Been a minute since we did one of these, but enough items surfaced that it was time to dust off the old beer notebook.

To kick things off, the 2025 edition of the New Mexico Brewers Guild IPA Challenge now has set dates and locations for its three public rounds this July. Tickets go on sale this Friday and we will be sure to share the link when it becomes active.

As always, there will be a preliminary round to narrow down the field to the final 16 entries. That is closed to the public, with just brewery representatives voting in a blind tasting, but the Crew will do our best to show up towards the end to record the results. Those will be publicized July 5.

Things will then kick off for the public vote at The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing’s headquarters location on July 12.

Icebox Brewing’s main location in Las Cruces will host the second round on July 19.

Everything will then wrap up July 26 with the final round, held over three separate sessions at Canteen Brewhouse. This will be the first time Canteen has hosted since 2012, which was also the first year the Crew existed and covered the NMIPAC. The hosts, still known as Il Vicino Brewing, won their fourth consecutive trophy that year, a streak still unmatched by any other brewery in the event’s long history.

Name change alert

The folks over at Vision City Brewstillery promised that there would be some changes coming, but a whole new name was not something that we anticipated.

Calavida Cantina is apparently the new moniker for the combined brewery/distillery. It marks the first time in a while a brewery underwent a full rebrand that included their name, possibly dating back to when Ale Republic became Rumor Brewing. If there was anything more recent, that may have involved a full ownership change (Kilt Check to Bossfight) or possibly a sort of forced rebrand (Drafty Kilt to Kilt Check).

We know there has been a change to the ownership group, but at least a couple of the original guys remain. Hopefully we can set up a time soon to do a formal interview about the name change and see what else they have planned over at Vision, er, Calavida.

Only the finest collaborations

The United in Beer festival was a big hit this past Saturday at Ex Novo’s The Corral, smoky skies be damned. The weather was close to perfect otherwise, the food trucks were filling, the games were a hoot, and fun was had by just about everyone present.

Now the collaboration beers featured at the event at beginning to pop up at their respective breweries’ main locations. Here is the final tally of what was what, and which ones we particularly liked.

• Flock of Moons/The Tatted Bee: If the Chouffe Fits, SMASH ale
• Icebox/Sidetrack: All Hops, No Rakes, West Coast IPA
• Nuckolls/The Painted Lady: The Signal-Man ESB, Classic UK, and Zanetti Gose, Fruited Gose
• La Reforma/Second Street: Helles, European Lager
• Santa Fe/Turtle Mountain: Santa Tortuga, Dark Lager
• Downshift/Ponderosa: Common Courtesy, Classic North American
• Brew Lab 101/Ex Novo: Felt Cuke, Might Delete Later, Light Ale
• Quarter Celtic/Sunday Service: United in Haze, Hazy IPA, and Fonio Pils, Hoppy Lager
• Bosque/Rowley Farmhouse Ales: Red Card, Red Lager
• Bathtub Row/Thirsty Eye: Orange You Glad it’s Just a Passion Phase?, Experimental IPA

The most unique offering in there was the Zanetti Gose, which featured peaches, rosemary, and a little ghost pepper. Our friend Roger Pacheco confirmed that it is on tap at Nuckolls.

The second most unique was Fonio Pils, which used a type of African grain called Fonio. As he is wont to do, Quarter Celtic’s Brady McKeown gave us a full scientific background on this grain. We, however, were drinking and can only recall that it can be tough to brew with, but the final beer turned out quite well. They threw in a little dash of Nelson Sauvin hops to create a very different take on your traditional hop-forward lager.

Other favorites among the Crew included the Helles (naturally), Santa Tortuga, The Signal-Man, Red Card, and Common Courtesy (which really reminded us that we need to get down to Ruidoso). The most surprising to me, personally, was Felt Cuke, Might Delete Later, since I am generally not a fan of cucumber. But, this one worked, quite well in fact, and gave a lot more flavor to this light lager than most of that genre.

In the end, a big tip of the cap to the Ex Novo staff and all the volunteers from the other participating breweries. This was a great event to kick off summer festival season. Here are a few more photos of our favorite people at the event.

That is all for this notebook, but as always if you see/hear of any beer news out there, please drop us a DM on social media or email us at nmdarksidebrewcrew@gmail.com.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister