IPA Challenge: Buddy, can you spare some voting totals?

Stoutmeister here with the recap of the second round of the IPA Challenge. And by recap I mean a big, fat “huh?” because no one out there seems to have the results from Taos Mesa. In order to try and clear this up I put in a phone call to the good folks at Taos’…

IPA Challenge: Turtle’s Genesis takes lead after Round 1

Stoutmeister here with a quick tally of the votes from Round One of the 2013 IPA Challenge. Held at Las Cruces’ High Desert Brewing on Friday night, a total of 102 voters cast their picks in the blind taste test for the best IPA in New Mexico. The results, well, were a bit surprising. Sitting…

IPA Challenge: A history lesson for one and all

To the brewers and brewery owners who have been involved since the beginning, the IPA Challenge has come a long way as its 12th incarnation is set to begin this afternoon at High Desert Brewing in Las Cruces. Taking the way-back machine with Il Vicino’s Brady McKeown and Turtle Mountain’s Nico Ortiz, the origin of…

The Great Beer Roundup: No swoon in June

We drink a lot of beer. Shocking, I know, but between the six members of the Dark Side Brew Crew, we really do have a lot of different beers every month. The more I thought about this, while of course filling out another beer check-in on Untappd, I realized we were missing a perfectly good…

NM Brewers Guild brews up some Summer fun

Psst, hey you, beer lover. Come here for a second. It’s safe, I promise. I’m Stoutmeister, nice to meet you. Did you know there are some awesome upcoming beer events? Yeah, even in the summertime here in New Mexico. I mean, good lord, it’s hotter than hell out there and this drought isn’t going away…

ABQ Beer Week: That’s a (belated) wrap!

Well, that was fun. ABQ Beer Week 2013 has come and gone, and now that a certain baseball team is on the road, ol’ Stoutmeister here has a chance to catch up and recap the last two days of events, Friday and Saturday. These were a couple of big days for the Brew Crew with…

Beer Battle II: The new king of the stouts is …

Well, Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone, but our hangovers remain in the Brew Crew. We staged our second Beer Battle yesterday, once again pitting the area’s best stouts against each other to see if anyone could steal Marble’s crown. Someone did, but rather than spoil the suspense (hey, don’t stop reading this, you’re…

Star of the Season: January’s best seasonal is …

A few weeks ago we wrote about our plans to name the best seasonal beer in the Albuquerque area for the month of January. Well, the month is at an end, and while we prep for a Super Bowl that no one really cares about (seriously, football gods, Ravens and 49ers? Is this some sort…

Weekend in Review: WinterBrew’s finest and our very own shindig

Hello there, Burque. Stoutmeister here to try and recap a wildly entertaining weekend for the Crew. With WinterBrew on Friday night and our first-year anniversary party on Saturday night, we were busy little beer drinkers. First up, WinterBrew, a fun little event up in Santa Fe that took place Friday night. Along with a slew…