Franz Solo here, continuing our annual series of looking back and looking ahead for our breweries all around the Duke City. I was able to sit down with brewer/owner Justin Hamilton over at Boxing Bear Brewing on a fine Monday afternoon and what follows is an account of a strong and busy year of the…
Author: Franz Solo
Beer is the game, and it is awesome.
The time of the locally grown hop has come to New Mexico
Hop growing has expanded in the United States from the Pacific Northwest to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to coincide with the rising tide of craft beer. At long last, it is beginning to grow roots here in New Mexico, as we are still growing as a brewing destination. I had the chance to attend…
Round up the wet-hop IPA harvest for 2017
The advent of fall is near upon us, and the time of the harvest for all things green and good has begun in earnest. The season of the malt draws ever closer, but we are in the best days for some of the juiciest and most sought after IPAs in the land. For those of…
A brace of hopsplosions from Boxing Bear: TKO and Bear Knuckle
Editor’s note: In honor of National IPA Day, we present a two-for-one IPA review from our resident chief hophead. Both beers are still on tap at the Bear, along with Tropic Thunder IPA, Eastern Standard IPA, and of course Uppercut IPA. — Stoutmeister On a couple of recent forays to Boxing Bear, I had the…
A summer jaunt to Quarter Celtic
Editor’s note: Somebody was supposed to finish his Hops Brewery article the other night. Instead, he ended up reviewing the beers he was drinking while not really working on that. I guess I’ll let it slide. — S I suppose it was just to be, as I headed to Quarter Celtic on rumors of an…
A murder of hops: Diving deep into all the IPA variants
As this is the season of the zenith in hop dominance in our fair land, Brandon and I, Franz Solo, took it upon ourselves to seek out new hops and new hopilizations. We boldly went … (cue Beastie Boys’ Sabotage while tooling along in a fire apple red Trans Am circa 1970 with T-Tops) to…
KBS 2017: All your coffees are belong to us
Editor’s note: This little mini-tasting event that we had actually took place a while back. Somebody just didn’t get around to typing it up until now. Why run it? Because it’s Friday, and sometimes we just like sharing how much goofy stuff we get to do. Haven’t you always wondered what sort of rambling discussions…
Southwest Grape and Grain forges ahead
As the member of the Crew who does quite a lot of consistent home brewing, I was intrigued when I heard that ownership of Southwest Grape and Grain, my main local source for brewing supplies and ingredients, had changed hands. It turns out I already knew the gentleman who took over for the previous owner,…
Lend me your hops that I might survive: Dragline IPA from Canteen Brewhouse
As we watch the last embers of spring fade and the blazing heat of the summer solstice approach, three beer-related themes come to my mind. The season of hops approaches with our local NM IPA Challenge, but it is still a month away and there are some opportunities to sample some of what might grace…
Drown me in Vantablack on my way to Valhalla, oh Boxing Bear
At long last, our Look Back/Look Ahead Series entry for Boxing Bear is complete. Stoutmeister and I sat down with head brewer Justin Hamilton a while back to discuss the Year of the Bear, when the beers and the medals and the awards flowed endlessly. We then looked forward to all that is to come…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 