EASTWARD BOUND
Brew Lab 101 Beer & Cider Co. opens second location in Albuquerque
Rio Rancho can be somewhat of a trek for people who reside east of the Rio Grande, which makes them hesitant to drive almost an hour for local craft beer or cider.
The travel time to visit Brew Lab 101 Beer & Cider Co. recently shortened with the brewery and cidery opening a second location in Albuquerque’s northeast heights area at 3107 Eubank Blvd. NE, in the Scottsdale Village shopping center. A grand opening celebration will be held from noon to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2.
“We’ve had just a lot of folks on the east side of the river (say) it’s just a long hike for them to get to Rio Rancho,” said Scott Salvas, Brew Lab 101 owner. “And they kind of expressed that they probably wouldn’t make it over there very often, but if we had one in Albuquerque they would. And so, we’ve had a lot of excitement about being over there on that side of the river basically serving the entire metro Albuquerque area.”
The space, formerly housed ReSource Brewing Company, which closed its doors in late October 2023 after three years of business. Owners Shawn and Stephanie Wright decided to focus on their other business and shut down ReSource.
“We’ve been looking for a couple of years looking at exploring different deals,” Salvas said. “We were looking in that area pretty close. I’ve known Shawn and Stephanie for a long time. And we’re both very similar, we’re both initial homebrewers. I so happened to bump into (Shawn) at Summerfest, and we started
chatting about the possibility. They were looking into putting more of their time in their other business.”
The spot was not only a good fit because of its location, but also because it had previously been a brewery.
“They had equipment that I can use because we were looking to expand our brewing operations anyway in Rio Rancho,” Salvas explained. “And, this being a taproom that was mostly there in great shape and ready to go except for rebranding and some cosmetic changes, it was sort of a perfect fit for all of us. It just sort of worked. And we knew each other, we have respect for each other, and it just allowed us both to kind of move in the direction we both needed.”
Patrons will find the same perks at the new Albuquerque location that are part of the Rio Rancho establishment. The about 2,400- square-foot space is pet friendly inside and
out, and patrons are welcome to bring in outside food. A variety of entertainment and food trucks will also be part of the Albuquerque location. A schedule of events and
food trucks can be found at brewlab101.com/albuquerqueevents.
“Our concept is celebrating the science and engineering that it takes to make some of our favorite products like beer and cider,” Salvas said. “We keep it a very family-friendly, neighborhood-focused environment. We have some scientific decor. We have food trucks and we have live entertainment of various types — trivia, music bingo, and live bands, paint nights, and comedy. We like to brew all the different styles. We like to brew lots of lagers and ales, IPAs. And then we also brew a lot of different ciders too.”
The Albuquerque location has 12 taps that will feature eight beers and four ciders.
“And then we also have our craft, housemade, non-alcoholic root beer,” Salvas said. “We’ll also have spirit-based cocktails, distilled products from great local distilleries, our cider cocktails, so a very similar menu.”
Brew Lab’s cider cocktails combine its housemade ciders with locally distilled spirits to create flavorful concoctions.
“It’s really just kind of a fun thing to have our great house ciders but then we can add various syrups and purees to them to kind of create different flavors. We have some popular ones like the Ciderita, which is a cider-based margarita. We have ocean water, which is awesome (with) coconut and blue raspberry. It’s pretty fun. We can do caramel apple and we can do cinnamon apple. We used to do lots of different fun takes … That kind of started in the very beginning of Brew Lab before spirit cocktails were allowed by the state to happen. We wanted to kind of have that cocktail vibe but we weren’t allowed to have spirits. And so, we kind of wanted to get creative now that we’re able to bring spirits into the brewery.”