The Fork

Forker Ed Brown wrote in to ask how to celebrate and I have ideas for you!

Santa Fe Brewing is hosting its fifth Oktoberfiesta fundraiser Oct. 15 and 16. The event includes beer, bratwurst, music, contests and vendors—and a portion of the proceeds benefit local nonprofits. Tickets cost $10-$25.

The NM Brewfest is a great excuse to wear your lederhosen. It happens Oct. 1 from 1-6 pm in the Villa Hispana at Expo NM (the state fairgrounds). There's beer, music, food trucks, hijinks. Tickets cost $25.

Sierra Blanca Brewery in Moriarty is hosting an Oktoberfest this Saturday, Sept. 24 at 2 pm. Admission ($12) includes a bratwurst! They'll be pouring their Oktoberfest beer. Kids are welcome (there's a special Kid Zone) and their $12 admission includes a hot dog, soda and bag of chips.

Or head north for the weekend-long Red River Oktoberfest, Oct. 7-9 at Brandenburg Park. It's kind of a big deal, with games, a pub crawl, lots of people in costume. Admission gets you a commemorative glass ($10) or stein ($20).

Meanwhile, New Mexico brewers are up in arms about a proposal to raise taxes on beer in order to help close a gaping hole in the state budget, the Albuquerque Journal reported this week. Right now New Mexico microbreweries pay 8 cents per gallon (for the first 10,000 barrels), which is less than the national median of 20 cents per gallon, but a heckuva lot less than the proposed $2.75 per gallon.

Brian Lock of Santa Fe Brewing, New Mexico's biggest local brewery, said if the proposal became law it would make New Mexico beer too expensive compared to beer made elsewhere. He said he would hire more people to sell beer out of state because it wouldn't subject to the in-state tax.

For dinner, why not keep it simple and do a beer-can chicken or, better yet, get out that rotisserie attachment for the gas grill and put a bird on it. (Ha! I said put a bird on it.) Anyway, the only difficult thing about chicken on the rotisserie, as you may have discovered, is that if you don't tie the legs and wings together the chicken flops all over the spit. And I found something awesome for that: silicone cooking bands. They look like rubber bands but they're heat-proof to 600 degrees. And they're awesome. You can also use them to band together asparagus to drop a whole bunch in the pot or wrap up a butterflied leg of lamb or pork roast. A package of 20 runs about $6.50.

After dinner Friday night curl up on the couch for the premiere of Longmire Season 5 on Netflix.

Santa Fe Reporter