Surviving the Family Vacation to New Mexico with a Few Good Beers Along the Way

High Desert's Peach Wheat with Green Chile Fries

Taking my nine year old daughter and eleven year old son with my wife where she grew up in Las Cruces, NM to meet the in-laws last week made me appreciate that family vacations are really more like psychological puzzles.  They require balancing the needs of a diverse set of age related interests while dealing with traditional family roles that have mostly laid dormant for months.  Casual conversation around the dinner table contain subtle subplots that go back decades.  The desire to provide my children with a unique, once in a lifetime cultural learning experience must be balanced with the family bonding experience created by playing the same XBox game with their nephews for the 647th time.  Moments where all nine members of three family generations peacefully coexist within a small house are so magical one can fight the inevitable desire that occurs once an hour to run out the front door screaming from a house teaming with inescapable noise and activity.  But really, family vacations are a lot of rewarding fun, and difficult as they may be at times, they sure beat estrangement.

A short rest on a hike to Dripping Springs just east of Las Cruces

And unlike other beer bloggers, who clearly signal they do not have kids as they post a review of eight pubs and three brewery tours conducted over weekend trip, getting away for an hour to a brewpub is a guilty and rare pleasure.  Perhaps it helped that Las Cruces is hardly known as a brewing Mecca so there was relatively few opportunities to be missed.  Thankfully, my wife Linda and her sister Mary accompanied my eleven year old son Brandon and I to High Desert Brewing for a short getaway on a hot Sunday afternoon with a couple beers and green chile fries.

Feeling mighty thirsty, I went for High Desert's Peach Wheat.  It was very peachy.  Almost too peachy, but if were any less or more peachy, it would not have been perfectly peachy.  Somehow, High Desert avoided making this too sweat with all that peachiness riding effortlessly over the clear, slightly tart wheat beer.  Linda and Mary went for the Hop Harvest IPA, with its slightly sweet biscuit-like malt and savory hop bitterness.  Brandon, of course, had the house root beer.

Sign atop High Desert Brewing.....Duh!

Later that day, I was able to sneak out of the house for a few minutes driving around looking for promising looking liquor stores which might have a decent local beer selection inside.  After driving around my in-laws neighborhood for fifteen minutes with no success, I found this place called Fiesta Foods.  Walking over to their large beer cooler and seeing a few bomber bottle selections from Stone Brewing was a promising sign, and sure enough, there were plenty of six packs from breweries all over New Mexico.

A six-pack of Rio Grande Desert Pilsner from Sierra Blanca Brewing was a fine Pilsner to keep cool by the pool, but seemed to lack the spicy hop bite one usually looks for in a Pilsner.  On a trip to White Sands National Monument we all enjoyed the the Sante Fe Brewing Pale Ale, where the lightly toasted malt harmonized well with the soft, earthy herbal hops notes.   Looking over the brewery website descriptions of Rio Grande Desert Pilsner and Santa Fe Brewing Pale Ale, which brag about their respective beers aggressive hop character, one wonders if the mellow hop character I tasted in these beers might have resulted from the six-packs sitting in the Fiesta Foods cooler a bit too long before I finally purchased them, as time subdues the hop bite of any beer.

The thrill of sliding down the dunes in White Sands
National Monumenton a snow disk

We all enjoyed climbing up and down the sand dunes of White Sands, and sledding down them in snow disks.  Unfortunately, after a couple hours, the cooling breezes intensified into gusting winds, and we had to cut our evening cook-out of grilled hamburgers short and run for shelter from the sudden sand-storm before glumly driving home in growing darkness.

The next day as we were getting set to catch our flight home, I engaged in a water polo game with my daughter, with us taking shots on goal against each other by heaving an inflatable rubber ball across the pool.  Throwing a hard shot just before the game was supposed to end created a sharp cramping sensation in my upper left arm, and it took just a second of realization in the confusion to understand I had dislocated my left shoulder.  Again.

My wife Linda hustled me into the car and drove me to the hospital.  As I sat in the passenger seat in my wet bathing suit, feeling increasingly nauseated and light headed while losing all feeling in my arm, we drove by a place called the Pecan Grill and Brewery on the way to the hospital.  "If they can't fix my shoulder in time to catch our flight home," my groggy brain thought, "we're all having dinner there."

The good Doctor Butcher took some x-rays, had his nurse stick an IV into my right hand, and gave me some drugs.  Then while I was incapacitated, Doctor Butcher grabbed my left arm while an assistant pulled at my torso, and this tug-of-war action with my body popped the left shoulder back in place.  When I came to, Doctor Butcher advised us to post-pone our flight out that day, which was set to take off in two hours.  So Pecan Grill and Brewery for dinner then!

The Pecan Grill and Brewery is this upscale looking restaurant.  Unlike most brewpubs which display conical fermenters, grain silos, or other brewing paraphernalia, there was nothing to indicate the place brewed any beer beyond the word "Brewery" in its name.  It even took me a couple minutes to find a beer list, located in the bar menu.  Turns out, the beer is actually brewed in Moriarty, NM, which explains the lack of any brewing equipment on the premises.  Moriarty is 260 miles away from Las Cruces so that might not seem like drinking local, but it's all relative in a state like New Mexico, where the next town is often a three hour drive.


Any questions that the Pecan Grill's beer wasn't really "local" were immediately put to rest by my first selection, a glass of Green Chile Ale, which was nothing less than a celebration of green chiles featured so prominently in New Mexican cuisine.  Pecan Grill Brewmaster Rich Weber uses light malt and the barest additions of any hops to keep those ingredients out of the way of the lightly roasted green chiles, which come shining through without threatening to be overpowering.  It's just sharp and clean green chile goodness.  Which is also reflected in the Pecan Grill's menu, which largely infuses the local green chiles into traditional American dinner fare.

My father-in-law, traditionally a light macro lager drinker, couldn't decide what beer to get, so ordered the whole nine-beer tasting flight.  While our dinner orders were taken, I next tried the Pecan Amber, another nod to local ingredients, as this region is a leading pecan growing area.  My initial reaction was not so good, as the sweetness of the pecan extract gave the impression of pecan syrup dumped into a glass of standard Amber Ale.   However, as the brew warmed and the flavors came to balance, the apparently sweetness diminished, and the pecan flavors melded with the roasty underlying amber ale more effortlessly, creating a nice riff on a familiar beer style.

With dinner, both Linda and I tried their Double IPA.  At 5.8% abv, it's really more of a regular IPA.  Stylistic quibbles aside, this one was a lively blend of grapefruit and peppery flavors.  Frankly, I prefer IPA's like this one that go for flavor than simply packing a huge, often muddled, tongue blistering hop attack.  A good example of the style.

And how was Dad doing with his beer sampler?  He pretty much liked all of them and his favorite was the Double IPA, suggesting that my wife's obsession with hops has genetic origins.   And it was quite satiafying turning a macro-lager drinker onto drinking local, yet another small vactory in the craft brewing revolution. 

The beer flight at Pecan Grill and Brewery just before
a small battle in the craft brewing revolution was won.

The next day, I walked gingerly walked around with my arm in a sling as my daughter learned a new XBox game, my son and I took a walk, and Linda and Mary spent some more sisterhood time in the art shops at Messilla's historic plaza before it was time to catch our postponed flight.  After all the family bonding, a dislocated shoulder, and a few good beers, it was time to return to our lives back home.

See you in about 10 days!

I'm off to the White Sands of New Mexico starting tomorrow for a few days.  Family vacations, beer and running are always a difficult mix so you'll probably won't hear from me for a while.  So look forward to getting back with you in about 10 days.  I might even have an adventure or two in New Meixco to talk about.  Until then, run hard, and may all your beers be good ones!

Cultural Destruction and Discovery on the High Desert of New Mexico

I have a word of advice for anyone planning to go running in Las Cruces, NM in late July. Head out early. Or really late. If you don’t hit the roads before 8 am, expect to be running in 90+ degree temperatures until late into the evening.

While in New Mexico visiting the in-laws, these morning runs turned out to be an ideal opportunity to get what my high school coaches call ‘climatized” for an upcoming half-marathon in Sonoma County. I don’t expect half marathon conditions to be anything like the furnaces of Las Cruces at 8 in the morning, so banging out some miles on the hot roads seems like an ideal way to be prepared on race day.

What I wasn’t ready for were all the changes long time Las Cruces establishment High Desert Brewing. I had last been to High Desert Brewing 2 ½ years earlier and back then in the back adorning the restroom entrances was the finest collection of Elvis portraits on black velvet West or East of the Mississippi. And now they were gone. It is no exaggeration to say that this loss of this critical artwork was the brewpub cultural equivalent of The Louvre being nuked. I finally got an explanation from High Desert's sympathetic dishwasher, who told me the velvet Elvis’s were removed when the walls were recently painted, and for some unexplained reason, were not returned to their places. In fact, all the walls were white and largely barren. I remember the walls and even the ceiling of the place covered with snapshots of smiling people, either on vacation or happily drinking a beer, and now these were gone with the exception of one small corner of the ceiling.

Somehow, these barren walls didn’t affect the neighborhood vibe of the place I remembered from the last time, or the high quality of the beer either. Linda and my favorite was the rich and roasty red ale which High Desert calls appropriately enough "Red Ale". We also recommend their tasty IPA and Dark Bock beer, which High Desert apparently sees no point in giving a name to either.

I’m willing to bet snapshots will start creeping along the walls, covering them in an organically ad hoc fashion again. On can only hope the Elvis paintings will be restored. Our dishwasher friend gave us one last word of advice before we walked out the door: "Give Marble Brewing a try." Since he selected a Cramps CD for the evenings background music, I carefully heeded his words, as his taste was clearly impeccable.

And try Marble Brewing we did. It turns out this brewery in nearby Albequerque makes a pretty good IPA, with its bready malt standing up to the strong, slightly fruity and grassy hop goodness which hit the spot after an afternoon cooling off in the backyard pool. Marble Brewing apparently sees no reason to give their IPA a name, either.


A day at White Sands National Monument sliding down bleach white sand dunes in snow disks and grilling burgers went even better with Marble Brewings Red Ale. It's pretty hop forward red ale, with the caramel malts coupling with a decent amount of Crystal, Cascade, and Simco hops to create a favourable and slightly astringent brew.

I have no reason why brewers in New Mexico simply call their beers "IPA" or "Red Ale" and seem to have no interest in naming their particular interpretation of each style with the goofy puns or alliterative place names favored by most breweries. But then an cooling off with an "Illegal Alien Ale" or "White Sands Wit" does seem rather out of place here. It's a beautiful, but harsh and unforgiving land and not a place to start getting cute and fancy.

The Session #29: Beer in a Land where the Gun has Long Ruled

(In this month's Session, Will Travel for Beer, hosted by BeerByBART, we're asked to either write about beer trip we've taken, or beer related things we do when travelling.)

Last March, I went with Linda to visit her home town of Las Cruces, New Mexico for a few days. Las Cruces is not far from the border towns of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. It lies at the northern end of the large Chihuahuan Desert, which extends far south across the border deep into Mexico, and westward into Texas. I had never been to this part of the country before, but was well acquainted with recent news stories about violent drug wars, and gruesome discoveries of mass graves full of victims of these wars.

This is nothing new for this region of the country, which has a rich history of outlaws, marauding bandits, and violent clashes for well over a century. The reason for this perpetual state of violent struggle becomes apparent simply looking over the landscape. There's almost nothing to fight for. Food, water, and good land are in precious little supply in the high desert. With the vast distances between towns and historically high levels of government corruption, guns were often used to settle disputes and keep order. Dying of natural causes was no small accomplishment in this region, where many died trying to protect what little they had, or were killed in an unsuccessful attempt to steal from someone else. Perhaps the most infamous person in these struggles was Henry McCarty.

Henry McCarty is better known as William Bonney, and even better known as Billy the Kid. He was born in an Irish slum on Manhattan Island, and his somewhat dysfunctional family continued to move westward across the country looking for better places to live until they arrived in New Mexico in 1874 when he was in his early teens. Like many young men in this time and place, he turned to a life of crime, and later joined a gang of horse thieves. Around the age of 20, he was recruited into an armed conflict between rival ranching interests, known as the Lincoln County War. Since McCarty's side lost, the winners vilified him in sensationalistic stories, describing him as sadistic killer of over twenty innocent victims. From all personal accounts, he was actually quite literate, articulate, highly sociable, and a good dancer, who most historians believe was only responsible for a more modest number of about five killings. To the local Mexican population, he was a folk hero who fought a ranching syndicate which actively kept Mexicans near the bottom of the pecking order, and one of few whites in the region who adapted the language, customs, and dress of the local Mexican population. Eventually captured, Billy the Kid was tried and convicted of murder in a small courthouse in the New Mexico town of Mesilla, which is adjacent to Las Cruces. The court house still stands today, but is now a souvenir shop, where you can buy a postcard, T-shirt, or other trinkets with Billy the Kid's picture on it.

About a half mile from this courthouse turned souvenir shop is the High Desert Brewery, which Linda and I visited one afternoon. Pulling into the dusty parking lot, full of beat up pick-up trucks parked on the hot asphalt, I was a little leery of what sort of clientele we might find inside. The whole low-slung adobe building looked a bit worse for wear, with the small High Desert Brewing sign a bit faded. Most small brewpubs like this one are full of locals, and I was not sure how well two out-of-towners would be received moseying into some strange brew pub.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Like most brewpubs all over the country, everyone was there to relax and have a good time over a good pint of beer. The bartender and a customer were chatting about the news story CNN was reporting on the small TV near the bar. Linda and I took a seat and soon our waitress appeared, who looked and acted more like a librarian than a bar waitress. She told us they don't offer a tasting flight when we asked for one, so we opted for a "super-sized" tasting flight by sharing a few eight-once glasses of the various house beers.

As one might expect from a desert brewpub, the strongest offerings were of the lighter, thirst quenching beer styles. My favorites were their crisp Bohemian Pilsner, and an excellent Amber Lager, which had a slightly nutty and sweet malt taste and crisp grassy hops finish. All of the beers were on the light tasting side of each particular style, and the hop level was dialed down compared to typical breweries in the western United States. But despite this, the beer seemed flavorful and vibrant, not thin and watery, and I never found any of their offerings worse than "good". As for the food, let's just say if you like New Mexico Green Chile's sprinkled liberally into your bar food, you're going to be pretty happy here.

One cannot discuss High Desert Brewing without mentioning all the postcards, beer paraphernalia, and other artifacts covering the walls and ceiling. It's all sent in and donated by various visitors and patrons, and creates a unique and organic connection between the brewpub and its customers. So many places try to manufacture this type of environment, but when you see it here, it's very genuine. Back by the restrooms is one of the finest collections of Elvis paintings on black velvet you can find West of the Mississippi. It makes waiting your turn a great cultural experience.

The last day, Linda and I went with her parents to White Sands National Monument. On the way there, we drove past White Sands National Missile Range, a US Army base full of people who specialize and train in the art of blowing up things. White Sands National Monument is basically a vast series of white sand dunes composed of powdered gypsum. We took a couple snow disks with us, and sledded down the dunes as if they were hills covered with snow.

Travel gives me the opportunity to discover the history and geography of a place, which is often reflected in its local beer. It's why I seek out local breweries and brewpubs wherever I travel.