In Part One you got to meet the newest members of the New Mexico beer scene, Averie Swanson and Pat Fahey.

In Part Two, you read about some of the struggles a brewery-in-planning can face while trying to open, and you learned a little bit more about what happened with the Second Street deal.

With their first property falling through, Swanson and Fahey were down, but certainly not out. In fact, it was just a minor setback. Maybe it was a little more than minor, but it was just a setback. The brewery was going to happen, just not on Second Street.

When we last left off, they had put in an offer on a new brewery space and taproom for Keeping Together. The former Santa Fe greenhouse was soon to become their high desert oasis in the center of Santa Fe’s “Industrial District.” Everything was a go.

With funding mostly in order, and halfway through the permitting process already, it seemed as though everything was coming together nicely, when they received some of the worst news any soon-to-be business owner could hear.

The brewery manufacturer they’d been working with for months told them in an email that he was closing his shop and none of their equipment had been completed.

Swanson and Fahey had already paid 90 percent of their contract, which was a little over $472,000.

The email never mentioned anything about getting their money back.

They’re pursuing legal recourse to try to recoup what they’ve lost, but that process might take years, and there is no guarantee that they’ll be able to get anything back.

“So we’re going to pursue that within reason,” Fahey said. “But, simultaneously, we need to figure out how to get the brewery open.”

As you can imagine they’ve been through a lot at this point, but they’ve managed to keep the dream alive thus far, and they had no plans to back away.

“Fortunately there is a lot of cheap, used equipment out there right now,” Swanson said. “Which is of course unfortunate for some people out there, but it is truly the saving grace of what we’re doing here. If there wasn’t the equipment out there right now, at the reasonable prices that there are, this would have been a death blow to the entire thing.”

At this point Swanson and Fahey have identified what will most likely be their replacement brewhouse, though they’re still looking for some additional tanks, grain-handling equipment, and more odds and ends, but at least they have a path forward. And, as you can imagine, they will still need to figure out how to bridge a financial gap as deep and wide as the Rio Grande Gorge, as a result of everything that’s happened, but they’re working on that, too.

After the dust had settled a little bit, Swanson and Fahey had reached out to friends, family, and the beer community (not that those are mutually exclusive), to share the news or ask for advice, and they soon realized that they weren’t alone.

“This this sort of thing happens a lot more than people talk about,” Fahey said. “And, that’s one of the things that we found from talking to a lot of our friends in the industry in the aftermath of this. There’s people saying, ‘Oh yeah, that happened to us.’ We have so many people tell us about a brewhouse supplier of theirs go out of business, or a keg line supplier go out of business. They say, ‘We were out $150,000 on it.’ And, for an operating business, you might just have to eat that loss.”

One of the industry friends they reached out to during that time was long-time friend Doug Reiser of Burial Beer Co. in Asheville, North Carolina. Having  once been an attorney himself, he was one of the first people Swanson called for basic guidance.

“I called him because I didn’t even know what kind of lawyer to call when this happened,” Swanson remembered.

Only weeks after hearing of Keeping Together’s situation, Burial created a GoFundMe to help support their friends, to help keep a fellow member of the beer community’s dream alive.

“So Burial was very, very sweet,” Swanson said. “They said, ‘We really want to organize a GoFundMe for you.’ And so, they talked me into doing that. It was very generous and very helpful. And, honestly, the outpouring of support has just been truly overwhelming.

“It’s a weird thing, because starting Keeping Together, we wanted to be on the other side of it, being able to give back to the community.”

It hadn’t occurred to them that they might one day be the ones needing the assistance.

“But, to be honest with you, this truly has been one of the most humbling experiences, and has really reinforced and reiterated to me why I wanted the name, the brand, and the ethos, everything, to be what it is,” Swanson said. “So I think, in a weird, cosmically unfortunate way, this was a necessary part of learning why and how Keeping Together is important.”

“And, this will always be a part of Keeping Together’s story,” Fahey added.

The good news is, as of writing this, Keeping Together does have a number of potential irons in the fire, but nothing fully baked enough to share, yet.

The important point is that they, despite everything that’s happened, have persevered, and are still moving forward to build the brewery.

In the coming months, they’ll try generating some additional revenue in various ways, perhaps pushing out some merch presales, or possibly producing beer elsewhere to keep their vision alive.

But, once they’ve overcome the hurdles, and the final pieces of the puzzle are placed gently or shoved into place, we’ll get to experience the special vision they have for the decades-old plant nursery turned taproom site.

“It’s European beer garden meets desert oasis,” Swanson said. “I just want to create a space that’s light and bright and easy to be in, where it feels like Santa Fe, but it also feels like you’re somewhere else.”

“With our background, the beer is a core part of the experience,” Fahey said. “But, one of the things that we’ve been very focused on is that, beyond it being about the beer, Keeping Together is going to be about the experience that you have when you’re here.”

Keeping Together is taking a huge, 9,400-square-foot greenhouse and retrofitting it into a taproom. It will retain the frame of the greenhouse, and the design is such that it will still very much feel like a greenhouse. It will be fully-planted along the perimeter with tons of plants on the inside paying homage to what came before.

“It’s going to feel like a four-season patio, desert beer garden,” Fahey added.

As for the beer, they are open to brew whatever inspires Swanson, but you can bet she will be bringing everything she’s learned from brewing at Jester King and Half Acre.

Swanson tied her approach back to a philosophy of Jester King’s, “Time, place, and people,” making beer that resonates with people right now, as it represents our moods and attitudes, and connecting it all to the land around us.

“I want to make beers that are easy to drink and easy to be around, beers that are of this place,” she said, “I plan on approaching the fermentation, or the mixed culture in a similar fashion to how I did in Chicago, which is basically having the Saccharomyces base, and then adding to that base, over time, with bacteria, wild yeast, etc. I plan on cultivating some wild yeast from the area to add in there as well, and using local ingredients.

“My hope is that, though it might not immediately start as beer from this place, it will, over time, become very much an extension of this place. I feel honored to be in this particular location, on this property, because it really is this experimental plot. When it was an experimental greenhouse, there were plants that were planted just to see if they could thrive in the desert, and I feel akin to that at this point.”

To so many that have listened and reached out to Swanson and Fahey during their time of struggle, they cannot begin to thank the community enough.

“It’s not often that I am speechless, but I feel entirely overwhelmed by the outreach and support, and the excitement about what we’re doing” Swanson said. “It takes a village. It is not something that I’m used to. It is hard to ask for help. It is even harder to accept help. This entire process is hard, and for the longest time, I felt like, well, if tons of people have done it, I can do it. I can build a brewery. But, it’s extremely hard, and it has put into perspective what people have sacrificed to make it happen. So, I’m very grateful for the opportunity. I’m excited to be able to build this thing, so that we can all share beers here together, like this, at the end of the day.”

“It has been extremely humbling,” Fahey added. “The outpouring of support that we’ve seen from people. Everybody has things going on in their life. Everybody has challenges. The fact that people care enough to take some time out of what they’re doing and try to support us means the world. Overwhelming is the most appropriate word. Overwhelming in the best way. It is just awe inspiring and has helped strengthen our resolve to see this thing through.”

* * *

This whole experience has certainly put Swanson and Fahey through some of the toughest challenges they’ve ever faced. It has battered, but certainly not broken their spirit. Ever since they shared what happened to them publicly, breweries and friends from all over the country have come together to show their support, whether donating kegs, barrels, and other various equipment, or adding their names to the donation list on the GoFundMe, or even popping bottles of Keeping Together’s beer on social media in show of solidarity. 

That’s what the beer community does. When one of our own stumbles or falls, we come together and pick them up, and bring them back to where they belong, here, with us, together, among the collective strength of the community. Because we’re better together. More resilient together. And, that’s why one of the most fundamental pillars of any unified community is keeping together.

To Pat Fahey and Averie Swanson, and to having a beer with them at their soon-to-be beautiful new taproom and brewery.

Cheers!

— Luke

Epilogue

Do you remember in part one, when I said they both looked really familiar to me? Well, I remember watching Pat Fahey’s Cicerone classes on YouTube to learn about beer styles, back when I was giving beer tours in Downtown Santa Fe a *cringe* number of years ago. And back in 2016-17 a brewery buddy of mine shared some Jester King beer over Friendsgiving dinner, and I liked it so much I remember looking them up and finding an article, and reading all about none other than Averie Swanson. And now, we’ve come full circle. To learn more about Keeping Together check out their site.