Stoutmeister

Tucson bears down on its craft beer scene at long last

Tucson has always been a second home to me, so after going more than three years between visits, I was pulled back to the Old Pueblo for a short-but-fun visit. Being a craft beer writer, I ended up spending most of my time bouncing between breweries and beer bars. Tucson has come a long way…

Rock & Brews offers up multi-brewery beer dinner

Beer dinners are plentiful in this day and age, but they are almost always limited to a single brewery’s offerings. Well, the folks at Rock & Brews decided that it was time to pair up some of their excellent food with beers from more than one brewery. The dinner will take place Tuesday night at…

Ale Republic faces down challenges of brewing in the mountains

Back at the start of the month, before things got a wee bit crazy in the old work schedule (not to mention lots of breaking beer news), Franz Solo and I went on a two-brewery trip east of Albuquerque for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series. We already chronicled our visit to Sierra Blanca, so…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Turtle Mountain turns 19 and we all benefit

Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s six breweries, one in Los Alamos, one in Moriarty, and one in Las Cruces also joining the party. Turtle Mountain is celebrating its 19th anniversary with more…

Beer Notes: New brewery updates and political headaches

It has been a while since we busted out some Beer Notes, but the news was piling up in our inbox, so here we go again. New brewery updates By our count, there are 20 forthcoming breweries, plus one that just opened. Alas, there is also another that closed, as we note below. First up,…

There will be no 5-peat for New Mexico at National IPA Challenge

The National IPA Challenge hit the fast forward button and released the final results of the competition today (Monday). Sadly, the last New Mexico entry, Canteen’s Hop Baller, did not make it to the medal stand, ending a four-year run of local IPAs claiming the title. Trickster’s Brewing’s JuiceBox IPA beat Hop Baller in the…

Only one New Mexico IPA still alive in National IPA Challenge

The Dandy Dozen was reduced to six at the National IPA Challenge this weekend, with one of the two remaining New Mexico entries advancing to the championship qualifier of its respective bracket. It probably was not the one most people expected. Two-time past champion Scale Tipper from Bosque was ousted in the fifth round, while…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Options abound for St. Patrick’s Day fun

Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s six breweries, one in Los Alamos, and one in Moriarty also joining the party. We noted last week that there might be a few possibilities for some…

Steel Bender goes big for its 1st anniversary

The good folks at Steel Bender Brewyard are fond of pointing out the fact that they never technically had a grand opening last year. To make up for it, they are stretching out the one-year anniversary of Los Ranchos’ brewpub over four days this week. Here is the lowdown of what is happening on each…

National IPA Challenge: Only 2 New Mexico entries remain

The many brackets of the National IPA Challenge are down to just a few remaining hop bombs, with only two New Mexico entries advancing to the fifth round. Bosque’s Scale Tipper, a two-time past champion, and Canteen’s Hop Baller are all that remains from the original list of 42 local beers that started the competition….