It would be quite all right if Ex Novo Brewing founder Joel Gregory and his team were to take some time off, rest on their laurels, and bask in the glow of opening their downtown location before jumping back into things.

That is not, however, how things tend to work in business, so everyone at both Ex Novo locations are back working hard even through the slow time of the year.

“I think I have, I don’t know if other folks actually running it have,” Joel said when asked if he had taken a breather since downtown opened. “Through October was very hectic. Projects like that, that’s how it goes, you want to have enough time to train, but you never do. We have to open this thing. … That was very much the case down there. I think it’s settled. I think we were able to focus more on what we’re doing instead of just being open for business. It was a big shift, a real big shift.”

I caught up with Joel, his brother and sales manager James Gregory, and the new Corrales general manager Josh Baca for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series last week. A lot happened for the brewery in 2024, with downtown being the most notable change from years past.

It certainly helped the mental state of everyone with how fast they managed to go from shovels in the ground to a fully functional restaurant and taproom at Central Avenue and Seventh Street.

“We didn’t come across anything too out of the ordinary,” Joel said. “You don’t do a big construction project and assume there won’t be any delays. All of that was a given. When I look back, I’m struck by how fast we got it built. We were planning and designing it for three years. When we started, getting it done in less than a year, I think is pretty wild for a project that side. I see a lot of construction projects that drag out longer than that, that are a lot smaller in scope.”

James said it helped that they waited to finish Sammy’s Cafe and Deli, the final part of the downtown project, until after the main restaurant opened.

“That was helpful, because it would have been overload, I think,” he said.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Joel replied. “We knew it would be busy for a lot of reasons. We just need to make sure we can deliver, which is a nice problem to have, but it’s real. This will be a line out the door from day one, and it’s not easy to do quality with volume. That was the whole challenge. Yes, we know what we’re doing. Yes, we have professionals in the kitchen and in the front of house.

“It was really busy from day one without a lot of training. While we had some not-so-stellar experiences during that time, as we were growing, but a lot of people came through, thousands and thousands of people, and had a great experience. I’m proud of everybody for that effort.”

Now Ex Novo will see what a full year of operation will look like, and how things like seasonality will affect business.

“January is the worst, but it’s not been as bad there, being a restaurant,” Joel said. “People don’t take January off of eating, so that’s good.”

A new location, one so far from the Corrales brewery, also means a new audience. So far, though, there has not been a noticeable difference in what beers customers like to drink. Joel said that the Mexican Lager and Mass Ascension IPA remain the best sellers downtown, just like Corrales, followed by seasonal lagers and IPAs.

“It is a different audience,” Joel said. “We certainly sell more cocktails. That’s a bit of a surprise. I know we would, especially since we went for the full liquor license, and I’m glad we did. Downtown moves a really good amount of beer, and it would move more if we didn’t have cocktails. Overall, it’s good to have that for the downtown scene.”

James said the crowds are different in how people go for the restaurant experience downtown and the brewery experience in Corrales, which Joel added is most easily seen in packaged beer sales. They sell cases out of Corrales but only a few cans and bottles downtown.

Speaking of package sales, that is where most of the issues seem to be these days for breweries nationwide. James explained that Ex Novo is not immune to some of the downward trends, but that overall things are still going fairly well compared to other breweries across the country.

“I’ll jump in first for the wholesale stuff,” James said. “I don’t think it’s as bad as people say it is, from an us perspective. When you’re looking at craft beer numbers and beer (sales) numbers nationwide, it paints a picture. When you break it down to a smaller state, smaller audience, and then one brewery out of that, we still grew last year. It was not as explosive as years past. It’s honestly kind of the course correction that needed to happen. We couldn’t continue to grow at that clip. It’s actually sort of plateaued when it needed to for us, from a production standpoint. Joel said no more big, steel tanks.”

Joel went on to say that Ex Novo set a sales mark and was able to hit it, even with one area where the numbers dipped.

“The area where we got hit last year was our out-of-state distribution,” Joel said. “That’s not surprising with what you hear in national news. We’ve been seeing that for years. It was not all of a sudden. Everyone gets local breweries and those local breweries get better, as that tends to happen.”

Even in places like West Texas, where breweries are few and far between (and a few more closed in El Paso this past year), sales took a dip. Joel said that just meant Ex Novo had to bear down on sales within New Mexico, which ultimately paid off. Well, that and adding 20 more tap handles at the downtown location to sell pints over the bar top.

“I’m feeling more and more good about the timing of downtown,” Joel added. “To have more outlets to sell over the bar with the wholesale struggles. The business we’re in here with Premier, and seeing how to grow that as well. I think you’re seeing that from everybody. Everybody that’s been very wholesale focused, (are now saying) we need some taprooms.”

Joel was quick to add that he was quite content with two locations now, so no one should expect Ex Novo to suddenly mimic other local breweries that keep opening taproom after taproom.

Part of a renewed focus will be back on the taproom in Corrales, where Josh has been hired to run the show, enabling Stevo Jeter to move up to director of human resources for the company. Josh brings plenty of experience, having most recently managed Marble’s Westside Taproom.

“I’m just a beer nerd that happens to be decent at writing a schedule and bringing a team together,” he said. “I bring my expertise in doing that over the last seven years elsewhere (to) here. I have a ton of support from everyone here so far, these two fine gentlemen. I’m just kind of learning the ropes.

“One of my goals, and I was talking with Joel yesterday, is getting Corrales excited about beer again. Beer releases, beer-centric events, things like that. I’m really pumped about any new beer, so I hope that trickles down.”

“Bringing Josh on, which is a huge hire, it’s very aligned with how we approach service and the beer community,” Joel added.

That also means keeping the beers flowing. Ex Novo averaged more than one new release per week in 2024, with 75 beers in total. That included the collaboration beers that they did for their 10th anniversary as a company back in July, the Decem Series, as well as three fresh-hop beers, the State Fair beer, and a slew of new recipes and returning favorites.

One in particular stood out to James.

“Bury Me in Smoke has been a fun project that we brought back, using terpenes,” he said. “We have a couple terpene hazies coming out this year, so I’m probably getting ahead of myself, but we’re getting back to using a local supplier, hopefully. We want that to be local again. That’s a super-fun hazy IPA that’s so punchy with flavor.”

Joel talked a little more about those fresh-hop beers.

“We went a little heavy on fresh-hop beers last year,” he said. “We did three different versions. We’ll change it up a little bit this year. More education needs to happen across the board, across the industry on fresh hops and how damn exciting they really and how you should go drink them.”

Ex Novo also made a change in packaging for their biggest (by ABV) winter seasonals.

“Kill the Sun and Nevermore were different this year,” James said. “We moved back to 500mL bottles, which I thought was a really fun thing to do. That actually came out of a small Jubilation collab that we did (Elijah’s Old Buffalo). They gave us some cool barrels, and we’re like it’s too small to can and we had such a hard time canning Kill the Sun before, so let’s just bottle this.”

“I think that’s exciting,” Joel added. “It’s not been long enough to be a throwback, but everything got in cans all of a sudden everything, including these decadent beers. I kind of miss the bottle shop presentation of some of those annual releases.”

Josh noted that they were sold out of the bottles of Kill the Sun in less than two weeks, so yes, it appears that the format change was a big hit.

As for looking ahead on the beer front, James said he does not expect to brew the official State Fair beer for a third year in a row, as the Expo New Mexico team prefers to rotate it between breweries every couple of years. If, however, they want to work on it again with Ex Novo, James said they would be willing. But, if not, “we can lean harder into Oktoberfest, since that came out at the same time.”

One new addition to the packaging lineup is not a new brew but a new format. Ex Novo will begin selling 12-packs of 12-ounce cans of Mass Ascension this year. We foresee those popping up quite frequently at events like New Mexico United tailgates.

“We’re pretty optimistic about that, especially based on how the 12-packs of Mexican Lager have sold comparatively to the four-packs and six-packs,” James said. “That was one where I give a lot of credit to our distributor (Premier) not pushing, but saying I think this is the next thing you should do.”

On the events front, one popular festival will be back for the third year in a row, while another will return for the second time in New Mexico.

“United in Beer will happen, similar timeframe,” Joel said, referring to the selection/pairing event in late February and the actual festival in mid-May, give or take a week or two.

“We want to bring back Lagerhosen,” Joel added. “We had a false start with it last year. We sent out invites to breweries, but then we thought this was crazy just one month after opening downtown. That was too much. We called it off. That was the right move. We’re aiming to do it in early fall. Look for a lot of those similar hype-y national lager breweries, as well as the best around town.”

And yes, they mentioned Bierstadt Lagerhaus as one they will invite to come down again, so nobody worry about that. Look for more information on that event over the summer, with a late summer/early fall target date at the downtown location.

As for smaller events, Josh has some ideas for the taproom, including a special Valentine’s Day event that sounds so unique, we cannot let the cat out of the proverbial bag just yet, lest anyone else try to steal it.

“I’d love to toy around with the music,” Josh added. “I know it hasn’t been the most successful here.”

“It has and hasn’t, it just depends,” Joel replied. “Downtown, also, we built a stage. We’re opening that for regularly scheduled music this spring. I want to do Sundays, especially, get the good vibes flowing on those evenings. I think those will play together. We’ll find out about artists we like working with, see if our availability and theirs matches up.”

So while everyone can put away the hard hats and blueprints for a year, it will still be a busy and productive year ahead for Ex Novo. There will be beer, events, food downtown, and good times all around. A big thank you to Joel, James, and Josh for taking the time to sit down and chat. It is always appreciated.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister