When the phone rings these days, New Mexico Brewers Guild executive director Ebbie Edmonston braces herself for another round of media questions relating to all the doom and gloom around the craft beer industry.

Trust me, on that point I can sympathize, especially of late. Edmonston, though, handles it all with aplomb, keeping the focus right where it belongs on how it’s more important than ever to keep supporting local.

“We have a saying that it’s either buy local, or bye local,” she said.

I caught up Edmonston for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series this week. We also went over some fun new changes for the upcoming WinterBrew (January 23 in Santa Fe, buy tickets now) that will be in a separate feature.

As we have done in all of our year-in-review series articles to date, we have kept things to three main questions, asking what was the biggest challenge of 2025, the biggest accomplishment, and the hope/goal/dream for 2026.

“I think the biggest challenge for the Guild for 2025 was definitely just the state of the industry as a whole,” Edmonston said. “It felt like we kept getting kicked in the shins as far as starting off the year with talking about the tariffs, and then just everything that was happening with the larger breweries this year. That put a damper on the industry as a whole, especially for New Mexico. It was a bit of a sad year. We didn’t see a lot of closures in our state, but looking outside it’s getting you prepared for what you’re going to see closer to home.”

Bossfight, Harmon Lane, and Cazuela’s were the notable closures in the Albuquerque metro area up until the very end of 2025, when Bosque Brewing shuttered the doors of the fourth biggest brewery by barrels produced and largest in terms of number of taprooms. That last move certainly sent shock waves through the state, though as Edmonston has stated in her many interviews with other media outlets, a lot of those problems and that sheer amount of debt were unique to Bosque and not entirely the fault of the perceived national decline of the industry.

“It kind of seems like every time I’m getting an interview request the industry is seeing a downturn, we’re facing closures or other (difficult) issues,” she said. “(But) there’s also breweries out there doing such great things. They’re putting on events, raising money for local causes, coming out with new beverages. There’s still cool stuff happening.”

Which brings us to that second question about the biggest accomplishment of 2025. While usually an executive director could just say that it was surviving another IPA Challenge and be totally serious about that, Edmonston replied that this year it was more about keeping almost all of the events humming along.

“That is a tough question,” she said. “I want to say that we did really well in all of our events this year. There are a couple things we tried that didn’t work out. But, for the most part, those big events are always such an accomplishment. People don’t know all the work that goes into it. The events committee and our board of directors stepped up and did a lot of work. Credit to all of those guys. They’ve done a great job helping the Guild survive and helping us grow.”

As the first major event of 2026 appears on the horizon, Edmonston said the hopes and goals for the Guild are rooted right here.

“I think I just really want to not necessarily take a step back, but focus more on the community,” she said. “Like we were talking about with the state of the industry, we need to come back to why are we doing this. We need to be there for one another. Focus on improving those relations, visiting each other more, supporting as best we can. It’s going to be a tough year. We’re only going to get through it by sticking together. I guarantee, if anyone has an issue, somebody in the New Mexico beer community has an answer.”

Oh, and as for the upcoming legislative session, Edmonston said there will be another bill that aims to increase the excise tax on breweries, wineries, distilleries, and more.

“We’re mentally prepared to defend (against it) every year,” she said. “That’s the one bill we know.”

We certainly wish the Guild a lot of luck there. Another added cost could be very difficult for breweries to swallow. But, like Edmonston, we will keep focusing on the positive and reminding folks that supporting local is the best way to keep local around.

A big thanks to Ebbie for the interview. As we said, look for our first WinterBrew preview soon, and then we will publish the beer lists when we get closer to the actual day of the event January 23.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister