Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s six breweries, one in Los Alamos, and one in Moriarty also joining the party. You know those weeks where there are barely any events or beer releases…
Beer Notes: La Cumbre bears down in Arizona
It was clearly time to clear out the old notebook once again … La Cumbre expands distribution to the west Last year, when I sat down with owner/master brewer Jeff Erway for our Look Back/Look Ahead Series article, he said that Arizona was definitely his next target for out-of-state distribution. The only thing he was…
Fire & Hops ushers Bell’s brews into Santa Fe
The arrival of Bell’s Brewery in New Mexico led to plenty of special tappings and tap takeovers. One of those took place in Santa Fe, at an establishment that is becoming a go-to place for craft beer lovers. “Bell’s reputation precedes it,” said Josh Johns, co-owner and cicerone of Fire & Hops Gastropub. “I’m always…
Desert Valley shows promise but has to work out just-opened kinks
The Crew was invited, en masse, to visit the new Desert Valley Brewing taproom on the west side Thursday night. We were able to put together a sizable collection of members — myself, Franz Solo, Luke, Andrew, Shawna — at the last minute to head over and try the food and beer. Desert Valley has…
Even more beer-laden events materialize for the weekend
Just when you thought we had all the weekend’s events covered in The Week Ahead in Beer, two more popped up, and we thought we might provide some additional details on one other. We will have our first review of the Desert Valley Brewing taproom up later today. Oktoberfest at Taos Ski Valley This Saturday…
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…
The Week Ahead in Beer: Oktoberfest avalanche and more events upon events
Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s six breweries, one in Los Alamos, and one in Moriarty also joining the party. Once again, we all face a jam-packed weekend of fun and beer. Oh,…
A hop farm springs up in the North Valley
The Albuquerque metro area is now home to 30-plus breweries. And, finally, one hop farm. Red Hat Hops is looking to keep things even more local in terms of beer ingredients. Located at the edge of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, off Rio Grande north of the overpass above Montano, this new operation occupies 4.5 acres….
A whirlwind tour of Asheville uncovers some craft beer gems
One nice thing about having children-in-law is that they sometimes end up in nice places, and you have to visit them, of course. Such was the case here. My daughter-in-law is currently studying at Duke University in North Carolina. I never had much of an occasion to visit NC in the past, though I didn’t…
Bathtub Row’s Mr. Fixit has emerged as its unsung hero
Bathtub Row Brewing (BRB) in Los Alamos is an unusual sort of brewery, being based on a co-operative business model. It’s also in a small, fairly isolated town. These things lead to a lot of community involvement and pride. I know that many people have done an awful lot of volunteer work on all facets…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 