The hottest summer in recorded history was far from kind to breweries throughout the state. Many faced issues keeping their equipment humming, particularly any and all cooling devices.

From Milton’s in Carlsbad to the CNM brewing school in Albuquerque, chillers big and small were strained to the limit. No one, though, had a worse run than Canteen Brewhouse.

We had heard about some issues with the cold room early in the summer, but that proved to be nothing compared to the fate of their glycol chiller. For those not overly familiar with brewery equipment terminology, the glycol chiller is what keeps the beer cold in the fermenters, running cold glycol through the lines you typically see hanging from the ceiling above.

Canteen had sporadically mentioned throughout the summer on social media that there were some equipment issues, so we asked last week about an interview. As they are currently in a madcap race to catch up on beers, head brewer Zach Guilmette just decided it would be easier to email us an explanation of what has happened, and where the brewery is now in terms of ramping up beer production back to normal.

“We are indeed grateful it is in the past!

“In lieu of an interview I’ll catch you up right here with an email and I hope this will be adequate enough for all our customers.

“The first week of July during our initial string of 100-degrees-plus days of heat here in Albuquerque, our glycol chiller failed completely. The initial diagnosis of a failed compressor was incorrect and unfortunately it took another 10 days of down time before the correct diagnosis was made. The spike in fermentation temperatures resulted in the sad need to dump almost 100 barrels of beer. This put us behind ‘from the get-go’ and we were on the search for a new chiller! Our old chiller was a bit undersized, but always made it through the previous summers until it didn’t, and knowing a new chiller was three months out, I initially looked for a used model on various brewery equipment websites. In a stroke of luck, I was put in touch with Jim at Pro Chiller via Rob Palmer, who just happened to have a chiller the size we needed available. This new chiller was built for a brewery in planning who are experiencing delays and were willing to give up their chiller to us. This saved us a potential six to eight weeks of additional downtime. All of the beer we had on tap was from June and as August started to come to a close, we could see this was going to get ugly. Although we were finally back up and brewing after seven weeks of downtime due to mechanical failure, we could see that we wouldn’t have enough beer to make it to the new batches. This was when Jamie (Schwebach, general manager) and I discussed putting guest beers on, and because we’ve always had a close relationship with our friends at La Cumbre, we decided to reach out and see if they would be willing to sell us beer to keep our taps going until the new Canteen beer is ready.

“As of (September 9) all of our fermenters are full again. This (past) week we transferred our first fresh beer, Exodus IPA, and (this) week Flashback IPA and Amber will be on tap again. By the end of September and first week of October we will be fully stocked with Canteen beer, including our Oktoberfest, a new hazy IPA, and a hefeweizen, as well as the house favorite High Plains Pils.

“Thanks to all our customers for their support, understanding and patience.”

Canteen was able to pour Exodus and Dougie-Style Amber at Ullr Fest over the weekend, so we will count those as hopeful signs for the future.

After we heard from Guilmette, the brewery sent out its monthly email with a schedule of just when the beers will officially return to tap:

• Wednesday: Flashback IPA and Dougie-Style Amber
• Sept. 27: High Plains Pils, La Luz Wheat, Pecos Trail Brown, Canteen Cider
• Oct. 4: Oktoberfest, new hazy IPA, new hefeweizen
• Oct. 18: Dark and Lusty Stout

Other seasonals will pop up here and there, so keep an eye out for announcements on social media, or in The Week Ahead in Beer.

The good news now is summer is over, the beers are returning, and all is well at Canteen. Go show ’em a little love over the next few weeks and raise a pint of your favorite year-round ales and lagers. Thanks to Zach for the update.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister