And La Cumbre’s getting larger

Pardon the bad paraphrasing of a quote from “Airplane!” in the headline, but I could not resist. After having spent nearly two weeks doing nothing but writing about sports (Saturday’s six-hour high school track and field meet was the brutal finale), I have finally gotten back to the local beer scene. After Sunday stops at…

Father Nelson: Destroyer of Worlds

Editor’s note: We have been informed that La Cumbre and area liquor stores are running very low on bombers of Father Nelson, so hurry up and get yours before it’s all gone. — Stoutmeister My first taste of this wonderful ode to the glories of hops came on the day of its release, and I…

Beer Notes: More medals, more interviews, more brews

This edition of Beer Notes might count as the most random grab-bag of stuff ever. The news has started to pile up on our doorstep again, now it’s just a matter of finding that precious thing — time — in which to go more in-depth. Until then, well, here’s a summary of all the fun…

Beer Notes: New breweries making progress

Happy National Beer Day, everyone! Today is the 81st anniversary of the day prohibition was repealed, so folks everywhere should raise their pints in honor of one of those rare moments when politicians actually did the right thing. Anyway, while the various Crew members debate what beer to drink to honor this sacred day, I’ve…

Nexus’ new brewer aims to keep a good thing going

For the finale of our series of interviews of new brewers around the Albuquerque metro area, I visited Nexus on Wednesday morning before they opened. Kaylynn McKnight, formerly an assistant brewer at La Cumbre, is in the process of taking the reins from Manuel Mussen. She will be the first female head brewer in the…

La Cumbre’s Project Dank ranked No. 1 IPA in all the land

The good folks over at Brewing News have been holding their own version of March Madness for the last seven years, pitting the best IPAs across the country against each other in a tournament that started with around 30 entrants and now has 128. As our headline states, the 2014 champion is La Cumbre’s wildly…

Beer Notes: Irish Red challenge, brewer shuffle, and more

Dear lord have I had my fill of high school basketball. It’s not over until Saturday, but I’m ready to be done. The good news is I’ve made money for beer! (and other expenses, but hey, priorities) Anyway, didn’t mean to neglect the site or the current wealth of news, but a man only has…

Beer Notes: Local brewers play musical chairs

It has been a slow news week on the beer front, as you all have no doubt noticed from our lack of fresh content on the site. Now, part of this is due to the fact that there are a lot of rumors about brewers moving about that we have either not confirmed or we…

Stout Challenge: Double down on the new champion

Three years, three Stout Challenges, three different champions. In the first year, Marble took the crown. In year two, we went to a blind taste test format and it was La Cumbre who came out on top. Sticking with the blind taste test format this year, our only change of note was that Mrs. Solo…