As we did for Santa Fe a couple weeks ago, we do now for the ABQ metro area. The Crew, and for once this is a multi-person endeavor, has set forth and compiled a list of breweries’ merchandise to give you a handy guide for your holiday shopping. Hey, you can’t always just buy people…
Tag: Tractor Brewing
Beer Notes: Yup, we’re brewing again
Greetings, everyone. May this dark and dreary Friday nonetheless be filled with the promise of a good weekend filled with quality beer. All of us in the Brew Crew are looking forward to it, even though we have to get up awfully early (by our mostly nocturnal standards) on Saturday. Why would we be getting…
Beer Notes: The quiet time is upon us
Put away those sample glasses. Don’t worry about what’s being served. Festival season for 2014 is over (well, save for one event, see below) and as such, the beer news is grinding (almost) to a halt. It’s the quiet period, which usually lasts from now through the holidays, and it can be maddening for a…
Release the hounds as Tractor celebrates its 15th anniversary
There is something almost eerie about a brewery taproom being so quiet before it’s open. Such was the case when I stopped by Tractor Wells Park on Wednesday morning. It won’t be the case the next time I’m there Saturday night. That’s because Saturday is Tractor’s Quincenera, a 15th anniversary party for the ages. There…
Best of the (Brew) Fest plus other notes from one wild afternoon
No one got sunburned! Well, that’s how we all looked back on NM Brew Fest 5 after a long, rough Sunday (our football teams, real and fantasy, didn’t help our hangovers, either). OK, we also looked back at the many great beers we drank and how much fun we had. From the VIP barrel-aged beginning…
More fun than a barrel of monkeys, er, beer, it’s NM Brew Fest 5
Beer festival season wraps up (sniff) in our state with the fifth annual NM Brew Fest at Expo New Mexico (the fairgrounds) this Saturday. It promises to go out with a bang, thanks to a special early event admission where you get to taste multiple barrel-aged beers brought in by the NM Brewers Guild. Yes,…
Mr. Oktober(fest) steps to the plate and goes deep
The Brew Crew gathered at Franz Solo’s house this Sunday for our first Oktoberfest challenge. Like our previous challenges, it was a blind taste test (thanks to our wonderful beer maiden, Taylor). This was the first time we felt there were enough marzen-style beers on tap at the same time to hold this sort of…
The Balloon Fiesta tourist’s guide to craft beer in New Mexico
It’s that time of year again, when lots of folks from outside Albuquerque and New Mexico descend upon the Duke City for the Balloon Fiesta. While a lot of us locals grumble about the increase in traffic, even we’re big softies for the Fiesta (assuming we wake up in time). Well, we are, our dogs…
New Mexico breweries head to the Great American Beer Festival
Every year around this time, breweries from all over the US bring their best and most interesting beers to a huge three-day gathering in Denver known as the Great American Beer Festival, or, as we beer dudes casually refer to it as the “GABF” (like we know the guy personally or something). (And some of us…
Rescue your weekend at Marble and other breweries
This weekend marks a temporary respite amid festival season, falling in between Hopfest last week and the upcoming Lions, Tigers, and Beers at the Zoo next weekend (plus GABF, for those lucky enough to head up to Denver) and then NM Brew Fest the weekend after that. So the good folks at Marble decided it…