It’s time to make some room in the old beer glass cabinet. The New Mexico Brewers Guild’s annual Pint Glass Day is this Wednesday at breweries across the state.
The design this year, by local artist Stefan Jennings Batista, is meant to honor Route 66 on its 100-year anniversary.
That, of course, was planned out well in advance, right?
“I would love to say that yes, I planned it out, but no,” said NMBG executive director Ebbie Edmonston. “I think it was two years ago, the year we did the Zozobra (design), it was my first idea to do a competition (among artists) when we introduced it for Pint Glass Day was a hot rod theme. We even made a post on Instagram about it. Then we realized, oh my gosh, it’s the centennial for Zozobra. It was great for that year.
“But then we realized what was happening two years later. It was almost kismet, the Route 66 centennial was also coming up.”
The final design came out of a field of 15 entries from artists, some who worked at breweries, some who did not.
“It was definitely my favorite from the get-go, but I don’t get to score or grade any of the pieces,” Edmonston said. “The way that we submit our winner is we have a grading rubric. Everyone on the events committee sits down and grades them. We take the top three to to the current board of directors and they choose the winner.”
Pint Glass Day is a major fundraiser, with $1 from every glass sold going back to the Guild in support of its efforts on behalf of the local brewing industry.
Perhaps the most important piece of information is where the glasses can be purchased. This year, 36 separate companies (33 breweries) will be offering them up, some at multiple taproom locations. We broke it up by geographic areas to make it a little easier to plan out where you should go. Will the glasses sell out quickly? Oh, yeah, they do every year.
This is the primary list provided by the Guild. We reached out to breweries with one or more offsite taprooms and will note those that provided information on which locations will have the glasses for sale. Just take note, when they are dispersed to more than one taproom, that will limit the available supply.
Northern New Mexico
- Bathtub Row Brewing Co-op, Los Alamos
- Nuckolls Brewing, Santa Fe
- Piedra Blanca Brewing, White Rock
- Rowley Farmhouse Ales, Santa Fe
- Santa Fe Brewing
- Second Street Brewery, Santa Fe (both taprooms)
- Three Rivers Brewing, Farmington
- Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery, Santa Fe
Southern New Mexico
- Bonito Valley Brewing, Lincoln
- Box Canyon Brewing, Socorro
- Cloudcroft Brewing
- Downshift Brewing, Ruidoso (both Hidden Tap and Riverside)
- Icebox Brewing, Las Cruces (five locations: available Wednesday at the brewery on Picacho, North Main taproom and Boneyard Cantina; Thursday at the 28 Beer Garden; Friday at the FARMesilla eatery + drinkery)
- Milton’s Brewing, Carlsbad
- NM Vintage Wines, Mesilla
- Nurvis Purvis Brewing, Carlsbad
- Truth or Consequences Brewing (main brewery and Las Cruces taproom)
Albuquerque metro area
- Boxing Bear Brewing (both taprooms)
- Canteen Brewhouse (both taprooms)
- Ex Novo Brewing (both taprooms)
- Flock of Moons
- High and Dry Brewing
- La Cumbre Brewing (both taprooms)
- La Reforma
- Marble Brewery (all three taprooms)
- Mother Road Mobile Canning (on Bellamah across from Painted Lady)
- Nexus Brewery (both taprooms)
- Painted Lady Bed and Brew
- Ponderosa Brewing
- Quarter Celtic Brewpub (both taprooms)
- Rio Bravo Brewing
- Sidetrack Brewing
- Steel Bender Brewyard
- The Tatted Bee Brewhouse
- Thirsty Eye Brewing
- Tractor Brewing (all three taprooms)
- Turtle Mountain Brewing
At most breweries, you can either just buy the glass, or get it filled with the pour of your choice. Beyond that, each brewery will likely have some different special bonus bits of fun, so check their social media pages.
“Each brewery will do it a little bit differently,” Edmonston said. “You can definitely buy the glass as is. Some breweries are doing raffles for it. Some are doing a hidden glass. The breweries buy the glass from the Guild, and they can make it their own. It’s a once a year kind of thing. It really grabs those collectors.”
We will keep updating the locations above as more breweries respond to our inquiries.
A big thanks to Ebbie for taking the time to chat over the phone. She’s rather busy with this, and with the plans for the upcoming IPA Challenge in July. We will have a lot more on that event as the final details are, well, finalized, but we can say the dates will be July 18 for Santa Fe, July 25 for Las Cruces, and August 1 for the final round in Albuquerque. Plan accordingly.
Keep supporting local!
— Stoutmeister
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 