Attention hopheads, your favorite time of the year is almost upon us.

The 2024 New Mexico IPA Challenge kicks off this weekend with the elimination round, which the public does not attend, but the Crew will be there as proverbial flies on the wall to detail how it all turns out.

We caught up with New Mexico Brewers Guild executive director Ebbie Edmonston to talk all things NMIPAC as we start rolling towards the three public rounds on July 13, 20, and 27.

“It’s crazy, this year has just flown by,” she said. “It’s pretty much the same setup as every year, expect obviously the dates have changed.”

The public rounds will be held, in order, at Nuckolls Brewing in Santa Fe, Lauter Haus Brewing in Farmington, and Bow & Arrow Brewing in Albuquerque. Tickets to all rounds are available now online, and Edmonston said one location in particular could use a serious bump in sales.

“I’m a little bit nervous about Farmington,” she said. “Tickets are slow moving. I have to reach a certain ticket number to go up there. Farmington people, Northern New Mexico people, please come.”

We will throw in Southwest Colorado beer lovers as needing to attend, as well. Heck, anyone who has not been to Lauter Haus, it’s a giant playground for grown-ups with great beer on tap, so this would be a great opportunity to check it out.

Anyway, first up is the aforementioned elimination round. Since the state does not want too many samples on a tray, the initial field will have to be whittled down to a more acceptable 16 for the public rounds. Each participating brewery sends one representative to be a judge, and none of those judges will be at a table where their own beer will be sampled.

“I’ve gone over that more than 20 times now,” Edmonston said of the setup, which is designed to keep things fair. “We had some last-minute entries on a Friday. We had to readjust a little bit. No brewery is going to taste their beer.”

A total of 39 breweries are submitting entries this year, which can range from just their house IPAs to special versions brewed for the event. They can be West Coast or hazy or anything in between, with the level of ABV and IBU up to each participant. All of that, however, could change in future editions of the NMIPAC.

“We might be changing up IPA Challenge in the future, but this year remains tried and true,” Edmonston said. “We had some people arguing that comparing a hazy IPA to a West Coast IPA is not fair. I’d like to maybe alternate that (between the styles) every other year moving forward, but not this year.

“It’s still in the works. I would love to do that to make everyone happy, but I’ll never make everyone happy.”

For Saturday’s elimination round, as an added bonus for the participating breweries, this will all be going down before noon at Canteen. The brewery just so happens to be hosting their annual For the Love of Lagers festival right afterwards (tickets for that are for sale here).

“It’s not coincidence,” Edmonston said. “Traditionally, at least what I’ve been told is the elimination round is hosted by the previous year’s winner. Bosque is busy opening up so many taprooms right now, so Canteen politely offered to host. Bosque was willing to give that to them. For the brewers, two birds, one stone. They can stick around and enjoy the lagers.”

If anyone has questions about the NMIPAC or For the Love of Lagers, please reach out. Otherwise, we will get this whole hop-bomb extravaganza going this weekend, all building up to the final round on July 27. And, as we say every year, get your tickets now, before the final round sells out.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister