New Mexico Beer Guide 2016 updated

No insight really. Just overheard at their 1 year anniversary event that the head brewer would be moving on.

 

Looks like the new head brewer has started over at Bow & Arrow. They introduced him up on Facebook.

Scaletipper is back on tap at Bosque. Tasting good to me.

Marble has some nice ones on tap: a bourbon barrel aged double red as well as a wild ale with apricot.

 

I've been to more local breweries in a 5 day span than I had been to in months.

Marble's choices are back to being impressive. I said it before but Im glad some of those beers are staying on tap for a good amount of time. I had their NE by NE. Fairly solid, if not par for the course. Their DIPA is a straight pine resin old school in your face example. India Wheat Ale felt the freshest in an aroma sense. Nothing wowed me persay but I do need to go back and try that double red.

Friday I hit up Bosque for their scale tipper release. It's as good or great as its ever been. I am catching some backend softness, like it doesnt have a true co2 bite. Big IBU elements combine with the tropical fruit aromas and flavors. A true west meets NE ipa.

Hit up the new Steel Bender (brewer is from la cumbre I have heard). Their IPA felt of the Marble IPA stature.. Very solid core offering right off the bat. Their firkin chocolate stout had some homebrew/yeast sort of issues imho. My favorite was their Kolsch. Right to style with very clean flavors.

Then Boxing Bear for some irish red to go. For a 4.3% beer, it had a true sense of a malt presence, fat tire ish. I know those lighter maltier beers get bad reputations But its a great session beer. I sampled Bear Knuckle DIPA and had a Simcoe Smash. Simcoe really poked through. I dont know if I like that hop variety as a solo hop. Bear Knuckle impressed me. Definitely a straight sort of old school hop bomb. Id take it over uppercut any day.

Really no surprise though. Local Beer of the week is Scale Tipper by leaps and bounds. Just like I stopped buying so many bombers of Project Dank, I have done the same here.I bought just two bombers instead of 7-12. Its easily a nearly perfect beer but I guess Im glad its just a seasonal sort of thing because the price point is absolutely killer. Anywhere from $10 to $12 around town, for a single bomber. Pints have a solid upcharge. I just dont know. The smaller guys out east are able to can and charge about $16/4pack of 16 oz. cans. With our cheaper cost of living compared to metro NYC, Its hard to accept. But thats the cost of showing them that its a GREAT beer I guess.

 

Had the Marble DIPA for the first time in a while last week and thought it was fantastic, right up my alley for what I like in a DIPA. That said, the best bigger IPA on the streets right now, IMO, is the latest batch of Project Dank. I have the same issues with bombers and price so not sure how much of it I will buy, but anytime I come across it on tap I am definitely drinking.

I enjoyed the latest Scale Tipper more this time around than I had any time previously. Not sure if it was batch variation or just my taste buds at the time. Either way, it was tasting great.

And their Bosque Lager is so dangerously sessionable. I know I wasn't to hot for it when I first checked it out but it has grown on me since. Now, I'd put it up their with Marble's Pilsner. I would still take a Marble Pilsner over a Bosque Lager if choosing between the two, but the gap isn't that wide. Either way, 2 of my favorite beers from New Mexico.

 

Bosque just released an IPL, Sticky Fingers, with lupulin powder. First couple sips, and particularly whiffs, it was great but then it all got to be a little too much for me. I actually thought it became a bit cloyingly hoppy.

As a side note, starting to find I am not a huge fan of IPL's. Love lagers but don't care for IPL's. I'll stick with IPA's when I want a hop bomb.

 

Nice to see about all of the beers I can try mid April.

 

Hit up Steel Bender earlier. Their stuff screamed newbie to me. I see some nice potential there, neithet beer I tried was bad, but I'll give them some time to grow and learn their set up. They did hops well in their ipa but the rest of the beer offered nothing. Like already mentioned, the kolsch seemef solid but I'm not a huge fan of the style so not a great source to review it.

As for the set up, seemed more of a restaurant that brewed beer than brewery to me, personally...kinda the vibe i got at Blue Corn, though Steel Bender Is a lit larger. Guess youd call it a gastrobrewery? Not a huge fan of that aspect. Service was weak, but that's generally how things seem to go in Albuquerque. Didn't try the food, looked like standard bar food with a hip presentation.

 

El Jugo is back on at La Cumbre. I liked it.

Bow and Arrow has an imperial smoked Oktoberfest on tap right now. Very solid and definitely worth a try if you like the style.

Thinking its time to move on from Dialogue for a bit. I keep giving them chance after chance but always find that I enjoyed my prior visit more than my most recent one. I was definitely a fan of their saison but cant say anything I tried since then has been worth my time, other than perhaps their cream ale and coffe lager. Really dissapointed in the kettle sours.

 

Father Nelson is back on April 7th.

El Jugo is an interesting beer. My past experience last month seemed to set up some expectations. This time around, I found there to be this backend bitterness that seemed to linger (it did not getting better by that 3rd beer as my palate seemed to stick). It seemed to be more aromatically bright than last month. But on a flavor front, I just dont know. I'd call it a par for the course NE hazy example. It felt higher than 23 IBU and had either a yeast or malt flavor that seemed to pop out a bit (not in a good way). The true haze bombs are nearly 100% juiciness with a softer mouthfeel.

I say all that and still had my 3 beer limit on that exclusively. So yeah, its very good and crushable.

@denver10
Good assessment of Steel Bender. They are solid but forgettable. 90% of the breweries in town are solid yetforgettable, with so many solid options with out of state breweries distributing to town (buying package is wave of the future lol). These new places need to take notice that upon going to buy beer at beer stores or down beer aisles, that freshness is still lacking. So that leaves me wanting to visit LC when FN releases or a new Pale ale, and Bosque for a beer like Sticky Fingers, more than wanting to visit steel bender or sidetrack for beers that are just acceptable. It actually leaves me wanting to go to the source for the core IPAs too (alot of their kegs at various accounts dont exactly have great turnover).

Thats where the local players can really shine. A bright ass IPA that you know is super fresh can really shine over say a DFH 60 minute, or a Founders Centennial.

 

Give us a few more shots on that beer. We are trying out one more yeast on our pilot, and then we'll take a stab on our production brewhouse. Glad you liked it nonetheless.

 

I didn't get to try the first batch, but batch 2 was great IMO. If you keep brewing that I'll keep drinking it....and please, please can it.

 

I have never not given you guys multiple shots and retries, and rebuys, and keg buys. I'm a five time mug club member for a reason (I love your German styles almost more than your hoppy ales).
Definitely not calling it a dud. But there's such strong hype and greatness behind the style, it's really hard to match. I do appreciate the trying. I'll never stop trying either. Your close. Match the aromatics of scale tipper, with a softer less abrasive mouthfeel and that's the style.

 

Thanks very much. The best of these beers tend to exhibit some really interesting biotransformations from the yeast/ester and hop interplay that I feel we nailed pretty well on the first one. The second one doesn't have quite as much of this but I feel we got the body down... So the next one, we'll try a new yeast strain that hopefully more consistently gives the esters that we are looking for and we can go from there. We also need to replace the fermenters on our pilot system to something that can seal so that we're not losing a lot of our hop aroma which I plan on doing next week... Fingers crossed.

 

FWIW, I liked my home brewed NE inspired IPA better with London III than Conan yeast. Not sure what yeasts you've tried.

 

I actually enjoy the NE IPA'S that provide a little bitterness in the finish, even if that breaks against the mold.

Didn't try the original batch of El Jugo to be able to compare, but I liked this latest batch. The style isn't my favorite, I am drinking a Project Dank right now and enjoy it a ton more than any NE style IPA I have tried, but it can hit the spot when the mood strikes. Excited to see where you guys take El Jugo.

 

Parabola and KBS both on the shelves at Jubilation.

 

Limit of 1 Parabola is not exactly worth running there for it when lots of other folks have no limits.

 

Fair point.

As someone who generally only buys a single bottle of any beer priced at $10, their limit didn't effect me. Guess I should have given others the heads up though.

 

Father Nelson was nice as always. Very complex for me. Super clean and bright flavors, yet some sips were sweet, while others almost abrasively bitter. Each sip was a different experience for me.

I sampled the latest project dank. It had a nice contrast against Father Nelson. Nelson was just way more aromatic, bolder, and more all around better. This may be the same Dank as last week, which I felt was super subdued. In all, I bought two Nelsons to go (unlike cases in past years). I enjoyed it but its becoming less of a WOWer, if that makes sense.
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What other places got KBS/Parabola other than the two big box places and Jubilation? Like a lot of releases, I do my due diligence, and then give others time to make choices (w/o being a total hoarder). There is no reason if certain stores got just 3-4 cases, that there is still a case lingering around. That's what I saw about an hr ago.. And who knows, I know at one of the TWs, KBS was sitting in the 8-10 case range all on the floor. 3 days later, still there, maybe one case sold. Then 4-5 more days later and its all gone. Do what you gotta do, is my motto. I can help anyone out if they need it

 

I've thought the last 2 bottlings of Project Dank have both been great. The 3/6 batch in particular was one of my favorite batches I have tried from the series.