2010 New Mexico Brew Fest & Music Showcase

Here I am once again reviewing a beer festival on the morn of yet another beer festival. This writeup is about the 2010 New Mexico Brew Fest & Music Showcase, and today we’ll be attending the last brew fest of the season, the 2010 Albuquerque Hopfest.

The 2010 NM Brew Fest took place at a damn fine venue, the Villa Hispana at Expo New Mexico – the fairgrounds on which the New Mexico State Fair takes place. The Villa Hispana spot had a central grassy area with plenty trees for shade, ringed by the stalls where the breweries set up shop.

Also in the venue was a nice large stage area where the bands played. We hung out on the bleachers facing the stage and listened to tunes for a good part of the ‘fest.

As with Septemberfest, we each received “free” pint glasses (offered in red or green) for tasting and filling. Unlike Septemberfest, however, we got no cool little worksheet for tasting notes, and I found that I really missed it. I’ve now got an iPhone app (Beerlicious) for note taking, however, so I’m digitally equipped for future worksheet-less festivals.

Now, the Brew Fest ads all said “more than 20 breweries”, but I find that hard to believe. One of the breweries I was most excited to see – Ska Brewing – was nowhere to be found, and I would say there were maybe 10 brewery booths in total. Sadly, it made the beer showing seem a bit anemic at such a great spot.

Tractor Brewing Company (from Los Lunas, about 25-30 minutes south of Albuquerque), once again stood out from the crowd by hosting two games that attendees could play for prizes. The still rinsed and rolled your pint glass in ice for you, but the games were a nice touch that added a fun interactive element.

Sadly, many of the breweries did not have any of their short-run brews available for tasting, and merely offered their standard fare. These breweries’ “standard fare” is by and large damn good, but I’ve become spoiled expecting them to bring out the big guns for the beer festivals. Chama River Brewery was one such brewery, and I was saddened to see no fancy brewmaster’s special on tap. Here I am complaining about not having a large selection of small-batch beer from some of the best breweries in the state (or in the country, in my opinion) when their “normal” beers are head-and-shoulders above most of the grocery store fodder that’s out there. Yes, I’m spoiled, but this also shows that it’s a good time to bee a beer lover!

One of the craziest beers I tasted was Eske’s Brew Pub’s Taos Green Chile Beer. And by craziest, I mean it really tasted like green chile, and it was spicy like green chile. Spicy beer. I could barely get through my 1oz. taster, and the thought of a full pint of the stuff led to thoughts of searing heartburn and some serious ring-of-fire, if you know what I mean.

Eske's Taos Green Chile Beer

Turtle Mountain Brewing Company had a killer pale ale in the 4-Play Double Pale Ale. It was a basically a fantastic pale ale, but with more punch. For some reason I totally forgot to fill my glass with a pint of the stuff, however. Maybe something to do with sampling it very early on, and followed by 6 hours of drinking. Sad.

Marble once again came out on top in my taste tests, except for the 4-Play mentioned above (why didn’t I get a pint of that?!). I was even extra careful to temper my fanboy-ism of this brewery, but they simply had the best brews available as far as my tastebuds were concerned. Two beers stood out as exemplary: Whole Lotta Wood, a bourbon barrel-aged barley wine-style strong ale, and an imperial stout. The stout was fantastic, but the weather was still a bit warm for me to fill a pint. It seems quite a few other folks thought the Whole Lotta Wood was great, as that keg ran dry quite early. “Early” means maybe three hours into the six-hour festival, so its not like they shortchanged anybody!

Marble's Imperial Stout

There were two silly things we saw at the NM Brew Fest, and those were the “VIP area” and the out-of-state area. The VIP area was as many VIP areas are  - an area cordoned-off in which festival goers need a special wristband to enter. Apparently there were samples of some fancy Samuel Adams beer being offered, and the VIP’s could hang out on one of the balconies to the right of the stage, if they wished. I’ve always thought VIP areas are silly, in general, and I’ve always turned down “VIP status” at other events when offered because of it.

The out-of-state brewery area was also cordoned off, and a total of one (1!) booth was in this area. The most amusing bit here was the rule (enforced by poor saps who had to explain this to multitudes of drunk people) that attendees could not cross into – or return from – this area with ANY beer in their glass. State law. Funny shit…we took to calling the barrier between the areas the “state line”.

Regarding the music, all of us really dug Felonious Groove Foundation. Besides being a great band musically, they seemed to be having fun and to not take themselves too seriously. I love that in a band.

Overall this festival was a blast. As the first-ever New Mexico Brew Fest, I think they did a great job hosting us beer drinkers in a killer venue, albeit with a somewhat anemic showing of breweries offering a more limited selection of brews than Septemberfest. With more breweries and a more committed showing by those breweries, this festival might be destined to become one of the more successful ones in the state.

Thanks to the organizers, the volunteers, and the breweries. Looking forward to next year!