No one said opening a brewery was easy, in fact, they will probably tell you not to do it. They’d say it’s crazy opening a brewery, especially now. But, for the owners of Keeping Together, not opening was not an option. They were going to make it happen regardless of what they had to sacrifice to get there. And, even though giving up was certainly on the table many times throughout the process, quitting was simply not in store for Santa Fe’s newest brewery owners Averie Swanson and Pat Fahey.

If you’ve been following along with our previous stories (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and a bonus update) on Keeping Together, you already know that it has been one absolutely harrowing journey for Swanson and Fahey to get to where they are today. It has been the journey of a lifetime, filled with twists and turns, plenty of struggles, and the ultimate test of their grit. But, at long last, here they are, with everything to show for their efforts, a beautiful brewhouse worthy of Swanson’s excellent beer, and one of the most unique taprooms I’ve ever visited.

Perhaps you’ve already visited Keeping Together at some point during their several-months-long extended soft-opening, or perhaps you’re just hearing about them now for the first time. But on March 21, New Mexico’s newest addition to the beer community is declaring to the public that they are here, they have plenty of beer, and they are officially open for business.

It has taken a lot, I mean A LOT of hard work, perseverance, personal sacrifice, many sleepless nights, and never-ending days for this dream to become reality. Four months in and Swanson and Fahey are still reeling from the whole experience.

“It’s surreal,” Swanson said, as she sipped on the latest batch of her flagship beer. “It’s like feeling every human emotion at once — it’s overwhelming, it’s exciting, it’s stressful, but it also feels really, really good.”

“It’s easy to get lost in just how much there is to do still, but It’s pretty awesome to get to step back and appreciate the fact that  we got to this point, right here” Fahey said. “We overcame some pretty serious obstacles and we now are able to finally share this place with other people, with our community, and we’re about to throw a bitchin’ party to celebrate it.”

So let’s catch up a bit. It’s been three years since they secured the warehouse and large greenhouse space at 2908 Rufina Street, formerly belonging to Santa Fe Greenhouses.

It took a little over 10 months for them to get their permitting in order with the City of Santa Fe, which, as you know is difficult enough to do without any other issues in the way. But, it was also during that time that Keeping Together was given the horrible news that the manufacturer of the brewhouse they had already paid 90 percent for had gone out of business, with no plan of paying back the funds. Half-a-million dollars, gone, just like that.

Though very much daunted, they decided to keep going. They had to make a major pivot, but nevertheless they persisted. Permits in hand, they began construction in October 2024, which took about another 13 months to complete. Thankfully, they had an incredible architect that worked with them every step of the way.

Since then, the road to opening has been a little smoother, to say the very least, and they were another step closer to bringing their vision of a European beer garden meets desert oasis to life.

Keeping Together soft opened in November 2025. Over the past few months, during their ‘open-beta-test-of-a-soft-opening,’ they were anxious to see how the local community would receive them.

And since then, the original vision hasn’t changed, but how Swanson and Fahey imagined people would come in and use or enjoy the space has enlightened them. It has shown them that no matter how much you agonize over the little details, and try to make a space perfect, the way people choose to experience your space is ultimately going to be up to them. But, Swanson said they welcome it. They just want people to come in and experience the space however they want to, so long as they enjoy themselves.

During these past four months, Santa Fe has truly embraced the new brewery. The community has welcomed the transplants to the local scene, even though Santa Fe can be a little wary of transplants at times.

“We’re very cognizant of the fact that we’re not originally from this place, and are trying our best to sort of honor and respect what has been here before us in doing this, so we didn’t know exactly what the reception was going to be like,” Fahey said. “But, I have been overwhelmed by how positive the reception has been from our neighborhood and our community, and especially at this time of year. There aren’t a ton of tourists in town, so most of the people that are coming here and patronizing us are locals. At this point, the vast majority of the interactions we’ve had have been overwhelmingly positive, and that has been soul nourishing.”

“It makes me feel like what we’re doing does matter and is important, and people get it. You feel seen, and understood, and part of a bigger whole,” Swanson added.

Becoming part of the local community is not all about blending in, it’s also about what you bring to the table. In this case, Keeping Together brought something very special.

“If you were to ask someone other than us what we bring to the table,” Swanson mused. “My hope is that they would say, ‘It’s just such a unique space, and I feel like I am a part of it when I’m there.’ That is very much my intention and goal in the way that we are providing a hospitality experience to the people that walk through here. I want them to feel like they’re the only person in front of us. I want them to feel like they are seen and heard and included in something special.”

And, of course, one major thing, one deeply unique thing that they bring to the table is Swanson’s artistic and reverent take on the beers she makes.

“She can’t say this, but I can,” Fahey began to explain. “Averie makes incredible beer. And, I think one of our cornerstones is that everything that we are serving to people, everything that we put in front of people, is going to be very high quality. It’s going to be something that we would be willing to stand behind, whether it’s something that we made, or something from friends of ours at another brewery made, or from a winery here, or the cocktails that we’re putting together.

“Quality is definitely one of the cornerstones of what we do, and we want that to go without saying. We don’t want people to worry about that part. What we really want people to take away from our space is that they come in and they feel like they’re at home, feel like they’re just welcomed, and we want the hospitality to be such that it’s just both a comfortable and awesome experience that makes you want to come back.”

“People are not here to see us,” Swanson added. “They’re here to be with the people that they love and care about and share this experience with each other. And, to be able to hold space for people to have that experience is massive.”

Currently on the menu are five of their own beers and quite a few great choices from Albuquerque’s craft scene.

The first beer brewed at the new space is aptly named The Art of Holding Space. This saison is their house beer, light in color, something easy, approachable, and with an ABV so low as to take a backseat to your conversations with your friends and family.

Much like this one, balanced and drinkable is what Swanson is going for in all of her beers.

Also available is another saison called “Waiting to be Discovered,” made with cara cara oranges, red chile, and honey.

“I didn’t want there to be a ton of hot spice and capsaicin carryover. So the chile in there is super-duper soft,” Swanson said.

They also have a stout on tap called “Secret Affinities,” leaning a little more toward the Imperial side at 8.8-percent ABV. Finished with mesquite bean, it pays homage to ingredients used across time throughout the Southwestern region by the indigenous peoples in the area. The mesquite bean lends to the caramel brown sugar flavor profile that Swanson said she is going for. 

Brewed in collaboration with friends, Keeping Together also has a West Coast IPA and a Pilsner. Though they are both Swanson’s first attempts at the styles, her years of experience making beer at Jester King and beyond certainly shines through these very clear beers, like a flashlight through a sight glass.

“Those are on, and people seem to be enjoying them,” Swanson said. “There are some things I’d like to tweak in the next batches of those beers, but like Pat said, we wouldn’t put anything on that we didn’t think is quality or wouldn’t want to drink ourselves.”

Now that inspiration is flowing, there are plenty of beers on the way. With a Rose Cardamom beer being released the same week as this article, and a couple others planned for release by the grand opening.

As far as other offerings go, Keeping Together serves sodas and non-alcoholic beers, as well as a few snacks, and they have a food truck, which as of the writing of this article is likely already out there serving Argentinian burgers and empanadas. Though they don’t have a kitchen, they plan to have regular food trucks on site, with a potential for table service. As things progress, they will expand their hours and increase their staff as needed. But, speaking of which, you may already recognize a very familiar face behind the bar, Josh Johns, former owner and operator of local favorite Fire & Hops.

“When we got started, Josh was an easy choice to have as an addition to the team,” Fahey said. “He brings a ton of experience, both in the world of beer and in the world of Santa Fe. He was really an invaluable addition as somebody who could bridge both of those communities for us.”

Looking ahead to the grand opening, Swanson and Fahey have some fun things planned, kicking off grand opening weekend on Friday, March 20, with a pop-up exhibition by Neil Woody, a Master Cicerone from Kansas City. His demonstration, called Ritual Pour, will showcase various types of Japanese and Czech-style pouring techniques, and how you can get several very different experiences from different pours of the same keg.

“I thought that that would be a really fun and appropriate thing for us to do for the grand opening, because we really want to be able to share and showcase some of the more obscure beer culture that happens outside of here,” Swanson said.

Saturday, March 21 will be the big shindig. There will be live music, special beers, and the release of special merch as well. There is plenty more in store, but Keeping Together is keeping the surprises under wraps.

The next morning, the brewery will open up a little earlier and host a “Hangover Brunch” with food and plenty of brunch-y beverages. Oddbox Coffee will be there serving up their finest beverages of the caffeinated kind, and Grain of the Desert will also be in house to put some great pastries and artisanal bread in your bellies.

The future for the brewery with the greenhouse taproom is looking very bright (pun absolutely intended). But, for now, Fahey and Swanson just want to find their rhythm.

“We just want to figure out how we can best accommodate people that want to be here, including the many who have already reached out about private events or large parties,” Swanson said enthusiastically. “We want to be able to accommodate that the best we can, while making sure we can still accommodate the rest of our guests. So, figuring out what that looks like, getting into a good rhythm with beer production and cocktails, and collaborating more with other local makers in a way that feels good. I would love to do some beer dinners with some other chefs in town. There’s just like years of pent-up creative energy that I’m excited to be able to unleash now.”

“There is still a lot of things that we need to pin down from an operations perspective,” Fahey added. “To make sure that the place just works at a base level, so it continues to deliver the things that we want to do. And, I think it’s going to be the next, probably six to 12 months of getting those things really dialed in.”

I asked the two what the scariest part of opening a brewery was for them.

“Having our equipment evaporate and having to work with our bank to come back from that,” Fahey said. “It was truly a scary time period, in a way that I have not experienced in my life and hope to never experience again.”

“I think about it still,” Swanson said . “And, when that thing happened, it was like, better people have gone through worse things. And, at the end of the day, we still, for the most part, have our health, maybe not our hair, but our health-ish, and it’s put some things into perspective. And after that, at all of the other junctures since then where it was like, well this is fucking hard and this is fucking hard, we look at each other and know we’ve been through worse.”

Of the many lessons that they learned during this time, this one continues to be a work in progress for Fahey.

“I would say one lesson that I haven’t fully learned, but is an important lesson, is to recognize the big decisions and the little decisions and make the little decisions quickly,” Fahey explained. “Because when you do something like this, when you do any project of this scale, there are a million decisions that need to be made, and most of them don’t matter. Most of them, you’re deciding between a handful of things where it feels important at the time, and maybe it is important to some extent. But, at the end of the day, I could have gone with option A or B or C, and one might be incrementally better than the other two, but they’re all going to work. It’s all going to be fine.”

For both of them, the very best of the part of opening a brewery was finally seeing people enjoy their space.

“Definitely having people come in and experience it in the way that I’ve hoped people would and seeing it come together, that it’s real, and that it’s better than I thought it would be in a lot of ways,” Swanson said. “And, it really is just the culmination of so many people’s work and blood, sweat and tears, and it’s really a special thing.”

“We spent years working on this thing where it was just an idea and a dream in our heads, and then a drawing on a piece of paper, and then slowly, seeing the bones fill out and the finishing touches put on this space,” Fahey added. “But, even as we neared the end, it was still kind of just our little thing that we didn’t know how people were going to react to.

“But, the best thing to me, is seeing someone experience the space for the first time. Every time it happens, I get to enjoy their sort of awe at the space on their first visit. Every. Single. Time. And I love it. It’s the most gratifying thing. It is the most gratifying feeling to have worked so hard for so long on this thing, not knowing how it was going to work out, or if it was going to work out, and then to get to watch people enjoy it as much as we hoped that they would.”

Swanson and Fahey said they are very grateful to the local community that has so warmly embraced them and given a couple of transplants a chance to bloom in the high desert. But, most importantly, that community has given them a chance to do what they do best, which is bring a truly unique experience to the table, whether it’s the taproom itself, or Swanson’s beer.

When I first walked in and saw the twinkling patio lights strung up across the supporting beams, lighting up the greenhouse in a warm peaceful glow, and seeing the shiny surfaces, and that beautiful reflective backbar, I thought, wow, they did it. They really did it. They have brought something very special indeed to Santa Fe. And, like a moth to this beautiful new flame, I will be coming back again and again.

To Averie, Pat, the power of will, and of course to their continued success!

Cheers!

— Luke

Luke has been covering the Santa Fe beer scene and beyond for over 10 years.