La Cumbre gets back to its roots with Cask Ale Festival

La Cumbre marketing director Cory Campbell was doing a bit of house cleaning when he stumbled upon a piece of the brewery’s past. “I cleaned out one of the closets upstairs in one of the offices and found the old poster for it,” Cory said of the first Cask Ale Festival, held in 2011. “I…

Battle lines are drawn for SB314 after contentious town hall

The Friday revelation that members of the New Mexico state legislature were pursuing an increase in excise taxes caught many of us by surprise. Senate Bill 314, an updated version of the same legislation proposed by the neo-prohibitionist group Alcohol Taxes Save Lives and Money, was dropped on an unsuspecting public by State Senator Cisco…

Stout Challenge VI: A Starr rises above the rest

Amid all the seriousness of the weekend, the Brew Crew was still able to gather to hold our annual Stout Challenge before the start of the Super Bowl. While the game featured an improbable rally by the favorite, our blind taste test featured an upset by one of the newer breweries in town. For the…

La Cumbre grows with purchase of adjacent property

Back when we ran our Look Back/Look Ahead Series entry on La Cumbre, Jeff Erway said he was getting close to acquiring “a property very close to here” that would help expand the brewery’s distribution footprint. The only thing Jeff left out was which building, but just about anyone walking down Girard had to notice…

Get thee to the slopes for the Taos Brewmasters Festival returns

Happy cold, gray Thursday everyone. If you need some light back in your life, there is some good news for this weekend. The Taos Brewmasters Festival kicks off Saturday at the Ski Valley, marking its 21st annual running below the slopes. Normally, the festival is held in December, but it was pushed back this year…

The Week Ahead in Beer: La Cumbre gets its kicks by turning six

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 Socorro, one in Los Alamos, and one in Moriarty also joining the party. One of our most awarded breweries, La Cumbre, is celebrating…

Beer Notes: Firkin closing is not the start of a bad trend

In case anyone missed it on social media over the weekend, the long-rumored demise of The Firkin BrewHouse and Grill came to pass, as their own Facebook page communicated the following: To all of our loyal and wonderful customers, unfortunately I must state that the Firkin BrewHouse and Grill is closed. More info will follow…

GABF Notebook: Wrapping up everything from the fest

My first experience as a member of the working press at the Great American Beer Festival was a bit up and down. It can be a bit hard to do everything by yourself, for one thing, but in the end it is difficult to drink a lot of beer and then have any desire whatsoever…

New Mexico breweries bring home six medals and more at 2016 GABF

UPDATED: See below. Well, that was chaotic. At first glance, attending the annual Great American Beer Festival awards ceremony with all the New Mexico brewers seems like a great thing. I envisioned quick and easy brewer interviews after they won their medals. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Anyway, I will be tracking down those brewers in the days ahead….