Weedeater will follow.

That’s a lot of quality local bands, at local venues, with local beer on tap, so yeah, go get some tickets (single-day passes are also available at the same website) and enjoy yourselves out there. Just don’t forget your earplugs, and yes, hydrate, even indoors.

An ode to Tractor’s Nob Hill taproom

Saturday will also mark the 12th anniversary of Tractor’s taproom in Nob Hill, the little spot that saved a brewery.

Tractor was born in Los Lunas back in 1999, but by about 2008, the brewery was struggling with its finances. To help save it, an Albuquerque presence was needed beyond just six-packs of bottled Farmer’s Tan Red on shelves.

The taproom opened on Tulane in 2011, and since it stayed open until 2 a.m., it quickly became the late-night spot for a wild collection of humans. There were the Nob Hill patrons who wanted to keep the party going after the other bars all closed. There were the early beer geeks who likewise wanted one more pint after all the rest turned off the lights at midnight. There were the servers and cooks and bartenders from the other Nob Hill bars and restaurants. There were the artists and singers and poets who lived in the neighborhood.

In many ways, it was the prototype of the many neighborhood pubs that have followed among breweries and taprooms across the city, from Sidetrack to ReSource to Boese Brothers to Thirsty Eye and more. It paired up with neighboring Slice Parlor to the point of where the pizzeria sold more pies at the taproom than at the counter, and surely inspired Slice Parlor to put its second location right next to Marble Heights.

Its success led Tractor to move its brewing operations to Wells Park, becoming not just a production facility for beer, cider, and spirits, but a hub for performers of all sorts, an anchor to the artistic and creative communities of Albuquerque. The little-taproom-that-could saved a brewery, and boosted an arts scene that was always coming up short on supportive venues.

That taproom was even a place where a group of beer lovers/metalheads/hockey fans would sit up past midnight, downing pints of Double Plow Oatmeal Stout, talking about creating a website all about local beer. It was the place where our old buddy E-Rock once proclaimed about a beer mix, “It tastes like Jesus!” to the delight of everyone within earshot. It was the place where we engaged in a spirited rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody with a wonderful group of strangers, with beertender Lauren Poole orchestrating the back-and-forth. There are some other, somewhat fuzzy memories, but suffice it to say, it was our home back in the day, before life pulled us in different directions.

Thanks for the memories, little taproom. Let’s make a few more, shall we? There will be live music and a special beer release, Kolsch-a-colada, that all kicks off at 5 p.m. and runs until last call.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister