Category: Brewery-Pub

1933 Brewing Co. – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, American, Bar & Grill, Brewery-Pub, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

“Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.” ~Will Rogers “I’ll drink to that.”  Such was the rampant sentiment with which Americans welcomed the repeal of the notorious 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which had prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors…”  For more than a decade Prohibition had not only wrought…

Toltec Brewing Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, Brewery-Pub, Burgers, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

Vincent: And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris? Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese? Vincent: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know what the #%*&! a Quarter Pounder is. Jules: What’d they call it? Vincent: They call it Royale with cheese. Jules: Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac? Vincent: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac. ~Pulp Fiction 265…

Starr Brothers Brewing – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, American, Brewery-Pub, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

Poets, musicians and authors have long rhapsodized about the loyalty of dogs, the most faithful and loving companions anyone can have. Their love is unconditional, their loyalty boundless. They’re truly man’s best friend. Poets, musicians and authors obviously didn’t know Chato, the sleek and powerful best friend to the Dominican nuns who taught generations of Peñasco’s best and brightest at St. Anthony’s (my alma-mater). No matter where they drove in their ancient rattletrap of a car, Chato sprinted along to…

Tap That – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, Brewery-Pub, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

In my review of the Corrales Bistro Brewery, you were introduced to “Le Cochon,” a self-professed God’s gift to women, lady killer, playboy, seducer, Lothario and otherwise philanderer nonpareil. To my knowledge, Le Cochon is still plying his cheesy pick-up lines on women and getting his face slapped a plenty in the Boston area. He would undoubtedly giggle like the school girls of his dreams at the Albuquerque taproom named “Tap That” which dispenses libations by the ounce. In its…

Desert Valley Brewing – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, Brewery-Pub, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

Every time a new brewery launches in the Duke City, aficionados of quaffing ales, lagers and stouts celebrate another venue where they can slake their thirsts. The media, on the other hand, always seems to ask one question: “Is Albuquerque approaching a “saturation point?,” meaning can the market sustain another brewery. Cerevisaphiles will tell you this is just an alarmist “sky is falling” media seeing the (beer) glass overfull and creating yet another sensational headline. In any event, the answer…

Boxing Bear Brewing Company – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAlbuquerque, American, Brewery-Pub, Dog Friendly, New Mexico

In the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro which centers on a fictional professional basketball team, there’s a scene in which Ferrell’s character wrestles with a grizzly bear at halftime of a game. While young viewers might find this scene preposterous, if not unbelievable, some of the more geriatrically advanced among us might remember when such promotions actually took place–usually at rural county fairs where members of the audience were offered money if they could last a few minutes with a…

Rowley Farmhouse Ales – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAmerican, Brewery-Pub, New Mexico, Santa Fe

Only in John Denver’s hit song “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” is life on the farm “kinda laid back.” In actuality, farm life can be downright arduous, requiring back-breaking work in climatic extremes for low wages. It was much worse in colonial days when life on a farm generally meant very few luxuries outside of a warm fire and a tankard (or ten) of house-brewed ale. Beer was brewed not only to refresh, sustain and comfort hard-working farmers, but…

Second Street Brewery – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAmerican, Brewery-Pub

Having served as a judge at many competitive culinary events, it’s always baffled me just how much disparity there usually is between the judges’ choices and the people’s choices. In almost a decade of having had the privilege of judging at the Roadrunner Food Bank’s annual Souperbowl event in Albuquerque, for example, there’s only been one instance in which judges and the general public agreed on the winning soup. That transpired in 2015 when the Ranchers Club of New Mexico‘s…