It’s not always easy to tell when stout season has come to Santa Fe. Some might say it begins with the first seasonal closing of a taproom patio. Some might say it arrives with the first frost-covered windshield. Some, with the first obligatory swarm of “It’s Snowing!” posts on Facebook. And for the Dark Side Brew Crew, it’s always stout season. But I like to think that for the rest of the good beer-loving folks of the City Different, stout season officially kicks off with Blackest Friday, the annual celebration of big, barrel-aged imperial stouts at Rowley Farmhouse Ales.

For our new readers, the idea for Blackest Friday sprouted up around 2017, when the macro-mega umbrella corp AB-InBev was doing some wild things like buying up smaller craft breweries around America, monopolizing all the South African hop farms, and claiming to invent the barrel-aged stout at Goose Island, like your crazy uncle Rob.

“We were just like, you know what, let’s not carry any more of their stuff,” RFA chef and co-owner Jeffrey Kaplan recalled. “So Blackest Friday is about not wanting to pour their beer, but still celebrate those stouts on one great day.”

That celebration of barrel-aged stouts now stands as a big middle finger to the macro brewery and their predatory business practices, a declaration of independent craft brewers, if you will.

Though a few things have changed from then to now, post-COVID and all, the celebration continues with another impressive list of barrel-aged stouts, worthy of the blackest, darkest days of the year.

“This year, we’re sitting at about a dozen or so,” Kaplan said. “We’re still hoping a couple more special kegs will show up in the mail. We’re sitting on a couple of verticals, a couple of near verticals. We have like a COVID gap vertical of La Negra from La Cumbre, which is really awesome. We got this year’s just the other day, and then we have a 2019 from right beforehand, which is kind of fun. We got a vertical Firestone Walker Parabola, we got some fun variants of the Founders stuff. We got CBS (Canadian Breakfast Stout). We got a special one off of KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout) like the Mackinac Fudge.

Rowley farmhouse ales has a pretty stellar line-up this year, with mostly out-of-state beers, a few local ones, as well as some more vintage offerings from deeper in the Rowley cellar.

The complete list:

• Boulevard Whiskey Barrel Stout ‘23
• Firestone Walker Parabola ’22
• Firestone Walker Parabola ’23
• Founders CBS ’22
• Founders Maple Mackinac Fudge ‘22
• Ex Novo There’s Layers to This ‘23
• 2nd Shift Barrel-aged Liquid Spiritual Delight ‘22
• Perennial Stltl
• Rogue Rolling Thunder ’18
• Great Divide Barrel-Aged Yeti ’18
• Oakshire Free Your Soul: Port Barrel
• Oakshire Sixteen
• La Cumbre Barrel-aged La Negra ’19
• La Cumbre Barrel-aged La Negra ’23

Today, you can try almost anything you’d like, but because all of the beers are upwards of 15% ABV, they will be limiting them to four-ounce pours, with only two in front of you at any given time.

The food special will be beer-battered fish and chips, to which I can say are the best in town or top three, at least.

Though it’s been a bit easier to get a hold of unique beers these days, it’s still been a struggle post-COVID with distributors doing their best to keep their offerings as lean as possible.

“Distributors threw out a lot of beer from COVID and distributors took a big brunt of that,” Kaplan explained. “And so, I understand why they’re doing it, but it does make acquiring cool beer more challenging.”

But even with the challenges, Rowley Farmhouse Ales has managed to put together something truly special for lovers of the abyssal liquids.

Who: Rowley Farmhouse Ales

What: Blackest Friday

Where: 1405 Maclovia St, Santa Fe, NM 87505

When: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Why you should go: Because it’s always a fun event for local beer geeks to get together and enjoy a drool-worthy list of devilishly decadent barrel-aged stouts that you otherwise might have to travel for or trade to get your hands on them. Oh, and of course the fish and chips, because they are that good.

As for me, you know where I’ll be on Black Friday, while many others brave the cold parking lots and the crowed hell that must be malls and department stores on this day. I’ll be right there with front-row seats on a ferry into the void.

To independent craft brewers celebrating other independent craft brewers, to continuing to support barrel projects, to supporting the little guys and keeping big beer traditions alive and well.

Cheers!

— Luke

Luke has been writing for the Dark Side Brew Crew since 2014, covering the Santa Fe area and a bit further up north. He’s also brewed and drank a beer or two in his day. Untappd: SantaFeLuke