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 four breweries and a pair of newcomers, one down in Socorro and the other in Los Alamos, also joining the party. As more and more breweries keep…
Chama River changes brewers but aims to remain among the best
The brewers may change, but the quality beer remains the same over at Chama River Brewing. At least, that has been the case throughout the history of the popular brewpub. From Ted Rice to Jeff Erway to Justin Hamilton to Zach Guilmette, Chama has served as a finishing school for many a great brewer to…
New/old brewer has Canteen set for canning and new taproom in 2016
Let the great brewer shuffle of 2016 be official. Zach Guilmette has left Chama River and returned to Canteen as head brewer. Andrew Krosche has left Ponderosa to take over at Chama. Bob Hagerty, formerly of the La Cumbre staff, has taken over Ponderosa. Each one officially took over his new position Jan. 1. So,…
Avast, Victory at Sea day sails toward us later this month
Earlier today (Friday), we teased the upcoming Victory at Sea Day, a collaborative effort between the Brew Crew and Ballast Point to bring you some awesome variants of this massively wonderful beer. Well, as you can see from the above poster, there will be some epic versions on tap Saturday, Jan. 30, starting at 4…
A new brewery partnership emerges by Happenstance
A while back we heard rumors of a brewing operation moving into the Los Ranchos area. The rumor was never confirmed, we heard nothing more, and went back to work. It turns out that a combined brewery/distillery operation nearly did happen in the North Valley community. While that project fizzled out for reasons outlined below,…
After another steady year Nexus aims west with a new taproom
With the holiday hiatus behind us, I managed to corral owner Ken Carson and brewer Kaylynn McKnight over at Nexus on Wednesday afternoon for the next entry in our ongoing Look Back/Look Ahead Series. Before enjoying some more of that delicious Salted Caramel Stout, we talked about a busy 2015 and the big plan for…
A common and not so common year for Back Alley
On a recent, ice-cold December afternoon I sat down with Peter Moore, head brewer for Back Alley Draft House in downtown Albuquerque. We discussed the previous year as well as what may lie ahead in 2016. We started out by continuing a discussion we had in October at the New Mexico Brew Fest. I told…
The Week Ahead in Beer: Jumping on the special bomber release bandwagon
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 four breweries and a pair of newcomers, one down in Socorro and the other in Los Alamos, also joining the party. During the winter, seasonal beer releases…
Bathtub Row Brewing aims to build upon their great start
Bathtub Row Brewing (BRB) in Los Alamos had a phenomenal first year and said they hope to keep the ball rolling in 2016. As part of our Look Back/Look Ahead Series for 2015-16, I sat down with general manager Jason Fitzpatrick and brewers Hector Santana Jr. and Jason Kirkman to get their take on the new…
And the winner of the best beer name of 2015 is …
Baby Got Bock! Yes, Red Door’s homage to a “classic” song was the winner of our first poll. Since we did not add a timing element to the poll itself, we just decided all votes after 10 p.m. MST would not count. Thus, Baby Got Bock proved to be the winner. (We should add it…
DARK SIDE BREW CREW 