A Saturday drive up I-25 to Bernalillo went a little quicker than anticipated, so I arrived a bit early at Kaktus Brewing for a rare weekend interview for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series. While owner Dana Koller was busy getting things set up for the eventual on-rush of customers coming to see the jazz band…
Author: Stoutmeister
Former sports writer in Tucson, LA, and Burque. Now I write about craft beer, which is a totally reasonable way to support my hobby of spending afternoons and evenings indulging in the finest stouts, lagers, and more.
The Week Ahead in Beer: The world is terrible so hide in a brewery or two
The ashes of your fantasy team have been cast into the winter winds. Your favorite football team didn’t make the playoffs. We are months away from filling out brackets and ignoring work more than usual. New Mexico can’t figure out what season is supposed to be happening now. These are dark days. Our advice? Take…
La Reforma enjoys a year of relative normalcy after past ups and downs
It’s business as usual over at La Reforma, which is interesting in that business as usual has never really existed since it opened in mid-2019. I sat down with co-owner John Gozigian for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series to go over what amounted to 12 months of normalcy, and what the plans are for another…
The Year in Beer: The Crew picks our favorites from the last 12 months
Back before the holidays, I sent an email out to the rest of the Crew to start making their picks for some best of the year elements in the world of craft beer. I did not follow that up with a text, so then I had to email them again, because that is what happens…
The Week Ahead in Beer: Get creative to show some extra support in January
With the advent of Dry January and all those New Year’s resolutions in general, January tends to be one of the toughest months of the year for breweries in terms of keeping those sales numbers up. Now, we don’t want anyone to overdo it in terms of drinking to show more support to your favorite…
The Year in Beer: 2022 saw a return to some normalcy amid new challenges
The best-laid plans tend to come undone at the end of the year. Like this story, for instance, which should have run during the week, but ended up appearing here on a Saturday. All (or at least most) of the Crew will have our picks for things like best beer, best event, and so on…
The mostly complete guide to local breweries’ New Year’s Eve/Day hours
As with every major holiday, we did our best to compile a full list of the adjusted hours of operation at all the breweries that we list in The Week Ahead in Beer. There are far fewer closures than Christmas, but a few places are calling it a year earlier on Saturday, others are staying…
The Week Ahead in Beer: Farewell to another up-and-down year
Well, 2022 is almost over. Good riddance? Nah, it wasn’t a great year by any means, but it wasn’t as horrible or featuring as much upheaval as the prior two years. We lost Toltec Brewing, but gained Echoes, Sunday Service Motor Company, Unhinged, and Vision City, and besides, the Toltec spot was quickly filled by…
The mostly complete guide to local breweries’ Christmas weekend hours
As with every major holiday, we did our best to compile a full list of the adjusted hours of operation at all the breweries that we list in The Week Ahead in Beer. Everything is normal through Friday, and the majority are open Saturday, but most are closing a little early to give their staff…
The Week Ahead in Beer: Someone dropped a holiday in our weekend
As you are all probably aware, Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, which is leading to all sorts of schedule chaos for breweries, which we will cover in a separate article this week. Since this is basically a holiday week, the new releases are scattered at best, and driving anywhere is akin to pure…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 