Boxing Bear Brewing gets their kicks with IPA Challenge win No. 6

The Boxing Bear team celebrates after rallying to win the IPA Challenge on their home turf.

In the end, the hosts had the most, well, votes.

Boxing Bear won their sixth trophy at the New Mexico Brewers Guild IPA Challenge on Saturday afternoon, rallying from far back after the first two rounds.

The hosts racked up 52 votes Saturday for a winning total of 63 across the three weeks of competition.

“This is what did it, the turnout was awesome,” said Dylan Davis, Boxing Bear’s director of brewing operations. “It was great to see everybody here. I thought it was a tough competition this year, too, a lot of really good IPAs.”

Boxing Bear’s Juice Boxer IPA won the trophy for the second year in a row. Head brewer Eddie Dominguez credited his entire team for the victory, though he singled out the brewer who wrote the initial recipe.

“Alan (Castro) is the one that came up with this recipe,” Dominguez said. “We want him to actually shine and show that he knows how to make a good beer, and so does the rest of the crew.”

The writer of the winning recipe, brewer Alan Castro, raises that trophy high.

Downshift, which held the lead after the first two rounds in Santa Fe and Las Cruces, came in second place for the second year in a row, finishing with 50 votes. Canteen was third with 47, followed by Gravity Bound and Sidetrack tying for fourth with 45 votes.

“We came from behind thanks to our customers,” Dominguez said. “We want to support the Guild, they’re the ones that support us. We gotta keep doing that every year.

“I said it before, if I have to hand this trophy over, I’d be happy to do it because if I do it means all of New Mexico is making great beer.”

Davis said Juice Boxer resonates with Boxing Bear customers and beer drinkers in general not because it tries to be the most of anything.

“You know, we tried to just make a really drinkable, approachable hazy,” he said. “We wanted something to have that, you know, the juicy characteristics that everybody loves. We weren’t necessarily trying to stand out on the flight. We rather just tried to make it about drinkability. That’s the number one thing about our beer.”

We promise, they cleaned the trophy first before drinking out of it.

In the end, it was a grand finale to this annual fundraiser that’s all about the fun. To executive director Ebbie Edmonston and all the volunteers with the Guild, to the staff members at Boxing Bear, Icebox, and Second Street, and finally to all the members of the voting public, thank you for another wonderful IPA Challenge. Once again, we all pulled it off.

Until next year when we do it all again, but for now Ebbie needs about a weeklong nap, and our palates are kinda fried.

Oh, and for the record again, I picked Bow & Arrow’s entry for the second time. I just dig the old-school IPAs.

The final voting totals are below, along with the names of the beers and which IPA was which number on the tray.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister