Brothers Chris and Cameron Frigon went and did a crazy thing last year.

Sure, they already had their hands full with Gravity Bound Brewing, but then they went ahead and opened Lasso Brewing on the other side of downtown. When one brewery is keeping you plenty busy, you open another one, right? Right?

We gathered at Lasso last week to discuss the new challenge of managing two similar, yet different brewing operations, for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series. Since Gravity Bound is the older sibling, we started there with our three main questions, asking what was the biggest challenge of 2025, the biggest accomplishment, and the plan/goal/objective for 2026.

“Well, it was a balancing act,” Cameron said of the challenge. “Giving Gravity Bound the attention and care that it deserves while trying to like open Lasso. You know what I’m saying? … It was trying to figure out where to apply our resources, and our time, and our energy, and make everything work as well as possible.”

For all intents and purposes, overcoming that challenge was the biggest accomplishment.

“Last year was really good for Gravity Bound,” Chris said. “Obviously with Cameron’s and my time just split between, our staff really kind of picked up the slack, and made it as seamless as possible. So I think it was a really good growing year, and just having our crew just really just kind of take the reins over there and let us have us the space to accomplish (Lasso).”

“We’re fortunate that pretty much our entire bar staff has been there for years now,” Cameron added. “And so, they know how the place runs, they just know how to do it.”

Now that Lasso is open, it can provide something that Gravity Bound lacked behind the scenes —more brewing capacity.

“You know, the purpose of the expansion was also to produce more beer over at Gravity Bound,” Chris said. “In the past almost six years now, we (kept) on running into these big bottlenecks with the the size of the (brewing) system over at GB. And now we think we’ve sort of fixed that. So I think that the plan now is just put out great beer more often. We’re going to have a little bit more of depth on our tap list throughout the year.

“And then, more events and just do the things that we haven’t been able to do for six years.”

As for Lasso, it should come as no surprise that the biggest challenge of 2025 and biggest accomplishment were pretty much the exact same thing, namely just getting the doors open.

“There was just all of it, I think,” Chris said. “I mean, we had to create a brand-new brewery. We’re Gravity Bound people, and we had to give this place its own life, its own brand, its own feel.”

One notable way that Lasso differs from Gravity Bound is the menu itself. Sure, there are only lagers on tap, but the menu is more than just beer.

“I mean, there’s also coffee and cocktails, right?” Cameron said. “Like, it’s not just a brewery, necessarily, it was taking — perhaps it’s better to say applying — some of those skills that we learned from Gravity Bound and how to put those into coffee, how to put those into cocktails. And yeah, create a more, I guess like a robust, or perhaps dynamic place than you know than what Gravity Bound has just in terms of offerings.”

The brothers and their staff had to overcome the usual slew of delays that comes with opening any brewery.

“Any brewery owner or operator will know (that) every time you try to open up a taproom or a brewery, you think it’s going to take five to six months, and it always takes a year,” Chris said. “You know, our equipment showed up late. Getting our license took a long time. And then, the glycol chiller broke.”

Chris asked Cameron what he remembered about that process.

“It’s almost like you block it out intentionally, like you erase this stuff from your memories, so that you don’t have to live with it,” Cameron replied. “The coping mechanism that we we know very well now.”

But, in the end, Lasso did open, and beer and coffee lovers have flocked to the spot at Gold Ave and Sixth Street.

“Things are going really well,” Chris said. “I think it just needs to develop its own kind of personality and find its rhythm. I think we’re doing a really good job handling both all the things with the coffee side and the beer side. That’s obviously been a big new thing for us, of especially going on the coffee coffee side of things. Diego’s doing a great job and kind of handling that.”

Cameron also had to deal with the challenge of hitting all of the right notes on the new lagers.

“You know, I’ll speak from the beer side,” he said. “I’d say I’m still learning, you know. These systems take a while. It’s a longer beer (style to brew that) is so nuanced. And I’m like, oh, that’s a couple IBUs too high. And, there’s a couple IBUs too low. And, you just kind of are figuring out these styles.

“All of our beers, pretty much, are under 5-percent ABV. They’re all low ABV beers that are super delicate and everything shows up. So if things are just like a little, like a tad off I’ll notice that, I’ll perceive that. And so, (it’s) really like dialing in on all that nuance on a system that’s more complicated, more specific than the one I’m used to brewing on.”

So far, though, the early reviews are positive on the beer front for Lasso, and no one we know that frequents Gravity Bound has suggested that it dropped off there in any way. Both breweries might just be flourishing in an era where not many breweries can claim such a thing. We will raise a glass to that.

Oh, yeah, and Lasso will also be showing New Mexico United games out on the patio. We caught the season opener out there and it was quite a fun place to gather. Even with that outcome. That frustrating, stupid outcome. (Breathe, it’s a long season.)

A big thanks to Chris and Cameron for squeezing an interview into their perpetually busy schedules.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister