Beer Notes: Four NM breweries reach Sweet 16 of National IPA Challenge

The snowstorm that hit Albuquerque this weekend kept most of us at home. Thankfully, wherever they are holding the National IPA Challenge, weather was not an issue. The annual event, held by The Brewing News, had its round of 32 this weekend, with four New Mexico breweries’ IPAs participating. The good news? All four are…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Some final thoughts on special beer releases

Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with the reunified edition of The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s four breweries and one newcomer down in Socorro also joining the party. We tried hard to keep the state edition going, but without…

Beer Notes: Yup, there are more new breweries on the way

Some things just never seem to stop around here in Albuquerque. The weather will always be weird and unpredictable. The drivers will continue to stupify us with their, well, stupidity. And new breweries will keep opening. Albuquerque Brewing Co. currently has their first lineup of beers in the fermenters and the bright tanks. They could…

The Week Ahead in Beer: Enjoy a wee bit of the Irish (Red), laddie

Greetings, New Mexico craft beer lovers. Stoutmeister here with the reunified edition of The Week Ahead in Beer. This column covers all the breweries in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, with Santa Fe’s four breweries and one newcomer down in Socorro also joining the party. We tried hard to keep the state edition going, but without…

Stout Challenge IV: The winner by TKO is …

The Dark Side Brew Crew held our fourth annual Stout Challenge on Super Bowl Sunday. Long before we were cursing the Seahawks’ terrible play-calling at the end, we were rejoicing amidst 14 stouts that we sampled via blind taste test to determine who has the best in the ABQ metro area (plus Socorro). We were…

The time has come for Stout Challenge IV: The Overload

Greetings, everyone, on this snowy Friday. Do be careful out there tonight when in pursuit of beer. Stuff is melting but not evaporating, so that means sheets of ice. And New Mexico drivers are bad enough without ice under their tires, so go slow if you desperately need some nocturnal pints. By Sunday, though, all…

Canteen looks to follow a year of change with a year of growth in 2015

Greetings everyone, Stoutmeister here with the 14th post in our Look Back/Look Ahead series for 2014-15. Normally I would list the previous entries, but that’s starting to chew up space, so just go ahead and click on the category link above in the byline and you will find everything we’ve written so far in this…

The best New Mexico beers of 2014 in our humble opinion

As noted in the most recent edition of The Week Ahead in Beer, the Crew put out the call for everyone’s favorite beers from New Mexico breweries for 2014. The replies from our readers, not to mention from all of our writers, were fairly diverse. We’re not gonna do an ultimate ranking or anything —…

Membership has its benefits at New Mexico breweries — 2015 edition

As we did last year, the Crew has gathered all the information we could on brewery memberships for 2015 to give you a one-stop shopping spot to compare and contrast which ones you might want to purchase. Different Crew members have various memberships. As the photo shows, I (Stoutmeister) renewed my Tractor membership already. Still…