It was back in May when Boese Brothers Brewing closed their original location downtown, ostensibly to undergo some renovations in the taproom.

It was about mid-autumn when Crew readers began to ask what was really happening, and we in turn reached out to owners/brothers George and Sam Boese. They pointed us to Gravity Bound owners/brothers Cameron and Chris Frigon, and we soon learned of a unique new partnership to share the brewing space between the two businesses.

I caught up with George Boese at his bustling Tramway taproom last week to discuss that move, and more, for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series.

“You’ve obviously heard about the big thing that changed for us was the whole arrangement we set up at the downtown brewery,” George said. “May was the last month we operated the bar downtown. In 2023, our intention was to build a new production brewery in Rio Rancho, and move what was our downtown operation out there. We got some of our preliminary estimates on the building project. It was about double what we wanted to spend on that. We were kind of like oh, maybe let’s not do that. Maybe we just keep the downtown bar closed and just use it as our brewery and as our distillery.

“Around that same time, while we were going through the decision-making process, Chris and Cameron approached us. They’re like, ‘Hey, we heard you’re moving to Rio Rancho and we want a bigger brewing operation.’ We started talking to them and we came up with this idea with my brother, Sam, where we don’t want to leave right now, we want to still use it as our production facility, but it’s a little larger than what we needed. It could certainly accommodate what they want, too. We did back and forth with them last year, and then they are now the renters of the patio and what used to be the downtown taproom. That was the big whirlwind.”

Boese Brothers may only be brewing and distilling downtown now, while Gravity Bound is taking over the taproom and patio out front and sharing the production space in the back, but there are still the four other Boese locations that are humming along.

The brewery still has the Tramway location just south of the Paseo del Norte intersection, plus Desert Dogs in Santa Fe just off the plaza, and there’s both the Los Alamos taproom and the Long Pour cocktail bar right next to it. Those are all keeping George and Sam plenty busy, and George said that part of the reason they closed the downtown taproom was that it was simply too much for two people to manage.

“We have been building or remodeling our taprooms since we opened Desert Dogs, which was in 2017,” George said. “The summer of 2017, that was our first offsite location that we set up. But, since we’ve done that, we’ve gone from that in 2017, this place (Tramway) opened in 2018. Los Alamos Boese Brothers opened in 2019. 2020, we did patio expansions because of COVID. We added a patio here. We added a patio in Los Alamos. 2021, we got the Long Pour open. 2022-23, we remodeled Desert Dogs. It’s nice to not be working on a building project.”

The Desert Dogs expansion/remodel was finished last spring, doubling their footprint in size. They upgraded the kitchen and also added a stage to begin bringing in musical acts.

Up in Los Alamos, Boese Brothers oversaw the Summer Concert Series, though George said they will probably pass the torch on that.

“My wife and I did it as a side project the last two years,” he said. “She was very busy with her business and launching another business, and we were very worn out. It’s that (permits), and remembering to get the little armbands, hiring more people because we don’t have enough staff in Los Alamos. It’s a million little things.”

If there was a clear sign of fatigue, it was when Boese Brothers did not organize a big Oktoberfest party in Los Alamos last fall.

“We did a couple larger Oktoberfests in 2022 and 2023 in Los Alamos,” George said. “But, we might bring back a larger Oktoberfest party, (only) we might do it in the park that’s adjacent to Boese Brothers Los Alamos rather than Ashley Pond. You do Ashley Pond, you have to deal with the county, you have to figure out how to get bathrooms up there. We literally move a restaurant up there during the day and then move it back. It’s easier to leave the equipment where it is and do the concert side of it. That’s something we’re planning to do again. That’s a lot of fun to do, throw on the lederhosen.”

Overall, 2025 does not project to be a year where Boese Brothers needs to break out the hard hats and big tools again.

“Right now, we’re not thinking of expanding anything,” George said. “In terms of ideas of moving the brewery (in the future), as grim as it might sound, we’re considering the possibility of rather than moving the brewery to a brand-new facility, there’s a potential that in the next five years something that we love might become available. We could move in without having to do an extensive building project.”

For now, though, Boese Brothers has a five-year lease to keep brewing and distilling downtown in the now-shared space with Gravity Bound.

Speaking of brewing and distilling, George said that they have recently released two new products on the latter side, a rye whiskey aged in maplewood, and an añejo tequila aged for two years in bourbon barrels. Beers on deck include popular spring seasonals like Irish Red and Zeus Juice IPA.

It might also soon be easier to take some Boese Brothers beers home for anyone visiting the taprooms.

“Chris and Cameron are going to move, I think, their canning machine over to the brewery,” George said. “There’s a possibility that we’ll do our Strangehop IPA, hazy, and Mexican lager in cans. But, we would keep that as something we would only sell at the taprooms. Right now we’re not looking to put cans in stores, we’re not looking to get back into kegs at restaurants. We had already backed away from that. We’re going to stick with operating our bars this year.”

George said that back in 2017-18 that Boese Brothers had closed to 100 keg accounts between the Albuquerque and Santa Fe metro areas. That was ultimately another thing that wore them out, and they pulled back after COVID in 2020-21, eventually ending all of their offsite accounts and sticking with just pouring at their own taprooms.

Even with the big changes downtown, Boese Brothers is not going anywhere anytime soon. The Tramway taproom crowd continued to get bigger and bigger as our interview went along, and the Crew writers in Los Alamos and Santa Fe have reported those locations are also doing quite well. The shared brewing arrangement downtown should benefit both Boese Brothers and Gravity Bound, and in the end we will chalk all of this up as a success story.

Those are rare in this day and age, so we will raise our horns to the good times continuing at Boese Brothers. A big thanks to George for the interview on a very busy night in the far Northeast Heights.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister