There are only a handful of New Mexico breweries that choose to operate in two different cities/towns, and fewer still that have locations in three. One of those is Boese Brothers Brewing, which still has taprooms going strong in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos.

I sat down with co-owner George Boese last week at the brewery location downtown at Sixth Street and Gold Ave. to go over all of it for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series.

“It’s funny and kind of interesting to see places that have very different crowds and sometimes different tastes,” he said. “At Desert Dogs in Santa Fe, we kind of cater to tourists during the day, and then we have a younger, Santa Fe regulars crowd there. And then, Los Alamos, big family vibe. That place is kind of turning into a ghost town at 9:30 every night. That’s completely different than downtown (Albuquerque), because normally this place is busy after 9 o’clock at night. It’s kind of all over the place, so you have to learn over to cater to those specific areas a little bit.”

While the downtown location has not changed much over the last few years, big changes were afoot at Desert Dogs. The Santa Fe taproom was always a bit cramped at 112 San Francisco St., just west of the Plaza.

“That we’ve been working on for a long time,” George said. “Huge hold-ups in terms of getting the initial permit, because it is in a historical area. There’s obscure things you have to deal with like, all though we’re not technically putting anything in the bar (area) outside, we are putting in a new air conditioner and air handler on the roof. Technically, since that can be seen, it needs to be approved. You have the case of everywhere else, so-and-so retired and left, and they hadn’t assigned the responsibility to someone new. That was a big challenge.”

George said that he had a relatively sober New Year’s Eve, as he and his brother, Sam, along with their contractors got to work early in the morning on January 1 to finally begin the process of knocking down walls and expanding the space.

“It’s not completely done,” George said. “Basically, where the original bar was, we ripped out the old bar and kitchen, and we have to now patch that up and make it look nice again. A small portion of the bar is still taped off to the back, but we’re using the new bar and new kitchen, which has been fun.”

While that was the big hard hat project from 2023 that carried over into 2024, the epicenter of big events for Boese Brothers has become Los Alamos.

“We did our second year as sponsors at the Los Alamos Summer Concert Series,” George said. “That’s a super fun event up there that’s put on by a company called Sancre Productions. That’s fun, basically a free concert in the park for everyone in Los Alamos every Friday afternoon and evening, and we’re kind of the craft beer/cocktail vendor at that.

“When that ended, we wrapped up the year doing the second year of our Oktoberfest party in Los Alamos. I think we had eight breweries there and had three bands on a Saturday in the beginning of September for another party in the park. We’re planning our third year of doing that this year, which is pretty exciting.”

In addition to the beer-and-cider centered taproom in Los Alamos, there is also the adjacent cocktail bar, the Long Pour. Boese Brothers started up its own distilling program after the pandemic lockdown, and now has been able to fit that nicely into the annual schedule, while serving at all locations.

“It’s cool, that’s an interesting business, too,” George said. “Something that works for us, we’re probably not the biggest spirit producer in the state, but normally in the December/January slower time of the year, I wouldn’t have a lot for our brewers to do. What we do now is we try to do all of our fermentation and distillation for our whiskies all in the wintertime. Again, not a ton, but between the beginning of December and end of February, we aim to make nine barrels of whiskey to age, and then we kind of lie low on the distilling side during the summer.”

On the beer side, Boese Brothers has stuck with a broad mix of styles for its year-round lineup, and a few popular seasonals.

“Yeah, that’s kind of funny part about it, I think if you put our house IPA (Dr. Strangehop), our hazy IPA (Bell Ringer), and our Mexican lager (Ala Lager), you’re probably talking about 70 percent of our beer sales there, which is cool,” George said. “(There are) still a lot of people drinking that West Coast IPA that we’ve made for a long time, Dr. Strangehop. The Mexican lager is just a super popular beer. It’s the most popular beer style in the country now.”

The current seasonals on tap include an Imperial Porter, Raspberry Acai Sour (part of a rotating series of fruited sours), what remains of the Märzen from the fall, and the Double Dead Red, a double red IPA that has been a winter staple of the brewery since it opened many years ago. Other beers for the spring and summer are now either in the works or in planning.

“Something we started messing with last year was using a thiolized yeast,” George said. “We did a seasonal IPA with that. Basically, this yeast is close to a London Ale yeast that’s used to make hazy IPAs, but this particular strain produces tons and tons of thiols that get converted during fermentation, you get these super fruity flavors even if it’s not heavily dry hopped. We’re going to re-do that beer this year, it’s called Drunk Astronaut. We’re also going to try using that yeast on Zeus Juice, which is normally our spring release. The guys are kind of looking forward to that.”

George said they just brewed an Irish red that will be ready in time for a certain March holiday. Beyond that, the brewery does not have too many big plans lined up yet, though fans in Los Alamos can certainly expect a resumption of events up there.

“Those are honestly the real big ones, kind of each year doing a little better at that Oktoberfest, and kind of offering some more stuff,” George said. “We’re already starting to plan that again. And then, even though we’re very close to being done, finally wrapping up that project in Santa Fe will be a huge, emotional win for my brother Sam, who is in charge of that project. It’s taken a lot longer than he wanted.”

Ultimately, the success of multiple off-site taprooms in multiple towns for Boese Brothers goes to the management teams at each place.

“I think the key for us is to have really good management teams in each of those locations, whether that’s Stephanie (Brodeur, GM) in the Heights, Anthony (Flores, GM) in Los Alamos, or Mourad (Pena, bar lead) and Barrita (Cretel, head chef) in Santa Fe,” George said. “That’s the thing that helps us do it.”

We raise a glass to each of them in thanks, and to George for squeezing in an interview in Albuquerque before he had to drive to Santa Fe help train some new bartenders.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister