Whenever we set out to do a Look Back/Look Ahead Series article, at some of the larger breweries it can simply be about availability when it comes to which person or persons we interview.

Of late, our Boxing Bear interviews have typically been with co-owner/director of brewing operations Justin Hamilton and/or events coordinator Astrid Galarza. This time around, though, it was co-owner Kevin Davis who was available, and for a second, we got a little worried. Davis runs the business side of Boxing Bear. Uh-oh, was this going to be a doom-and-gloom financial outlook type of story?

Nope, not at all, as it turned out. In fact, things are looking up at Boxing Bear, as we learned from Davis over the course of an early-morning interview last week.

“We’re very optimistic here,” he said. “Rumor has it, according to Nico (Ortiz) at Turtle Mountain, that Kevin Davis is a very frugal businessman. That’s putting it nicely. He’s kind of right, I’m always the one that’s pinching the pennies, watching costs, minding everyone’s business in the company.”

Davis said all of that with a smile, which said a lot about the state of affairs at Boxing Bear, especially coming from the man who often has to tell his brewers no, we cannot afford that, so do not buy it.

That things are looking up at all is a blessing in this day and age. Davis and the rest of the ownership team did have to make a couple difficult decisions earlier in 2024 that changed a lot about Boxing Bear.

“Last year was an interesting year for us,” Davis said. “We closed a couple of taprooms down. The (second) taproom we closed down, our original location in Corrales, was not so much a factor of we didn’t want to be there selling beer. We loved that taproom, sold a lot of beer there. We outgrew the brewery section.

“That intersection and that shopping center is prime real estate. It’s expensive, and we were paying for 8,200 square feet and we were only using about 2,000. There was really no way for the landlord to subdivide it. We weren’t able to reach an agreement on a smaller footprint. We knew we’d end up having to move out when we opened up the Firestone location. So we waited out the lease and when the lease was up, we moved out.”

At least that building did not stay vacant for too long, as Vision City moved in later in the year. The same cannot be said for the first taproom that Boxing Bear closed.

“The other one, West Downtown, we also closed,” Davis said. “That was a real heartbreaker, because it was a great location. When we opened in 2019 over there, we were absolutely killing it. That taproom is productive. There were restaurants in the local shopping center. Everybody fed off each other. It was the perfect situation for us.”

Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic hit and everything shut down. Davis said that when things were reopened by the state, most of the other businesses in the area failed to rebound, with a number of restaurants closing or shortening their hours.

“And so, we saw our customer counts drop as all these restaurants started to close,” he said. “Unfortunately, we had to make a tough decision down there. We hated to do it. We spent a good bit of money moving in, but it is what it is.”

While those taprooms closed, the two remaining locations — the Firestone taproom/brewery and the Bridges on Tramway taproom — were able to flourish.

Davis was quick to credit Galarza with bringing a strong events calendar to Firestone, which helped turn the slower days and times into busy ones.

“Astrid is our event coordinator, among other things, and she does a fabulous job,” he said. “She has a lot of contacts and she has a lot of outstanding ideas to keep things new. You’re right, we’re in an industrial area that’s not close to residential (neighborhoods), we have to do things a little bit differently here. Astrid has done wonders for us as far as getting people in the taproom and keeping everything interesting.”

Another big plus for Firestone has been the opening of the Bear Kitchen, which in particular kicked up business during the Balloon Fiesta, after that had normally been a quieter stretch of business.

“Another thing we did, too, was Tony and Steven got together and decided that we could do pretty good with a kitchen here,” Davis said. “And so, back in May we opened our kitchen, it’s just a little kitchen, but we’re kind of doing the same menu we used to do in Corrales before COVID hit. It seems to be working out pretty good. They’re doing an amazing job on the quality of food. We are constantly experimenting with new ideas with those two. I eat here a lot, just because the food is good. We never used to do that over in Corrales.”

Davis said their weekday lunch-hour traffic has picked up, too.

“We didn’t ever need to do that (open a kitchen) up at Bridges because it’s almost like a food court up there,” Davis added. “We just service all the customers to come in and they buy their food over at Tako Ten or over at (Thai Street), and that works out good for everybody.”

While the two brick-and-mortar locations are doing well, packaged beer sales have been up and down across the industry. Davis said Boxing Bear is seeing an increase in sales there, though he is cautious when it comes to assuming that things will never level off.

“Right now, I think our sales are going pretty good, because we’re pretty new to the package game,” he said. “We’ve only been seriously packaging for four years. We did sign with Admiral a few years back. Slowly, they’re getting us into more and more accounts. It’s kind of a team effort. It can’t be just Admiral pushing our product. We have to send representatives out to meet with retailers and talk to them. Admiral is doing a fairly good job for us, but our crew is doing a good job, too.”

Package sales did grow by 25 percent from 2023 to 2024, and Davis said early projections have Boxing Bear on course for similar growth in 2025. The next goal for Boxing Bear and their distributor, Admiral, will be to get cans on the shelves in chain stores like Walmart and Smith’s.

All of that has helped Boxing Bear pay down some debt, too.

“We were very fortunate this year, we got a big chunk of some debt service paid off, which really helped us,” Davis said. “Interest rates have been climbing. Getting that paid off really helped us. Now we owe a little bit of money, but not a lot. Once we get that paid off in a few years, we’ll be in a lot better shape.”

Boxing Bear is also still capable of growing on the brewing side of the business without having to order more stainless steel tanks.

“We’re fortunate in that we’ve got enough assets, enough equipment in the brewery, we can probably increase our production I’d say probably 60 to 70 percent of what we’re producing now without having to buy new equipment,” Davis said. “We’ve got room to grow, and we won’t have to borrow money to take on new growth. That’s one positive that we have. Getting out of debt is a big thing for any business.”

One other positive was Boxing Bear’s return to the medal stand, so to speak, after an old stalwart picked up a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival, some seven years since the brewery’s last major award.

“It’s been a long time,” Davis said. “It’s with our old tried and true Chocolate Milk Stout. That beer, a lot of people like that beer, it’s one of our top sellers. It’s amazing how that beer took over. My favorite stout that we used to have as a house stout was Standing 8. It’s a really good stout. They make Chocolate Milk Stout as a seasonal one-off, and then they enter it into a competition and it wins a medal. Everyone starts liking it, so they have to take my favorite stout off because they have to keep CMS on. It’s just the way it works out.”

At least Standing 8 is back on tap right now for a limited time, so Davis said he has been a happy guy with his after-work pint.

As for the rest of 2025, notable events like Bear Fest and Dogtoberfest are already up on the big office calendar. Davis said he and the rest of the staff are looking forward to just about everything coming down the pipeline at both taprooms and beyond.

“We think that we’re going to continue growing sales here at Firestone because Astrid is doing a great job with new (event) ideas,” he said. “I think our food menu, once people start realizing that we have good food here, I think we’re going to be selling more beer because people are coming in to eat, too. We’re really optimistic about our potential to grow sales here at the Firestone location.

“Our Bridges location has always been a good, solid location for us. There’s a new barbecue place that’s going to be moving in, in lieu of the pizza place that was there for a while. We’re excited about that potential, too.”

And, of course, there is that optimism for further growth in package sales.

“Also, we’re really excited about Admiral and the distribution side of it, working with those guys to grow our sales,” Davis said. “We’re still not in all of the chain accounts. We’re not in Walmart, we’re not in Smith’s yet. We’re in a couple of test stores, but there’s a lot of accounts we’re not in yet. When the spring and fall resets hit, we’re hoping to get a lot more placements.”

A big thanks to Kevin for taking the time to sit down and have a nice long chat. It was good to talk after mostly just seeing each other in passing at various events. We are quite glad to hear that things are going good at another of our local breweries, bucking that downward trend we keep reading about across the nation.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister