Chama River changes brewers but aims to remain among the best

The brewers may change, but the quality beer remains the same over at Chama River Brewing. At least, that has been the case throughout the history of the popular brewpub. From Ted Rice to Jeff Erway to Justin Hamilton to Zach Guilmette, Chama has served as a finishing school for many a great brewer to…

New/old brewer has Canteen set for canning and new taproom in 2016

Let the great brewer shuffle of 2016 be official. Zach Guilmette has left Chama River and returned to Canteen as head brewer. Andrew Krosche has left Ponderosa to take over at Chama. Bob Hagerty, formerly of the La Cumbre staff, has taken over Ponderosa. Each one officially took over his new position Jan. 1. So,…

Avast, Victory at Sea day sails toward us later this month

Earlier today (Friday), we teased the upcoming Victory at Sea Day, a collaborative effort between the Brew Crew and Ballast Point to bring you some awesome variants of this massively wonderful beer. Well, as you can see from the above poster, there will be some epic versions on tap Saturday, Jan. 30, starting at 4…

A new brewery partnership emerges by Happenstance

A while back we heard rumors of a brewing operation moving into the Los Ranchos area. The rumor was never confirmed, we heard nothing more, and went back to work. It turns out that a combined brewery/distillery operation nearly did happen in the North Valley community. While that project fizzled out for reasons outlined below,…

After another steady year Nexus aims west with a new taproom

With the holiday hiatus behind us, I managed to corral owner Ken Carson and brewer Kaylynn McKnight over at Nexus on Wednesday afternoon for the next entry in our ongoing Look Back/Look Ahead Series. Before enjoying some more of that delicious Salted Caramel Stout, we talked about a busy 2015 and the big plan for…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Jumping on the special bomber release bandwagon

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 four breweries and a pair of newcomers, one down in Socorro and the other in Los Alamos, also joining the party. During the winter, seasonal beer releases…

And the winner of the best beer name of 2015 is …

Baby Got Bock! Yes, Red Door’s homage to a “classic” song was the winner of our first poll. Since we did not add a timing element to the poll itself, we just decided all votes after 10 p.m. MST would not count. Thus, Baby Got Bock proved to be the winner. (We should add it…

Sidetrack swings open their doors at last

Quiet weekends can be nice sometimes. Other times, they get downright boring. Luckily for craft beer drinkers in Albuquerque, this weekend saw the surprise opening of Sidetrack Brewing downtown. I originally visited Sidetrack back in September and they looked to be a month or so from opening, but things went a bit quiet after that….

Starr Brothers hopes to shine in Northeast Heights

Everything old is new again. Starr Brothers Brewing is going back to the old school, opening a true brewpub in an era where kitchens have been eschewed in favor of food trucks. The forthcoming brewery is located on San Antonio east of I-25 in the San Antonio Commons retail center. If you reach San Pedro,…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Ring in the New Beer, er, Year!

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 four breweries and a pair of newcomers, one down in Socorro and the other in Los Alamos, also joining the party. Now that we all (hopefully) survived…