Every town, particularly those affected by natural disasters, needs a champion or two.

Ruidoso has an entire brewery dedicated to its recovery after wildfires and subsequent flooding hammered the town over the course of this summer. Downshift Brewing is far from done, however, as that process continues for their surrounding community.

We caught up with co-owner/head brewer Eddie Gutierrez over Zoom this week to talk about the Collective Good project that Downshift has spearheaded, plus this Saturday’s epic Oktoberfest celebration.

“Collective Good is actually a beer brand that we’ve been making for a little while,” Gutierrez said. “When the fire started over here, we knew that we wanted to do something like this. We’d tossed around some different ideas in terms of doing something we didn’t already have. We really liked the name Collective Good for this project. It was trying to figure out the (other) pieces.”

After some back and forth among the Downshift team, the simplest answer was ultimately the best answer.

“Let’s just brew our (regular) kölsch, Collective Good, and invite others to do that,” Gutierrez said. “We were trying to do two things with the project — one is raise funds for people that lost their homes, and create awareness that Ruidoso is still here and doing well. All your tourism goes away after a disaster. Tourism is a huge part of Ruidoso. Someone might say, fire and flood didn’t take my house, but now my job is gone. We’re trying to help the community and keep it strong and help it bounce back.”

To that end, Downshift reached out to their suppliers and their fellow breweries.

“We approached breweries and basically pitched hey, join us if you would like,” Gutierrez said. “At the time, most breweries signed up. I was trying to get the raw materials donated. Most signed up before they were donated. We got the yeast and all the malt donated for this project, which is awesome. In this brewery market, suppliers were able to donate, and this is a tough market.”

The final list of Collective Good participants included nine from New Mexico — Canteen, Ex Novo, Icebox, Marble, Sidetrack, Sierra Blanca, Steel Bender, Spotted Dog — and three from Texas — Deadbeach, Old Sheepdog, Three Missions.

“Not everybody was able to participate in the format we’d lined out — here’s the recipe, call it Collective Good, and donate the funds,” Gutierrez said. “A good example is Steel Bender, with their flagship beer (Lloyd’s 3 O’Clock) being a kölsch, they couldn’t do that. Instead, all the taproom sales from that beer last weekend were donated.

“Ex Novo said they wanted to brew a big batch, they wanted to go to stores. They didn’t think kölsch had the legs, so they did a pale ale. Spotted Dog, they had a kölsch already, so they said what if we just come to your Oktoberfest and all the beer we sell there goes to it. Deadbeach did a variant on their pilsner and they blew through that already. We didn’t really care how they participated, as long as they donated money to the cause. We’ve got breweries as small as one-barrel up to Ex Novo brewed the largest batch, 40 barrels.”

Downshift saw the entire brewing industry step up, with many places around the state not even waiting for Collective Good to be announced before they already started holding fundraisers and donating portions of sales of various beers.

“It’s been incredible to see throughout this whole process,” Gutierrez said. “La Cumbre brewed Juntos IPA. They brewed it immediately. They sold it before I announced Collective Good. Canteen did a 5K (fundraiser). I’m finding out about these second hand. It’s just awesome to see that breweries are willing to step up and see these things.

“Canteen did a bunch of (early) fundraising, and then they’re doing Collective Good on top of that. It’s great. … The breweries here are woven into the fabric of the town or the county or the state. Whenever you have breweries that operate that way, they jump on opportunities like this. A lot of the people that agreed to do it, I’d never met before.”

Canteen did a helles lager for their Collective Good beer and it is on tap now. We will be announcing the rest of the participating breweries’ releases in future editions of The Week Ahead in Beer.

While all that is going on across the state, the aforementioned Ruidoso Oktoberfest is set for this Saturday at Downshift Riverside at 2704 Sudderth Dr in the heart of town, which has not been overly damaged by the fires or floods. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Ruidoso is fully up and running. There are hotels and cabins waiting to be booked, restaurants and retail stores ready to serve customers, and a community that just wants to feel like things are getting back to normal.

This party, which will run from 2 to 10 p.m., will feature guest breweries, German food, special contests, and live music galore. Fungi Mungle, Red Light Cameras, Die Polka Schlingels, Feline Fox, Doso Dirtbags, Chris Baker, Matt Palmer, and more will be split between the outdoor and indoor stages. Tickets are available online.

“For us, we’ve been doing Oktoberfest for three years,” Gutierrez said. “Ruidoso Oktoberfest has been around before that. This year we asked ourselves, can we do this? Can we pull off a large event? For the community, after getting hammered by the floods, the fires, we said let’s all get together and have some fun. The weather is supposed to be incredible.

“We’re hoping it’s positive on a bunch of different funds. From celebrating the brewers helping our community. We’re really trying to see if we can grow the event in a year like this. Can we bounce back? Whenever 2,000 or 3,000 people travel for this event, they’re going to be staying and shopping in town. We’re trying to have an impact, have one last hoorah before the slow season.”

As Gutierrez mentioned, some of the other Collective Good participants will be part of Oktoberfest, one way or another.

“One thing that we’re trying to do is all the breweries that participate in Collective Good received an invitation to come and pour beer,” he said. “Those that couldn’t do that, we still say come to Oktoberfest and participate (as our guests). We’re covering the hotel stay, and the ticket price. Celebrate the fact that you did this. That’s cool for those guys.”

Unexpected changes in work schedules mean that none of us in the Crew can make it down to Oktoberfest this weekend (we are very bummed), but if you feel the need to get out of town, hustle on down there. Lend Ruidoso a helping hand simply by attending a wonderful festival, make sure to say thanks to all the Downshift staff, and have some fun, darn it! After a year like this, everyone could use a proper party to welcome the new season.

A big thanks to Eddie for hopping on the old Zoom (it only took a few extra minutes to get that working again) during such a busy week. The next time you are in Albuquerque, sir, beers are on us. And, we will be making our way down to Ruidoso at some point soon, even if poor Andrew has to leave his lederhosen at home.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister