Amuse-bouche New beer taprooms
borrow from a vintage ad campaign, if you’ve got the time, New Mexico’s got the beer. By the time 2017 rolled around, our state had fostered around 50 local breweries, and that number has only been growing since then. A few new taprooms have arrived on the Santa Fe scene recently, and with Beer Creek Brewery — which opened earlier this summer on N.M. 14 across from the Lone Butte General Store and reportedly will be serving its own brews this fall — we’ll add another destination to the list. Here’s a look at noteworthy new choices for cerveza-philes around town.
Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery (2791 Agua Fría St., 505-303-3808) — Jason Fitzpatrick and Jason Kirkman’s labor of love — opened earlier this year in the revitalized skeleton of the dearly departed Club Alegría. Tumbleroot is doing its darnedest to be all things to all people, with both cocktails and beer, food for kids and grown-ups — including I weekend brunch — a stage and dance area to accommodate the live bands Tumbleroot hosts regularly, indoor and outdoor seating, dedicated play areas for kids inside and out, and even a weekly yoga class led by an instructor from Thrive. Parking is plentiful — a definite boon in Santa Fe — and for thirsty walkers and bikers, the river trail isn’t far off. The interior space is cool and cavernous, if sometimes a bit dark, but the shade is welcome on these stillwarm afternoons of summer’s end. (If you’re looking for something a bit more cozy, check out Tumbleroot’s Bisbee Court facility, where the actual brewing and distilling takes place. This space in a light-industrial business complex includes a tasting room and offers tours on a weekly basis.) The beer menu runs the gamut — from Pilsner and Helles lager to ale, a smoked porter, stout, and three IPAs, with a saison and a gose in between — and are listed in tiers that seem to correspond to price, not strength, given that Tier 1 includes beers with ABVs ranging from 3.8 to 6.2 percent. Flights are available for the truly indecisive. The Pilsner was light and refreshing, but our glass had an odd, vaguely offputting aroma. The farmhouse was delightfully hazy and funky, but at our table of beer lovers, the runaway favorite was the well-balanced Citra pale ale, whose bold flavor belies a 5 percent ABV that won’t knock you off your feet.
In Tumbleroot’s earlier days, hungry drinkers had their choice of nosh from various trucks, but that plan has since morphed (although when we visited, Bang Bite was still anchored by the back fence), and now the well-intentioned “marketplace” is now mostly occupied by a kitchen cranking out everything from uber-creamy artichoke-kale dip to pho, shepherd’s pie, and chicken and waffles. Be aware (as we were not) that the purportedly shareable “oven drumsticks” consists of two actual regulation-size leg portions coated with a sticky-savory stout mole and served with purple-cabbage slaw and zesty ají sauce. The menu skews away from standard bar fare and more toward gastropub, with offerings like the now derigueur Brussels sprouts, charred shishito peppers, biscuits and gravy, and dishes you might not expect at a joint where toddlers might be bulldozing through — like foie gras sliders and duck confit meatballs. Local products make cameos across the menu — Old Windmill Dairy chèvre, Green Tractor Farm kale, and Talus Wind Ranch pork, to name a few — which is always nice to see. Incidentally, Tumbleroot also brews with malt from the Colorado Malting Company, which has been farming in the San Luis Valley since the 1930s.
One of our city’s beer pioneers, Santa Fe Brewing Company, has been expanding its empire bit by bit over the years, bringing a tiny taproom to Eldorado’s La Tienda shopping center and setting up a popular two-level outpost at Albuquerque’s shipping-container kingdom, the Green Jeans Farmery. Earlier this year, at Santa Fe Brewing Company’s Brakeroom (510 Galisteo St., 505-780-8648), the company revived a 1912 building on Galisteo Street that once housed railroad brakemen — the chaps responsible for engaging the brakes on late 19th- and early 20thcentury trains — and that in the early 2000s was home to the popular Diogenes cigar club. Much of the tiny building’s period charm has been retained (or at least replicated), with wood paneling and floors, vintage tilework and fixtures, and ornamental ceilings. SFBC also added a charming patio offering roomy picnic tables and hop vines gradually winding up twine along one side.
Most of the brewery’s greatest hits, listed on a chalkboard, are available here, as are seasonal and special offerings. The 7K IPA appears to be the new darling, seemingly outshining its predecessor, Happy Camper, but choices from lighter and darker ends of the spectrum are also available. If the Western Block