Crafty collaboration: United in Beer teams up local breweries for a cause

Local breweries have teamed up for the second time to collaborate making different styles of craft beer as part of United in Beer.

“This will be our second year doing United in Beer and it’s both a partnership with New Mexico United and their nonprofit Somos Unidos, who we kind of support year-round,” said Joel Gregory, founder of Ex Novo Brewing Company. “But (we) try to do this big, kind of blowout beer festival to raise additional support for them.”

The Somos Unidos Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to creating positive outcomes for New Mexicans through art, sport, community and unity, according to its website.

The draft for United in Beer Festival 2024 took place on Feb. 25, at Ex Novo Brewing Company in Corrales. There will be 13 collaborations taking place between larger and smaller breweries to create various styles of beers including Experimental IPA, Hoppy Lager, Smash, Classic UK, Belgian, West Coast IPA, Classic North American, Pilsner, European Lager, Light Ale, Red Ale, Dark Lager and Hazy IPA.

“It’s a really strong community here, within breweries, a lot of friends,” Gregory said. “And we see each other more as a community instead of the competition. So, the idea is to pair up breweries, we call them the larger or the smaller breweries, but really we just took all 26 breweries that signed up and drew a line down the middle, with how much they sold last year in barrels, and that’s kind of how it was split up.”

The pairings were created to allow different sized breweries to work together to experience something out of their normal routine.

“It’s just nice to work with somebody at a different size than you are,” Gregory said. “Whether you’re working with a smaller brewery or a larger brewery, it’s just nice to be in each other’s space and kind of get a different perspective.”

The United in Beer concept was created by Ex Novo general manager, Stevo Jeter.

“It went really well last year and we got a couple new breweries to sign up and so the collaboration beer happens at whichever brewery decides to host it,” Gregory explained. “It could be the larger or the smaller one, and the brews are one of a kind, unique beer that has never been brewed before for this festival.”

The United in Beer Festival 2024 will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. May 18, at Ex Novo Brewing Company, 4895 Corrales Road, in Corrales. All the collaboration beers will be released at the festival, which is an age 21 and older event. In addition to the beers, there will be food trucks, fun activities and New Mexico United players will be in attendance.

Ticket holders will receive festival access, eight drink tokens and a United in Beer glass. A portion of the ticket sales benefit the Somos Unidos Foundation.

Tickets go on sale to Ex Novo newsletter subscribers on Friday, March 8. The general public can purchase tickets on March 15 on the Ex Novo website at exnovobrew.com/events.

“We have to give people plenty of time to plan and brew these beers, which is why we do the draft thing,” Gregory said. “That was another fun thing versus having brewers just brew whatever they felt like doing. It’s a bit of a draft format so whoever gets picked first, gets the first choice on the style they want to brew. That way we don’t have too much repetition. We have a lot of individual styles, so you don’t show up and it’s all West Coast IPAs or something like that.”