The road beckoned this past Friday, with a pair of breweries in Southern New Mexico the targets for a quick trip to both cross them off a personal goal to visit every place in the state, and to introduce them to the beer drinkers who follow our site.

First up was Public House 28 Brewery, which is almost but not quite a straight shot south on a major highway. After Interstate 25 merged into Interstate 10, bringing with it a surge of semi trucks bound for El Paso and points beyond, I weaved my way among them to reach the Vado exit (No. 155), en route to a rural brewery destination for the first time.

Public House 28 is located on Highway 28, which is basically a two-lane road west of the Rio Grande that runs parallel to the freeway, stretching from Las Cruces to Anthony. As I drove out among the farms, ranches, and vineyards, it created an echo, of sorts, of Beer Creek Brewing, out there by itself along Highway 14 south of Santa Fe.

Upon a surprising exactly-on-time arrival of 2 p.m., I was greeted by head brewer Blake Heath, who is also a minority owner of the property officially located at 10092 NM-28. The first question was a rather obvious one: Why set up a brewery well outside of the Las Cruces metro area?

To get to that answer, Heath shared a little of his own background.

“My partner John Brooker, he is the main, predominant owner here,” Heath said. “I am a minority owner and head brewer. I met John in 2018. I had kind of gotten out of the academic world. I really wanted to work in beer, but I really didn’t know how to take those steps. So I quit and took a minimum-wage job working at a brew shop in El Paso. I worked there for a couple years.

“A mutual friend of ours — John is a veterinarian, and my father is a veterinarian — and a veterinarian mutual friend of ours put me in touch with John. ‘He’s trying to open a brewery in the Las Cruces area and you should talk to him, because he wants me to brew the beer, I’m not the guy to brew the beer, and maybe you should brew the beer.’ Sure, that sounds great.”

Heath and Brooker met up at a bar in El Paso, ended up ordering the exact same beer without realizing it, and then got to talking about the latter’s vision and the former’s goals.

“He started this process out here in 2017,” Heath said. “He bought this barn specifically with the idea that maybe I should put a brewery out here. He was involved early on in some breweries in El Paso, but got out and wanted to do his own thing. He brought me out here, and let me show you my vision. There were a few trees, some dirt, and a barn with a broken-down bar in it. He had a cool idea, this big beer garden kind of environment, which is kind of up my alley. I’m from a small farming town like this. This is kind of his brainchild, give people a big spot to come out and drink beer in a backyard type of environment. It’s kind of what he did.”

A rather laborious labor of love then ensued, with both men and others working to turn an old barn into a functional brewery with a lovely beer garden outside.

“I was out here every single day pretty much for three years, working,” Heath said. “John and I laid all the brick, so 30,000 bricks. Smashed fingers, hurt backs, banging your head on stuff. Lots and lots of man hours. John planted everything in here. He’s got five green thumbs. This has been nothing but a labor of love.”

The COVID pandemic and lockdown hit just as they started construction. Heath said it took up much of their funds and time.

“It’s amazing that the place opened at all,” he said. “We opened up without any beer. We opened as a craft beer bar. For the first six months we were open, I maybe had four beers up there, maybe five. I would make a batch and it would sell out. We have expanded our fermentation capacity. A lot of blood sweat and tears. It’s been cool. Everyone that’s worked here has been awesome and incredibly cool. It’s been a real team effort. We’ve had the same core that we had since the beginning. It’s been great, a dream come true.”

The brewery itself belies the rural area, with brand-new Blichmann Pro equipment, including a 3.5-barrel brewhouse. Heath is constantly brewing to keep the taps full. He said their most popular beers are often brewed as double batches or triple batches, put inside a pair of 10-barrel fermenters.

As for what sells in this rural spot, there aren’t too many surprises.

“As you can imagine, it’s a light lager-y, light blonde ales, introductory craft beer, for sure,” Heath said. “We do have our IPA fans. Believe it or not, I started selling an English bitter called Bagsy — we’re out of it at the moment — and that made my heart swell that people really liked that, too. Light beers, sessionable beers. When we had a few 8, 9 percenters up there, I actually got complaints. You have to drive out here, you have to be careful. Light beer is kind, our Mexican lager flies off the shelf when it’s there, or just any IPA. But, that’s changing, people are still figuring it out.”

Heath has a soft spot for smoked beers, and let me try a tasty little smoked ESB. He is working with his friends at Icebox Brewing in Las Cruces and a couple of El Paso breweries to hold a mini-beer fest later this month, called Buried in Smoke. All the participants will feature one or more smoked offerings. That will be held at Public House 28 on April 27.

Holding an event like that is just one of the many ways the staff at Public House 28 try to keep the customers coming to the brewery. It is not always easy to get folks to drive out, whether from Las Cruces to the north or the El Paso area to the south.

“We kind of rely on it,” Heath said of word-of-mouth. “This is, as you know pulling up here, it’s not a place that’s even eye-catching off the side of the road. You can’t tell what’s here from the highway. We’re desperate to get people in here so they actually see the place. It’s all word of mouth. John doesn’t try to spend a whole lot of money. We’ve tried to do a few ad campaigns with local TV stations. It’s (all) to varying degrees of success. Anymore, I think having a good product, good service, good experience, I think that means more than virtually anything. As long as we keep doing what we’re doing … I think we could do more, at least on the social media front.”

That has led to some discussion of a second location.

“We’re definitely exploring getting an offsite taproom open in Las Cruces, or maybe Sunland Park, which is (basically) El Paso,” Heath said.

For now, the focus will be on the main location, which has come a long way from the first few social media pictures that they have shared online. The beer garden is expansive and comfortable, with enough shade to fend off some of the Southern New Mexico sun in the hotter months. There are a few bar stools and tables inside, and a cover on the east side should a monsoon roll on by.

Overall, Heath has produced some solid beers. His New Zealand pilsner and dunkel were both quite good, and his three IPAs had some old-school qualities to them, throwbacks to the era of pine over citrus. Much like Beer Creek, I found Public House 28 to be more than worth the drive beyond the city to its north. They have also started making pizza (just like Beer Creek), which should do well in the outdoor patio setting.

A big thanks to Blake for the interview and the sample pours. I am glad that I could actually be exactly on time for once. The drive itself is easier than you think, and fairly straight forward from I-10 to the brewery.

The next time you are in Southern New Mexico, make sure to carve out a little extra time to visit Public House 28 Brewery.

Keep supporting local statewide!

— Stoutmeister