Dark Side Brew Crew

Brewmaster John Bullard stands before his now complete production brewery. Well, leans, because he probably could use a nap at this point.

During my visit with the Bosque Brewing command staff at their new office/warehouse space last week, we also spent a lot of time talking about the final preparations for Bosque North and its series of openings. There was an industry-invite-only opening on Wednesday, and it will host the final round of the NM IPA Challenge on Saturday, before concluding with the grand opening Monday.

It has been a long, laborious process for Bosque to get the combined production brewery and taproom space up and running. From a lengthy delay caused by construction on Highway 550 (or, more aptly, waiting to figure out how that construction should proceed), to then converting an old building into a state-of-the-art brewery, it has not been easy.

We had Luke do a little photoshopping to show how much things have changed since our first trip to Bosque North in March, putting some similar photos side-by-side, including this one of the brewery interior.

The trio of managing director Gabe Jensen, director of operations Jotham Michnovicz, and director of culture and engagement Jessica Griego took me through the final days of preparing North for occupancy. I then took another tour with director of brewing operations John Bullard for a fresh set of photographs to show just how far the construction has come since my last visit in early March.

“I was telling Gabe yesterday, every time we’ve opened a taproom, it’s all hands on deck for 12 to 16 hours a day,” Jotham said. “Yesterday, I had a meeting with Gabe in our office and everything that needed to be handled was being handled by our team over in that spot. I didn’t even have to be there yesterday, which is really cool to see our team come together and be able to handle (everything).”

Another shot of the brewery looking down from the second floor, albeit from a slightly different angle, since the original view is now a solid wall.

While John and production manager Tim Woodward have things handled in the brewery, the front-of-house staff has come together to take charge of the taproom area.

“We actually have as our taproom liaison, he moved up from Las Cruces, his name is Max Portillo,” Jessica said. “He’s been an essential leader on our Las Cruces team for four years now. We’ve been nudging him every time we saw him to move up here and he did. We’re super excited for him. He’s stepping into a new role, but he’s a seasoned leader at Bosque.

“We’ve had maybe one or two other transfers internally, but otherwise it’s all new people. Well, our kitchen manager, he transferred from Nob Hill, his name is Mitch O’Connor. The key management positions are internal, but for the most part we’ve hired from the community, Bernalillo and northern Rio Rancho. That was really a goal of ours to make sure we hired from within the community and were representative of it.”

The front patio is now ready to go, with tables just out of sight and the window to the interior bar ready to go.

The team led by Max and Mitch was going through training while I was taking the tour with John, making sure everything would be ready for the inevitable crush of humanity headed their way.

“I think that’s one of the funnest things about opening a restaurant in general, is that camaraderie than happens whenever there is a launch team,” Jotham said. “We’ve got 30 new hires, they were all in this (conference) room doing orientation, getting to know each other and building that rapport with each other. They were there yesterday, putting everything away. It creates a little bit of ownership for the staff. You get to be a part of setting the building up, knowing where everything is going to go. Some of my fondest memories are of opening a restaurant.”

The view from the second floor patio/deck is looking better by the day. Now if they would only finish up on Highway 550’s bridge.

The brewing staff did have to get bigger as well.

“A lot of our brewing staff came over from San Mateo,” Jotham said. “It’s a pretty light staff over there now. We did bolster the team as well, we hired some new positions. I’d say the majority of the people that were on our brewing team are now at Bernalillo.”

“They were brewers or they moved from elsewhere on staff to join the brewing team, packaging team, cellar, all that,” Gabe added.

The interior of the tower now features a big screen TV and a bar just to the right of frame.

The canning line is already up and running, meaning that at last, all Bosque packaged beer is being brewed and canned in New Mexico.

“We’re doing it,” Gabe said. “We got our last shipment of IPA a week ago. That was the last (overall). Everything from here on out that’s produced will be at Bernalillo.

“It’s getting to that point where I can’t keep up. They’ve already canned Elephants on Parade twice. That was the one thing that we were super nervous about because we hadn’t done it. The first run was like oh, that went perfect.”

The silo has its logo. John swears it glows in the dark, but we’re a bit skeptical (someone has been working some very long shifts, FYI).

Bosque did receive a large number of unused cans from Sleeping Giant in Denver, so try not to get confused if you still see the old labeling.

“We’ve had some other hiccups with packaging, but that’s going to happen,” Gabe said. “We got permission from the TTB to put beer in the cans that (still) say Denver, and we’ll just have to stamp them on the bottom to say NM next to the date, just so we can use up those cans. There will be a transition period of a couple months of where we’re brewing it here, but it will still have Denver packaging.”

The first cans with a full New Mexico label, as opposed to an underside stamp, will be the 1888, but Gabe and Jotham said they are waiting on the cartons to arrive before they can can the beer.

Think that’s enough cans to keep all of you happy? What? It’s not? Jeez, people, you just can’t get enough Elephants on Parade, can you?

What will really get beer geeks excited, however, is what else will be going into cans in the near future.

“We’ll be doing some one-off can specialty releases as well,” Jessica said. “That’s probably our biggest (project). … I’m the most excited about that, to be able to release some specialty beers in cans, and showcase our quality and what we can do out there.”

“I think that’s one of the things that’s John is most excited about,” Gabe added.

The canning line is already getting a workout, with lots more to come, including specialty releases!

John confirmed that he does have four specialty cans on the docket, all of which will come in 16-ounce cans in four packs, as opposed to the 12-ounce six-pack cans for the regular offerings.

So what will a couple of those cans contain? Well, one just might be a past two-time National and New Mexico IPA Challenge winner, and the other might be a former Great American Beer Festival medal winner of a certain fresh hop persuasion.

“There’s a good variety in there, too,” Jessica said. “We’ve got a wide range of styles. We still have to figure out the dynamics of how we release them. Do they hit all the taprooms at the same time? Are they only at Bernalillo first and then they hit the taprooms? We have some logistics to work out on that still. We’ll make sure to communicate that clearly on social media for everyone.”

Clearly, Bosque employs some folks who do not share our fear of heights.

Overall, Bosque North is an impressive creation in all aspects. It is just another sign of how far our local craft beer industry has come in just the past six years. The days of jamming tiny brewing systems into strip malls and hoping for the best have come and gone. The bar has been raised and will continue to be raised, which is good news for all of us that love craft beer.

Here are some additional pictures from Wednesday night’s industry-only invite opening for a final look before the public gets to join us.

The interior of the downstairs taproom. There’s a second bar to the right of frame.

A whole lotta brewery folks gathered on the second floor patio/deck.

Good night, Bosque North. We will see you again soon!

Once again, it is a very good time to be a fan of local craft beer in New Mexico. Thanks to Gabe, Jotham, Jessica, and John for everything.

See some of you at the NMIPAC on Saturday.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister

Find your way to Innovation Way, the home of Bosque’s new offices and warehouse.

Last month, Bosque Brewing sent out a short press release about moving its offices to a new location in Rio Rancho. It seemed surprising that the brewery’s ownership would make such a move, especially with Bosque North in Bernalillo still unopened. After finally being able to work out a time to meet (never easy with all of our busy schedules), I ventured over to 7701 Innovation Way NE to see the new space, learn why the move was made, and also catch up on everything else Bosque related.

The trio of managing director Gabe Jensen, director of operations Jotham Michnovicz, and director of culture and engagement Jessica Griego greeted me in a second floor conference room. Yeah, they have a conference room. Yeah, they have two floors. It’s quite different than the crowded, fully open space they had at the San Mateo location (we would always meet in the taproom due to a lack of space).

This conference room was filled with the new Bosque North employees during their recent orientation.

“I’ll take you back a little bit,” Gabe said. “Bernalillo has taken much longer than anything I’d ever want something to take. When we designed the office over there, it had seven offices and a conference room, plus a little fore room, and we were like how would we ever need that much space.

“About a year ago, we said we’re gonna need more space than that pretty soon after we open. I looked at some office warehouse type of places out here. Bernalillo is large and tall, which is great for production, but it’s kind of an expensive space and we don’t want to add more to just store things like empty cans and boxes. All the storage things that if you’re in an industrial area paying industrial prices you can afford.”

You gotta put all those unopened growlers somewhere.

The combination of the need for an off-site warehouse and the growth of the office staff sent Gabe on a mission to find a nearby space that could handle both.

“I found plenty out in Northern Rio Rancho and Bernalillo like a year ago,” he said. “I thought there’s no reason to get it now. When we got closer (to North opening), there was nothing, which is good for the economy and everything, but there was nothing left for us. I was thinking a 6,000- or 7,000-square-foot office warehouse and probably not in great shape, just to throw some stuff in and have some sales offices and distro offices and stuff like that. That didn’t work. Once we got close to opening Bernalillo, we contemplated stuffing everyone in there and also keeping our offices (at San Mateo), that big open mess.”

Space, glorious space!

Gabe’s business connections, however, gave him a heads up that there was a building available.

“Kind of on a whim, I came out and looked at this place,” he said. “Some economic development people had told us about it. This had been vacant for about three years. We got a good deal. There’s more to that story as well, just relationships and things like that, but we were able to (close on it). Anytime I showed anybody this place, and that includes all of us, Jess and I walked out of here and thought no, it’s silly, we couldn’t do this.

“But, when I did the math, it made sense. The math still worked out, especially considering there’s 8,000 square feet of warehouse here, which makes storing cans (easy); it’s only a mile away from Bernalillo. That sounds like a long time, but it happened (fast). Three days and a week later and we had a lease. We’ve never pulled that off.”

Bosque now has a building in which to grow. There are some additional offices that will eventually be leased out to other small businesses on the south end of the building.

“If we can get the other side leased, which we plan to do, our actual monthly expense is going to be the same (as San Mateo),” Gabe said.

The north (right) half of the building is all for Bosque.

At first glance, the building almost seems too big. After a post-interview tour, I could already see where the staff still has room to expand in the future.

“This size of a building that we’re in, we need this much space,” Gabe said. “We have 18 people housed here. I can already feel a difference in the efficiency of people. I can close my door and bang something out instead of having to navigate all working in the same open space. I didn’t have a desk in the end. Well, I finally did once John (Bullard) was at Bernalillo all the time, I stole his. I think at the end of being at our offices on San Mateo, we had six people sitting around a single table. That’s not efficient.”

No one is going to particularly miss the old San Mateo office, which was always being squeezed by storage demands.

“I’m usually pretty sentimental about things and I was so happy to move out of that place,” Jessica said. “I was not sad at all. It was getting really inefficient with everyone sitting on top of each other. Not having a door to have (private) conversations, all of the things.”

The pink boots are a nice touch in Jessica’s office.

Our conversation took us to the impending opening of Bosque North and all that will entail. We will have more on that in a separate story, with new photos of the finished space, later this week.

As for some of Bosque’s other upcoming projects, those have been on the back burner until North was completed. Now the staff will begin moving those along as well.

“We can say Restoration Pizza will happen first,” Jessica said. “I think once we get Bernalillo open we’ll be able to dive into and start kickstarting these projects off.”

The replacement for the San Mateo taproom/brewery will follow soon after.

The warehouse space in the back is already filling up with kegs, cans, and more.

“Open Space, we could go pull the permit right now and get started, but we’re working on financing for that one,” Jotham said. “It’s all of the pre-construction stuff that is going on. We hope to really hit the ground running right after we open Bernalillo (on) both of those projects. It’s just that Open Space is going to be a longer build. It’s a seven-month construction timeline that we’ve put together. Restoration Pizza should be way faster than that, because it’s just a buildout of an existing space. That one won’t be as crazy.”

Even after those projects are done, do not expect Bosque to kick back and take it easy.

“We actually have been really strategically planning the next three-to-five years,” Jessica said. “We have goals and things we want to do, but nothing is set in stone yet.”

Gabe and Jessica are quite proud of the new space. And yes, they have an employee bar back there, because of course they do.

Look for more on Bosque North in a couple days. Thanks to Gabe, Jotham, and Jessica for the interview and the tour.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister