It was not just one of those years over at Canteen Brewhouse. It was, perhaps, the most fraught and difficult year of the 29-year existence of what was once Il Vicino Brewing.

Back in the summer, the glycol chiller went down, and it left the brewery with a seven-week stretch of not actually brewing. With a little help from friends in the industry, Canteen managed to stay afloat until everything was fixed, but it was still a massive disruption in a year that had started well.

Now that things are back to a state of relative normalcy, I caught up with general manager Jamie Schwebach and head brewer Zach Guilmette for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series.

“We’re back from Hell,” Guilmette said.

“I think 2023 was probably our most challenging year we’ve had in a long time,” Schwebach said. “We’re happy it’s done.”

“It was a challenge,” Guilmette said. “We’re still here, and we’re happy to be here. In the end, we ended up with things that really needed repairing that are now ready for 2024. The brewery is fully operational. We’re glad that those challenges are behind us.”

In addition to the equipment woes, the Canteen staff also faced the pain of losing one of their own. Longtime beertender, wonderful human, and great father and husband Mike Thrall passed away after a battle with throat cancer.

“When I think about 2023, I think for everybody it’s been a year,” Schewbach said. “With the glycol (chiller), with our co-worker (Mike Thrall) passing, with beer challenges, everything else, it’s been a challenge. But, we keep thinking about how lucky we are that we’re in the New Mexico beer community. How many breweries have donated beers when we were doing fundraisers for our co-worker Mike and his family. A lot of great events and community support happened.”

Neighboring La Cumbre sold Canteen beer to keep the taps flowing during the no-brewing stretch.

“We really think about how grateful and we can look at the year and say here are all of our challenges, but as Zach said we’re still here and we’re excited that we’re getting ready to approach our 30th anniversary next year,” Schwebach said. “We’re looking ahead with our leadership team, from our staff, front of house and back of house, we’ve got a killer crew. Our customers are awesome.”

With the summertime disruption, it was impossible for Canteen to truly chart how the year went in terms of things like sales, both on-site and off-site.

“We do not have accurate data,” Schwebach said. “First six months of the year were killer. We’re on track to do well in distribution and package sales. Then we went, what, four or five months without any distributing. We just started distributing again, and we’re still slowly getting there. We don’t have any back in market. We’re still playing catch-up. Playing catch-up is really slow. I think by year end we’re going to be the same as last year, I think.

“We’ve seen a lot of the same faces and a lot of new faces, when we think about taproom. We’ve had a lot of new events. We also realized that when we first started selling beer back in ’94 was easy. Would you like craft beer? Yes? Here you go. Now it’s like here’s some craft beer, here’s some bells and whistles, here’s an even tot get you to drink the beer. It’s a lot more challenging to sell a pint of beer. Some of that is climate with the consumers, so much if it is there’s so much great craft beer in New Mexico.”

Realizing that she had been doing most of the talking, Schwebach asked Guilmette for his thoughts.

“What do you think, Zach?”

“I concur.”

“A man of little words, but great impact.”

“You said all that needs to be said.”

Well, Guilmette did eventually have some thoughts on the big picture.

“Definitely, distribution is down, and I think our distribution drop is pretty much the average for everyone,” he said. “Well, yeah, not brewing for seven weeks put a dent in it. Overall, the market is seeing a downturn in craft beer drinkers, or it’s at least leveling off. It’s a matter of finding new trends, new styles, and being creative in craft brewing. And then, beyond the beer, your atmosphere, the events, the things you do outside the beer itself draws people to your brewery. It’s really what will help you survive and succeed.”

2023 was not entirely gloomy for Canteen, as Schwebach recalled that they did win a medal at the World Beer Cup, a first for the brewery at the competition since 2016.

“That literally seems over a year ago,” Guilmette said of the silver for Work of Heart, a seasonal milk stout. “We’ll bring Work of Heart (back) out for Valentine’s Day. This year we’ll blend for draft a little raspberry Work of Heart.”

2024 marks a major anniversary

As Schwebach and Guilmette already noted, 2024 will mark the 30th anniversary of the first beers brewed for the company at the Il Vicino location in Nob Hill (no, really, they brewed beer in a tiny room in the back).

“We’re going to go into adulthood, move out of our parents’ basements,” Schwebach joked. “We’re excited for our 30th, we’re celebrating in June, so we’re working on those details. It’s going to be a fun celebration of good beer, good food, and good people.”

There will be a special beer brewed for the occasion, though that recipe is still under wraps/in the works. Fear not, though, as Canteen will have plenty of new brews and events throughout the year.

“We’re excited for a lot of events we hosted last year to come back,” Schwebach said. “We’ll be hosting our Run with Joy, which is a half marathon, and that’s going to be Easter weekend. We’re going to bring back the Love of Lagers in July. And, a lot of the other fun, monthly events will be returning, as well as a new, fun educational series. Just some basics to get people outside, come drink beer, come learn about tying knots, navigation, kind of an introduction to the wilderness. We’ve started that with some partnerships in the community. We’re bringing on more pop-up craft markets. We’ve got that scheduled, we’ve got our whole year scheduled, so we’ll be releasing that in the coming weeks for all of 2024.”

While Schwebach was building the events calendar, Guilmette was doing the same for beer releases.

“It’s nice to have that kind of structure through the year, and to hit on a lot of the same ales and lagers that people enjoy the most,” he said. “We can continue to bring back those and leave room for more creativity and experimentation. It’s nice to create that portfolio of beers that people recognize and look for, and to be able to schedule them throughout the year, it makes running the brewery easier and gives you time to do other things, other beers, other creations.”

One of the first events of the year is WinterBrew in Santa Fe on January 26, and Guilmette will have something special on tap.

“We’re going to bring a Garrison Brothers whiskey-barrel-aged Wicked Raven (Imperial Stout),” he said. “Garrison Brothers out of Austin sent us eight casks. They’ve been aging for 13 months. We filled them in November 2022.”

Guilmette said that they will not drain all the casks, as it is standard practice to brew more imperial stout to blend with the aged version to cut down on the heat from the whiskey barrels. This year, however, they were not able to brew a new batch due to the aforementioned equipment issues, so look for those remaining casks to be blended and released much later in 2024.

Another new brew coming up will a special collaboration with multiple breweries that was held at Canteen, one that included Lava Roxk, Marble, Santa Fe, Sidetrack, and Turtle Mountain.

“We had Jeremy Janus in town, from Prairie Malt,” Guilmette said. “Years ago he brought everyone together for an epic collab that we had fun with. When he came back to the industry we set one up again. We’re doing a strong Dortmunder. It’s going to come in a 6.5- to 7-percent Dortmunder. It’s a strong export (lager).”

A lot more collaborations and event-themed beers will also be appearing throughout the year, keeping everyone well stocked on some new brews to go along with the Canteen classics. The biggest thing, though, is just being able to do any of that again, as the brewery staff puts 2023 in the rear view mirror.

“We’re looking forward to 2023 coming to a close, (and) we’re excited for 2024,” Schwebach said.

“We’re really excited for next year,” Guilmette added.

“Yeah, really putting this whole year behind us, and how thankful we are for our amazing crew,” Schwebach said. “They really stuck with us through the summer.”

“We’ve dealt with these challenges well,” Guilmette said. “You grow from it. You grow stronger.”

“I’m tired of learning new things, but we learned new things every day,” Schwebach concluded.

It is great to have Canteen back at full power. We look forward to many new brews and events in 2024, especially that huge anniversary party in June, and as always, I will pass along my thanks to Jamie and Zach for meeting up for this interview.

Oh, and for the Panama Joe, too, because that amazing coffee stout is back on tap and in cans, and you should all definitely go get some ASAP.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister