It can take a brewery a while to truly find its niche, its final form, so to speak. Sometimes that is to merely find a way to stand out in a crowded market, but other times it is simply a matter of grasping the true nature of its place in the grand scheme of things, even in an isolated corner.

That is the case at Rumor Brewing, where owner Patrick Johnson seems to have finally figured out what his brewery is truly meant to be going forward. We caught up with Johnson recently for annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series to learn just that.

“I think I’m still trying to build the final model, the final entity,” he said. “I think I finally have a vision as to what that is. I’m slowly trying to chip at it. We don’t have any investors, and banks are so leery to do anything, so it’s kind of a slow process of building up the final thing.”

The previous vision just did not prove to feasible.

“We were working towards our distribution license to be able to do distribution, but we’re really pigeonholed on this property by utilities,” Johnson said. “Our water situation is really dire. We don’t even have two-phase power. In order to get to distribute in a meaningful capacity, we would have to completely change everything, drill new wells, and that’s just not the reality.”

The reality of what Rumor is, and what it can be, is born from its surroundings in Cedar Crest.

“I think that we really lucked out in the property that we have,” Johnson said. “We’ve put all our effort into the garden area, so I don’t want to move. It’s really beautiful here in the summer. It’s a really nice patio. Five to 10 years from now, the trees will be bigger, and it will be nicer and nicer.

“I think what this is is just a small pub brewery, and that’s it, and we can just lean into that. I think that’s fine.”

Being a proper brewpub means the food cannot come in second to the beer anymore.

“That being said, I realized a mistake that I made in the past couple years is (while) I want to make better beer — and we now have someone and the structure to make better beer and I think our beer is pretty solid — (but) I neglected the restaurant side of the business,” Johnson said. “It took me two years to realize we need to work on the restaurant.”

To that end, Rumor has expanded their food menu, bringing back the sandwiches and snacks that were popular before the pandemic. There are more drinks available besides just beer, including non-alcoholic options. While I was there, a few families showed up with their children to enjoy some lunch on the beer garden patio.

“The big thing that we’re going to do in the next couple weeks is expand our menu to be a more traditional pub menu,” Johnson said. “We’ll have burgers and fries, we’ll have our homemade chips back, and mac n cheese, stuff like that.”

In order to help make an expanded menu work, Rumor will have to make some moves behind the scenes. The main taproom and brewery are in separate buildings, and the plan is to shift things around in the latter space. Right now, the brewery occupies roughly the western third of the structure, with the rest used for storage. Johnson said the plan is to build out the brewery into the eastern two-thirds, and then use the current brewing space as a prep kitchen.

“Going forward, we’ll be continually improving our beer, and trying to make more interesting styles, win some awards, that sort of thing,” he said. “And, have a really nice menu to support our beer, and a really nice beer garden area, and that’s what it is.”

On the events side of things, Rumor may expand their days with live music beyond the current once-a-week Sunday shows. Johnson noted that longtime Tijeras institution Molly’s Bar closed, leaving a bit of a live music void in the East Mountains. One idea that he has is to have a special music night, probably on Fridays once a month, and make it more of an event.

All of those shows take place outside, as the great outdoor setting is perhaps Rumor’s greatest asset.

“The beer garden is filling in more and more,” Johnson said. “It’s more comfortable to sit. We put up these panels (on the patio alongside the taproom) for the winter, we’ll take them down next week. The idea was to have a more heated space in the winter, particularly for apres ski.”

Johnson said Rumor may still get a wholesalers license and do some limited canning releases at places in Albuquerque such as Jubilation, though he has not made a final decision there. He does have his small, cost-efficient canning machine up and running in the brewery, one that he told our AmyO about in last year’s Look Back article.

“Our IPA held up over a month in storage just fine,” Johnson said. “It works well enough. We have all the infrastructure for canning, so I think it’s going to be a good year.”

Johnson also said that Rumor is doing well on the staffing front, which is always nice for a brewery in a less populated area.

“I feel like we’re at the best place we’ve been with our staff,” he said. “We have a full-time manager and a full-time brewer, which is a lot for a small operation. I’m less worried about staffing than I ever have been, which is great. That will let me focus on building the brewery a little more, where we can do more can releases and that kind of thing.”

If Rumor has truly found its place in the grand brewery scheme of things, and embraced that identity, then things are truly looking up at 6,000-plus feet. A big thanks to Patrick for the interview, and of course the pizza that I had to take to-go in order to make it to the next interview (the results of which will be seen on Monday).

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister