Those of us who live in northern New Mexico are really lucky to have so much excellent outdoor adventure opportunity around us. When I was a kid growing up here, the favored beer was Coors, really just a glass of water with a hint of beer flavor. Today, whether you live in Santa Fe, or Chama or Salida you can get really good beer to drink out in a campground, up a trail or on a river rafting trip. Beer like that made by Eddyline Brewing Company.
I remember how surprised I was to find a micro brewery in Socorro a few years ago when I was headed farther out west. There was Socorro Springs right near the highway where you could actually have a good beer in a modern building. Unbelievable. Socorro is home to New Mexico Tech, so it only makes sense that academics need local beer to cool off with but the town looks like the 1960s or before.
Socorro Springs, as it turns out, was started by Mic and Molley Heynekamp who were fleeing Texas (completely understandable) and seeking sanity in the deserts and mountains of the wide open West. They landed in Socorro somehow and Socorro Springs continues to thrive today but Mic and Molley wanted water in their lives so they moved to Buena Vista, Colorado and started Eddyline Brewing Company.
Buena Vista is an old crossroads town on US Highway 24 between I-70 near Vail and Salida. That’s the road that takes you through Leadville when you are fleeing the Denver influence and headed toward the less populated parts of the state. Buena Vista was always a sort of cowboy town with bad food truck stops and a prison that glows out on the southern edge of town.
Salida and Buena Vista represent the northern edge of the Spanish influence in Colorado. The San Luis Valley just south is full of Spanish names and families that trace their histories back to the 1700s. North of Buena Vista the names are English, the history more recent. South of Buena Vista lies New Mexico after all.
In the last 5 years Buena Vista has been discovered by the hipsters in Colorado and its once empty storefronts on historic Main Street are now full of kayak shops, art galleries, gear stores and bagel shops. Deer still graze on the historic courthouse lawn from which you can look out and see the pinon and juniper hills around town and Mt. Harvard at 14,480 feet just to the west.
Naturally a brewery fits right in. The Arkansas River flows through town and people eagerly raft and kayak the river when it has enough water in it. The original Eddyline Brewery was down by the river in a new development of shops and small houses next to a park (926 South Main). Today there is also a brewery and restaurant on Highway 24 near Linderman Ave.
The brewery is named for that line of water on a river where a recirculating current caught against a bank (an eddy) meets the main downstream current. On a big river like the Colorado in the Grand Canyon, eddylines can be dangerous to a rafter or a kayaker as the speed of the water changes rapidly across the line and a person and flip their boat on what looks like flat water. Getting across the eddyline can be work if the eddy is strong enough and an eddy offers refuge from the downward rush of the river for a boater who needs to stop.
Eddyline is making a range of British style ales led by their regionally available canned Crank Yanker IPA. This beer is similar to the 7K IPA from Santa Fe Brewing Company. It is good and enjoyable but it is not a highly crafted IPA in terms of the balance of the hops or the quality of the hops. Good but not great.
Eddyline also has an Amber, Stout and Black Lager as well as a Pale Ale. Of these the Pale Ale is the most interesting and one can take cans of it on a river trip without blowing your socks off with its alcohol level. How refreshing to drink pale ale in the summer sun.
Eddyline’s beers come in 16 ounce cans which is a good quantity for those times you are sitting on the side of a peak watching the afternoon rush away from you or when you are in the nearby Princeton Hot Springs enjoying nudity and scenery.
Once you’ve had your fill in Buena Vista you can head south on Highway 24. Soon, you’ll be at Browns Canyon National Monument which was designated by President Obama in February 2015. This National Monument is managed by both the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and centers of the spectacular canyons of the Arkansas River in a wild stretch. This is and excellent place to raft and enjoy a wild and solitary place in this increasingly busy part of Colorado.
Be warned, there are no signs of any kind on the highway to direct you to the new national monument. For whatever reason the agencies are being coy about the designation or perhaps they don’t have the funds to put up signs. In any case it’s a good place to raft, hike, bike and camp.
Little Donald Trump had threatened to rescind this national monument in his quest to erase President Obama from the history books but, because there is no oil or uranium under Browns Canyon and because of the fierce backlash from his opening the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah to mining and oil drilling… Browns Canyon is probably safe.
