The last time any of us talked to Mick Hahn, he had just taken over the position of head brewer at Tractor Wells Park, having just left Turtle Mountain a few months after winning the first Great American Beer Festival gold medal in the venerable brewpub’s long history. Then, poof! Covid-19 came along, and soon…
Category: Interviews
Boese Brothers takes advantage of slower times to add something new to its menu
Back when we sent out requests for interview times for our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series, a few breweries turned us down this year, mainly due to the simple exhaustion of talking about the pandemic and its wide-ranging effects over and over again. A few other breweries just asked us to wait a while until…
Local breweries remain cautious but hopeful in terms of bringing back on-site events
Slowly but surely, things are starting to look normal out at the breweries again, but there is still one thing missing. Go to the event section on just about any brewery’s Facebook page, and it is still mostly blank. While the mask requirements have been lifted by the Centers for Disease Control and most state…
Turquoise Trail Brewing comes back strong after a rocky year
Turquoise Trail Brewing had been open a mere seven months before the now infamous shutdown of 2020, and owner Sean Lawson entered a time which he described as a “big ol’ shitshow.” In the brewery’s short history, Sean leased the building space on Central and Elizabeth back in August 2018, and was carrying it month…
Former Cantero brewer finds new home at Moonwalk Bev inside 505 Central
Plenty of people make reference to “pandemic limbo” these days, the long stretch of inactivity as the result of furloughed jobs, everything being closed, and generally not being able to figure out what’s next in life. Though he certainly would not ask to be the poster child for pandemic limbo, local brewer George Gonzales might…
Red Door closes its original location but will not be calling it a career
Breweries can still surprise us from time to time. Take Red Door Brewing, which suddenly dropped the news late last week that it will be closing its original brewery and taproom on Candelaria this Saturday. Wait, what? Once we got over the initial surprise, I hustled to round up the command staff of owner Matt…
Toltec Brewing brings its new head brewer full circle
Brandon Venaglia is back in his old neighborhood. The well-traveled brewer, who went from Back Alley Drafthouse to Cazuela’s to Bathtub Row, has taken the open job at Toltec Brewing on the West Side of Albuquerque. “I went to Cibola High School,” he said, shaking his head. “I went all around the United States and…
Free skateboards don’t pay the bills: An interview with Rob Palmer
A few personalities in the Albuquerque beer scene have a way of standing out, and no one would argue if you said that Rob Palmer is one of them. A former pro-skateboarder and now the owner of Palmer Brewery, Rob was kind enough to kick back, toss his killer mullet over his shoulder, and regale…
Ex Novo brewer Chichura takes long and winding road back to New Mexico
Long before he ever brewed a beer in New Mexico, a young Dave Chichura visited Albuquerque on a two-month brewery tour of America in 1995. He visited the Rio Bravo Restaurant Brewery downtown and Assets Grille in the Northeast Heights. Those two breweries passed into history in 1998 and 2005, respectively, while the young beer…
What’s in the box?! Rowley Farmhouse Ales has big news
Recently I was sitting at Rowley Farmhouse Ales, talking about barrel-aged goodies with the bartender as I sipped on their latest edition of Agent Scully IPA. Chef and co-owner Jeffrey Kaplan then sauntered down the steps, as he often does at the end of the day to greet his customers and check on the business…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 