Among brewers and brewery owners, Rob Palmer has a rather distinctly succinct and no-fuss approach to everything from running his namesake brewery to handling interviews. He also has a, not necessarily worldly, but stately view of the New Mexico beer scene after his time as the president of the board of directors at the New Mexico Brewers Guild.

I recently caught up with Rob to talk about all things big and small with Palmer Brewery and the beer world beyond for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series.

“It was good,” he said of 2023. “It was nice to get back to normal from all the closings and all that. It was kind of a sad year, though, it was my last year on the board for the New Mexico Brewers Guild. I’m still helping out with all the (festivals).”

The perspective that he gained from being on the board has helped Rob both understand, and in a way not understand the state of the craft beer market in New Mexico, as there are so many outside factors weighing on the industry.

“I don’t know, I think everyone is down a little bit from the prior year, and that’s scary because we’re just ramping back up from COVID,” he said. “I think we’ll come back. It always does. I hope we don’t lose any more (breweries) in the meantime.”

The good news is that Palmer Brewery and its “sibling” business, Left Turn Distilling, are both doing well right now, along with their offsite locations, The Taproom at Old Town and Gate City Craft Bar in Raton.

“Old Town is good,” Rob said. “It’s a whole different crowd than what we’re used to, but it’s nice. We brought Martin (Torrez) on board, now he’s running both our kitchens. The food has gotten real fancy, but it’s still good. There’s still some old favorites on there like spam tacos.”

Gate City is also doing well, even if it’s still a bit of an obvious trek for Rob to head up there at any point. He manages to make the best of it.

“Raton’s fine, just odd,” he said with a smile. “We’ve got a combination of our beers and some other local beers up there. I’m our own distributor, so I have to drive the kegs up there. It’s usually a 12-hour round trip, since I usually stop somewhere to do some fishing.”

There is something rather appealing about that, right?

As for the brewery, Rob has been busy giving the customers what they want.

“We were real lager focused lately, it seems like that’s what people are drinking,” he said. “That’s what I drink, so that’s a pleasant surprise.”

When things slowed down in the fall, Rob headed out of town, leading guided hunts in different parts of the state. As winter rolled in and hunting season ended, he got back to work before things ramp up for the busier spring and summer months ahead.

“I just brought back MWA, our blue corn malt liquor,” Rob said. “For a while I had dropped it to 7-percent (ABV), so I brought it back up to 8 percent. It deserves it. I think it drinks better that way.

“I have a maibock in fermenter number three. It’s been in there for about a month already, so that’s exciting. I’m trying to do some bigger lagers, and some smaller ones. We had a 3.9-percent lager this year that sold really well.”

Like many other New Mexico breweries, Palmer’s Mexican lager is now among its top sellers.

“That (Ala Grr) and Low Carb Lager go back and forth,” Rob said. “The helles and the Mexican lager, the ones that I like drinking are the ones that sell the best. I couldn’t be happier with that. It’s more tank time, but it’s less grain on brew day, less hops, less loss. We’re trying to make what the market wants.”

There is nothing wrong giving the people what they want, especially if it’s also what the brewer wants. A big thanks to Rob for the quick interview in the midst of a brew day. I, and hopefully many of you, will be seeing him at the Stout Invitational this Saturday in Los Alamos.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister