Brewery trio collaborate to create One for 5, giving back to Storehouse New Mexico

One for 5, a collaboration beer created by Steel Bender Brewyard, Second Street Brewery and Sierra Blanca Brewing Company, is celebrating five years of helping curb hunger through the efforts of Storehouse New Mexico.

Its name stems from Storehouse’s ability to provide five meals to New Mexicans in need with just $1 of the proceeds raised through the One for 5 campaign. Storehouse receives $1 of every pint purchased at each of the participating breweries’ taprooms and all the proceeds from the 16-ounce canned four pack sales sold at the breweries and Albertsons Market & Market Street stores in Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Santa Fe and Taos. The grocery store chain also helps Storehouse on a weekly basis with food donations.

Each year, the style of the collaboration beer changes. This year’s release is a juicy IPA that features Bravo, Citra, El Dorado and Sultana hops, as well as HBC 630, an experimental hop donated by Yakima Chief Hops out of Washington. Second Street Brewery president and brewmaster, Rod Tweet, created the recipe for the beer that was brewed and canned at Steel Bender Brewyard. Labeling for the packaged product was designed by Mariah Cameron Scee, the award-winning creative director at Second Street Brewery.

“The style is sort of, think of it as biting into like a ripe piece of pineapple or an orange wedge,” Shelby Chant, marketing director and co-owner of Steel Bender Brewyard, said of the juicy IPA. “Only Bravo hops actually went into the kettle. Everything is done in a first and a second dry hop with the other hops that go in there. And so what that’s doing is it’s really imparting more of the flavor profile, the hops, as opposed to leading to more extreme bitterness. So you’re getting this lovely sort of lemon, citrus, mango, even a little bit of a berry flavor from the hops from that first and second dry hop versus really extreme bitterness ... It’s really refreshing. The aroma is just utterly fantastic.”

Over the duration of the One for 5 campaign, $40,000 has been raised, which has enabled Storehouse to provide more than 20,000 meals to the people it serves throughout New Mexico.

“Storehouse New Mexico is one of the state’s largest food pantries, and we support approximately 35,000 people a year on average,” said Jill Beets, marketing representative for Storehouse New Mexico. “What we do is provide free groceries around Central New Mexico. Our location of our pantry is in downtown Albuquerque, on Broadway, just south of Central, but we have people come in from rural areas that don’t have food pantries of their own, as well as tribal areas. So people come from all over the state to get food.”

A bulk of Storehouse’s clients are from the Albuquerque metro, but many come from outside the area once a month to stock up on food.

“A lot of people understand that they can get canned foods at a food pantry, but we also work pretty hard to make sure there is a variety of fresh foods so that people actually have the ingredients to make meals,” Beets explained. “Things like eggs, milk and meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, all the things that people need to make meals for their families.”

Storehouse feeds a range of people with various income challenges and needs.

“We feed lots of families that would be considered the working poor in New Mexico,” Beets said. “We see everybody from brand-new infants to the oldest of seniors who have run out of retirement money and everybody in between. It’s pretty divided. About a quarter of the customers or clients would be children. About half would be working age adults and about 20% to 25% would be seniors over 65 plus. So there’s a big mix.”

Storehouse’s location at 106 Broadway Blvd. SE also serves a community that does not have many food retailers in its vicinity.

“Where we are downtown, there’s very few food resources, there’s no grocery stores,” Beets said. “A lot of places in New Mexico, in town, people think there’s a grocery store near everybody, and they’re not within walking distance. For many people in New Mexico, the only opportunities they have for food in their neighborhoods are the convenience store where they can just get snacks. And if you lack transportation that’s a barrier to food.”

Storehouse New Mexico is open from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. It holds a pet food pantry on the third Friday of every month. More information is available at storehousenm.org.

“You can just walk in,” Beets said. “There’s no reservations or anything ... People can just show up with an ID and get food for their family. We serve up to 200 families every single time we open, so we have a good system. Volunteers help us out and they get food out pretty quickly.”