Stoutmeister

IPA Challenge: Blue Corn takes command after Round 3

Stoutmeister here with the recap of round three of the IPA Challenge on Friday night, with E-Rock sending the info down from Santa Fe Brewing. The big news is that Blue Corn’s Resurgence has seized control of the competition with Saturday’s big final round at Marble’s downtown pub looming. The good news is 100 voters,…

IPA Challenge: Let the final rounds commence

The weekend is upon us, which means the final two rounds of the IPA Challenge are about to begin. This week we have tackled the reasoning behind the popularity of IPAs, given you a survival guide for first-time participants, and now it’s time to wrap things up with a look at what some of the…

IPA Challenge: The Crew’s survival guide for new participants

During my series of interviews last week with local brewers and brewery owners I found that even some of them have never attended an IPA Challenge before. “I haven’t actually been to an IPA Challenge,” said Bosque co-owner Jotham Michnovicz. “Bosque hasn’t been there yet, but I’ve never been to one (either). Every year it’s…

IPA Challenge: How we learned to stop worrying and love the (hop) bomb

During this break between IPA Challenge rounds it seemed like a perfectly good time to address this little question. Why do beer lovers in New Mexico rank the IPA as their favorite beer? We in the Crew certainly have our theories but in the end, we are hardly experts. So while I, Stoutmeister, was conducting…

IPA Challenge: Taos hates IPAs, or something like that

Stoutmeister here with the actual voting totals from round two of the IPA Challenge at Taos Mesa on Saturday. That’s it? A total of 24 votes? On the day of Taos Mesa’s one-year anniversary all that showed up were 24 people? Wow. That’s sad. Deeply sad. Either people in Taos don’t like IPA or something…

IPA Challenge: Buddy, can you spare some voting totals?

Stoutmeister here with the recap of the second round of the IPA Challenge. And by recap I mean a big, fat “huh?” because no one out there seems to have the results from Taos Mesa. In order to try and clear this up I put in a phone call to the good folks at Taos’…

IPA Challenge: Turtle’s Genesis takes lead after Round 1

Stoutmeister here with a quick tally of the votes from Round One of the 2013 IPA Challenge. Held at Las Cruces’ High Desert Brewing on Friday night, a total of 102 voters cast their picks in the blind taste test for the best IPA in New Mexico. The results, well, were a bit surprising. Sitting…

IPA Challenge: A history lesson for one and all

To the brewers and brewery owners who have been involved since the beginning, the IPA Challenge has come a long way as its 12th incarnation is set to begin this afternoon at High Desert Brewing in Las Cruces. Taking the way-back machine with Il Vicino’s Brady McKeown and Turtle Mountain’s Nico Ortiz, the origin of…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Bad Breaks and Challenging IPAs

Greetings New Mexico craft beer lovers, this is Stoutmeister, filling in again for E-Rock and bringing you another Tuesday installment of The Week Ahead in Beer. This column is hand-crafted to keep you up to date on all of the seasonal beers, news, and events served up at breweries and tap rooms in and around…

Vegas Sands: Sampling some new brews in a unique location

Imagine a big old warehouse in northeast Albuquerque set up with sand volleyball courts. Then imagine a bar in with all those courts, pouring beers from a Las Vegas brewery. Sounds a little odd, doesn’t it? Yet that is exactly what the Brew Crew found at the Sandbar inside Charlie’s Sandbox, located west of Jefferson…