Santa Fe Brewing Company

Santa Fe Brewing Company By Pete Ricks. Santa Fe Brewing has a long and storied history in Southwest brewing tradition, dating back all the way to the late 1800's. First incorported in 1892 as The Santa Fe Brewing Company, the name has survived the closure of the brewery shortly thereafter in 1896, prohibition, and the conglomerization of American brewing after prohibition. That is until 1988, which is when Mike Levis acquired one of the original 7-barrel brewing systems used in the rebirth of the craft beer industry from Boulder Brewing in Colorado and moved it to Santa Fe to resurrect the local brewing tradition. The first beer brewed was a straw colored, easy drinking beer called Santa Fe Pale Ale and that still remains the flagship beer of the brewery. Somewhere along the line between 1988 and 1997, the brewmaster duties were transitioned to son Ty Levis, who remains the Santa Fe Brewing brewmaster to this day. In fact, when Ty first started as Santa Fe brewmaster, he was probably one of the youngest professional brewers in recent craft beer history. But that is another story. In 1997, a new ownership group took over the reins and moved the tradition forward once again. A new 15-barrel brewhouse and expanded fermenting capacity were installed and Brian Lock and other partners came on board. It turned out to be too many cooks in the kitchen and by 2003, Brian and Ty were the remaining partners. But they had some big plans for the little brewery on the Turquoise Trail. Brews with tradition! The beers of Santa Fe Brewing are easy drinking session beers. Santa Fe Pale Ale is a lager like ale hopped with Cascade and Willamette flowers. All of the beers brewed at Santa Fe in the late 90's and early 2000 years were brewed with whole hop flowers since that is what the kettle was set up for. The traditional style beers that Santa Fe brews, with the exception of the wonderful Dry Irish Stout, are brewed with German Ale yeast. Levis likes to mash his ales at higher temperatures than most other ale brewers and the result is a beer that explodes with malt flavor and character, while retaining a crisp lager-like finish from the yeast. The combination produces a full-bodied, uniquely flavored beer that is unlike most traditional American Pale Ales. Other beers that Santa Fe brews are the Santa Fe Nut Brown Ale, Santa Fe Wheat Beer, which is an authentic German wheat beer brewed with Bavarian yeast, and the Old Pojoaque Porter. More seasonal beers will be on tap with the expanded brewery and pub so look for many new creations from Ty in the near future. Truly great beers usually have a great story behind them and Chicken Killer Barleywine is no exception. The Santa Fe session beers are great, but my favorite Santa Fe Brewing beer is the Chicken Killer Barleywine. It is a wonderful, mellow Barleywine with outstanding malt character and a nice balanced hop profile from the Clusters hop flowers that Levis uses in the brew. Ty advertises this brew as an American Style Barleywine, but I would have to say that it probably falls more under the English category these days with all of the insane hopping currently going on in American Ale brewing. Now, more about the name. The original 1997 partners decided to have a contest to name this new beer. One evening they had contestants and others over to the tap room to decide upon a name. One of the owners had a dachshund name Petey, which makes this story even cooler, and right around decision time ole Petey came trotting up to the brewery with blood and feathers all over his little snout. Upon investigation, the party discovered that Petey had snuck off to a neighborhood chicken coop and laid waste to over 20 chickens. Not only did the new beer now have a great name and story, but a killer dog mascot too. Literally. So there you have it, one of the best beer name stories you will ever hear. The New Beginning As was mentioned at the top of this article, Santa Fe Brewing is about to be reborn like never before. The property and building of the nearby Wolf Canyon Brewpub were purchased and now Santa Fe Brewing is poised to move tradition forward once again with a greatly expanded production capacity. A new 10,000 square foot brewing facility was erected right next to the pub and a 30 barrel brewhouse capable of 120 barrels per day was installed along with an automated bottling line. Over the years with the previous 15-barrel system, Levis and the Santa Fe bottling crew had filled over one million bottles of Santa Fe beer on a manual 4-head filler, so the bottling line is a welcome addition. The new expanded brewery and pub are slated for grand opening on September 24th, 2005. Santa Fe Brewing has come a long ways since those dusty days in the 1800's. The latest step in tradition and the next generation of Santa Fe beer will soon be available to the masses. It only took 130 or so years, but it's about time! SANTA FE BREWING COMPANY 35 Fire Place Santa Fe, NM 87508 505-424-3333 www.santafebrewing.com