Santa Fe Brewing Company

Santa Fe Brewing Company is the oldest brewery in New Mexico and now the largest. It was founded in 1988 in a barn on a horse ranch in Galisteo, twenty-odd miles south of town, using secondhand equipment bought from the Boulder Brewing Company in Colorado and rebuilt by hand.

1988

Mike Levis was a homebrewer with a ranch and a conviction that New Mexico could do better than what was then on the shelf. The first batch he made was Santa Fe Pale Ale, which is still in production, and for years the whole operation was small enough to run out of the barn. He sold in 1996 to a partnership that included his son Ty along with Dave Forester, Brian Lock, and Carlos Muller. Lock bought out the other three in 2003 and has owned the company since. Levis died in 2019, having started something that a good deal of the state’s brewing eventually grew out of.

Scale

In 2005 the brewery left Galisteo for the former Wolf Canyon Brewery near Interstate 25, south of Santa Fe, which doubled the brewhouse from fifteen barrels to thirty. Production went from roughly 1,750 barrels in 2004 to about 17,000 by 2013 and has climbed since. In 2010 it became the first brewery in the state to put its beer in cans, starting with Freestyle Pilsner and Happy Camper IPA, which are still the two you will see most often on a New Mexico shelf.

That growth is worth understanding before a visit, because it sets expectations correctly. A brewery named for Santa Fe is now a regional business, and the headquarters site reads accordingly: working, industrial, and considerably larger than the barn.

Where to Drink It

The Beer Hall at headquarters is the main taproom, on the brewery site itself, with a long tap list, a kitchen, and live music. The Brakeroom is the small one in town, on Galisteo Street. The Bridge is an event space on the same site, across the parking lot from the Beer Hall. The Eldorado Taphouse serves the Eldorado community southeast of the city. There are two in Albuquerque, at Green Jeans and at Tin Can Alley, and a Las Cruces taproom has been announced in the former Bosque Brewing space near New Mexico State University.

The roster moves around more than most, so the brewery’s own list is the thing to check before making a drive. Marble, the other name in any account of New Mexico brewing, pours widely here but brews in Albuquerque.

Common Questions

What is New Mexico’s oldest brewery?

Santa Fe Brewing Company, founded in 1988 in a barn on a horse ranch in Galisteo, south of Santa Fe. It is also now the state’s largest.

What was Santa Fe Brewing Company’s first beer?

Santa Fe Pale Ale, brewed in 1988 on secondhand equipment bought from the Boulder Brewing Company in Colorado and rebuilt by hand. It is still in production.

Where can you drink Santa Fe Brewing beer?

At the Beer Hall on the brewery site south of the city, at The Brakeroom on Galisteo Street in town, at The Eldorado Taphouse, and at two taprooms in Albuquerque. The company’s own list is the reliable one, because the roster changes.