For the first time in history, a brewery has won the New Mexico Brewers Guild Stout Invitational in consecutive years.

Tractor Brewing prevailed with 30 votes for their second straight win, edging out Nexus Brewery, which had 29, in the annual event at Bathtub Row Brewing in Los Alamos.

“It was really funny, I didn’t sample any of the beers, I didn’t know what number we were,” said Tractor head brewer TJ Frederich. “Jeremy (Kinter) and I were looking at the ballot box. It was so evenly distributed. We had two kegs float. There’s no way we win this. I was just as shocked as anyone.”

As a witness to the process, I can confirm that Frederich was surprised when NMBG executive director Ebbie Edmonston called him forward to say that his beer was the winner.

Tractor took Midnight Cowgirl Coffee Stout, a collaboration with Flying Star/Satellite Coffee, this year after winning with a different stout last year.

“It all goes back to last year,” Frederich said. “We were back and forth on what beer we were going to send. We decided to send Double Stuffed Stout. It was back and forth in the brewery. We had a five-person vote. It was 2-2 when I cast the deciding vote. It was almost the Cowgirl last year.”

Frederich said he started calling out for Tractor to be able to defend their title, as usually the draw was a purely random lottery with only host Bathtub Row guaranteed a spot, with the Guild after Tractor won their first gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival last October.

It worked, and the Albuquerque brewery was able to get a shot to make it back-to-back, and it paid off. Frederich credited his entire brewing team when he spoke before the crowd at Bathtub Row and in our interview afterwards.

“I think it goes back to the changes we made in the brew process,” Frederich said. “It wasn’t an overnight change, it wasn’t something where I said we needed to fix it, we just worked through the entire process. We all went to CNM, we all graduated from CNM, having those different sets of eyes in the brewery looking at problems. We know how to solve them. These guys have just been stepping up at the plate. They truly care about the beer.”

Milton’s and Ponderosa tied for third place with 18 votes, and Flix Brewhouse was fifth with 14 votes. Here is a list of which beer was which on the trays for all three tasting sessions, plus the identity of the beers themselves.

• No. 1 Flix Brewhouse, Whiskey Morning Coffee, BA Oatmeal Stout (5.7% ABV, 30 IBU)
• No. 2 Quarter Celtic, Midnight Blend, Coffee Stout (8.6%, 45)
• No. 3 Rio Bravo, O’Bravo, Irish Stout (8%, 40)
• No. 4 Milton’s, Mullet Milk Stout (7.3%)
• No. 5 Ponderosa, Berry Noire, Milk Stout (5%, 36)
• No. 6 Red River, Russian Imperial Stout (9.6%, 40)
• No. 7 Tractor, Midnight Cowgirl, Coffee Stout (9.5%, 70)
• No. 8 Cloudcroft, American Oatmeal Stout (6%, 30)
• No. 9 Nexus, Lush American Stout (6.8%, 40)
• No. 10 Bathtub Row, Black Mesa Stout, American STout (6.9%, 60)
• No. 11 Thirsty Eye, Aldo’s Last Stand, American Stout (6.5%, 60)
• No. 12 Piedra Blanca, Oatmeal Stout (5.2%, 40)
• No. 13 Canteen, Work of Heart, Chocolate Milk Stout (6.5%, 25)
• No. 14 Nuckolls, Locomole (6.5%)
• No. 15 Beer Creek, Bogtrotter, Dry Irish Stout (5.9%, 28)

A huge thank you to the New Mexico Brewers Guild and Bathtub Row for putting on this event year after year. It is a wonderful celebration of stouts, and this year’s field was the strongest to date. For the record, I picked Canteen’s Work of Heart, but there were no wrong selections for anyone.

Oh, and the best part? Just about every single one of those beers are currently on tap at their respective breweries. Make sure to get out there and try them yourselves.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister