We arrived before noon on a sunny Saturday, lining up with a handful of other patrons, awaiting our final entry into the Oldery, the nickname given lovingly to the original Second Street Brewery location on its namesake street in Santa Fe. It was the end of an era, and we could not resist the pull…
Category: Commentary/Analysis
A decade in review: 10 years of writing about craft breweries in New Mexico
Holy hell, the Brew Crew is 10. It was around this time a decade ago that one of us wrote up the quickest of posts, simply titled Greetings, which announced our mission statement to be a collective of five writers who wanted to chronicle the growing industry of microbreweries (remember when we called them that?)…
Beer Premier brought out some truly delectable new brews for all to enjoy
The annual Beer Premier was a hit this Saturday at Nexus Blue Smokehouse. Twenty brews made their debuts from 21 breweries (one was a collaboration) for the crowd of assembled beer geeks and industry insiders, all presented with aplomb by the New Mexico Brewers Guild. The important question now is when will these delicious elixirs…
Sometimes we all need a sabbatical
After 18 months of pandemic, and almost 10 years of leading this site, I need a break. So I am going to take one, at long last. The beer scene will still move along without me, as it should, and the rest of the Crew have vowed to step up and provide some content while…
A fond farewell to a great brewer and an even better friend
Over the years, the Brew Crew has met many people we consider friends throughout the brewing industry. Most of those folks become a sort of friendly acquaintance, someone we will sit and have a beer with, bump into at concerts, or join in cheering on New Mexico United and/or the Isotopes. Sometimes, though, we find…
An update on the lack of updates about future breweries
Every now and again, I check the State of New Mexico’s licensing page to see if there are any new pending small brewer or small brewer offsite licenses. For quite some time now, there have not been any new ones, which is just a sign of the times. Allow me to explain that statement. The…
A beer trip along old Highway 14 brings back memories of past times
With vaccines now being administered, and many of our counties now at the yellow level or better, the urge to get out of the house and onto the road has begun to take hold with many of us in the Crew. Last week, with nothing else to do (the day job is kaput, FYI), I…
Writing about the end of breweries is much harder than the beginning
As we noted in Tuesday’s beer history timeline article, the idea for that story came from a reader after we put out a request for a little inspiration to help us through a slow news period. Another reader had a shorter and simpler request for an article, asking what is happening over at Cantero Brewing….
Local women in craft beer share their thoughts after fallout from Brewing News controversy sinks National IPA Challenge
The NIPAC is dead. Over the weekend, in the quietest way possible, the Brewing News left a small note on the front page of the National IPA Challenge website that the annual competition was canceled for 2019. It was perhaps the final, inevitable outcome after last week’s national furor over a story by publisher/owner Bill…
How not to write about beer: Brewing News publisher imperils his publication and the NIPAC
Late Monday night, during a final perusal of Beer Twitter posts, I stumbled upon something truly horrific. Bill Metzger, the publisher for the Brewing News — that little once-every-two-months, regional mini-newspaper that you see scattered around breweries — had published an article in the Great Lakes edition (UPDATE: link now disabled) that could be best…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 