ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Ages before there was beer in New Mexico, there was blue corn. The local staple has held a central spot in the gastronomy of the Rio Grande Pueblo region. In fact, the native peoples of this land developed the crop.
The corn and its derivatives enter local cuisine as bread, tortillas, meal, gruel, and atole. Today, we can add craft beer to that list. As craft breweries around the state of New Mexico begin to brew intriguing new beers with the state’s hallmark grain, it is helpful to note that blue corn beverages are nothing new in the land of New Mexico. Nevertheless, the trend is making New Mexico craft beer more New Mexican.
Atole, a common concoction in Mexico, is also part of the historical gastronomy of indigenous New Mexico. Simply put, atole is cornmeal mixed with water. The corn can be roasted or raw. The mix can be cold or boiled. The consistency can be thick like that of porridge or thin and drinkable like an eggnog. Modern renditions of atole often contain milk, but this is a European import to the New World diet.
Blue corn, meanwhile, is native to the land of New Mexico. The specific cultivars of maize that contain anthocyanins, the chemicals that give the crops their namesake color, were developed by Pueblo and Hopi indigenous peoples. As atole has likely been part of the Southwestern beverage repertoire for several millennia, it is within reason to state that blue corn atole is the oldest of any blue corn beverage.
That is not to say that this drink is only a thing of the past. Many Pueblos in the area still grind blue corn meal for use in atole. Some even sell commercial mixes for those interested in making blue corn atole at home. The Santa Anna Pueblo, just north of Albuquerque, for example, sells blue corn meal roasted for atole under their brand Tamaya Blue.
On top of atole, tiswin is an indigenous beer fermented from corn common throughout northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Whether the beer can be fermented from blue corn is a question for native artisanal brewers, but it seems likely that it would have been at some point in time.
It has only been about three decades, though, since the idea of blue corn came into contact with craft beer.
In 1996, Blue Corn Brewery opened in Santa Fe. Three years later, the Santa Fe Dining Group would open a branch in Albuquerque which would be rebranded as Chama River Brewing Company in 2004.
While Blue Corn Brewery was not the first craft beer in New Mexico, its influence on the current craft scene is outsized. Brewer Ted Rice worked at the Chama River branch of Blue Corn Brewing before setting off with some business partners in 2008 to open Marble Brewery. His replacement at Chama River, Jeff Erway would go on to found La Cumbre in 2011. After Santa Fe Brewing, these two descendants of the Blue Corn Brewery family were the second and third largest craft breweries in New Mexico according to a 2019 report by Albuquerque Business First.
So blue corn is part of the craft beer heritage of the state, at least in name and from a personnel point of view. But looking around New Mexico today, you can’t help but find draft lists with “Blue Corn” scribbled across them in chalk. Stouts, lagers, pilsners, and ales all incorporate the local New Mexican ingredient. It seems New Mexican craft is coming home to its roots.
Steel Bender Brew Yard offers up their Compa Blue Corn Lager. It’s a lightly carbonated golden lager, crisp with a hint of corniness at the finish. The brewery has been making the beer since it opened its doors in 2017, and it is now available year round.
Shelby Chant, co-owner of the brewery, speaks to the use of blue corn in their recipe, “It’s very important to us, when we can use local ingredients that will work and are scalable.”
Monica Mondragon, Brewery Operations Manager, can speak to the technical side of working with New Mexico’s heritage crop. The brewery sources their blue corn milled into grist from Southwest Heritage Mill, who also sells blue corn atole mix. Mondragon says, “We went with the blue corn because it imparts a bit more sweetness.”
The corn, she comments, “Adds a bit of color. When we are mashing it looks purple. Then, as it ferments, the grist settle out.” The blue corn makes about one SRM (Standard Reference Method) difference in the beer’s final color. The only challenge in brewing with the blue corn is a bit more filtering.
Bow & Arrow Brewing Co., which is focused on indigenous heritage in craft beer, produces a couple of blue corn beers. In November 2021, the brewery embarked on a Native Land initiative, which brandishes the slogan “All Beer is Brewed on Native Land.” The initiation looks to fund indigenous non-profits through the sale of craft beer. To date, the program has raised $90,000.
For their part, Bow & Arrow have developed a 2023 recipe for the initiative containing heritage blue corn. They call this beer Native Land 2.0 Mexican Lager with Heritage Blue Corn. The use of blue corn for a native-focused beer makes perfect sense given the roots of the plant in indigenous agriculture and gastronomy.
They also brew a Denim Tuxedo American Pilsner. The pilsner is crisp with a surprisingly sweet finish. The blue corn seems to have thickened the beer, giving it a smooth and soothing feel on the tongue. It’s refreshing like a sweet tea, but maintains the biting crispness of a reliable pilsner.
Elsewhere in Albuquerque, Differential Brewing Co. lists Blue Corn Cream Ale at the top of their draft list, handwritten in neon marker. The brewpub, situated near the university, occupies a retro Southwestern gas station building crowned with a huge metal abstract monolith.
The Blue Corn Cream Ale smells a bit like cream soda but tastes fairly malty. It is smooth with light notes of vanilla. This version of a blue corn beer conjures up the flavors of creamed corn in its cloudy, golden body.
Anthony Hanson, co-owner of Differential, says that they have sold the beer continuously for four years on tap. The recipe, though, is a homebrewing recipe he developed a decade ago. Today, it is their number one seller–a flagship blue corn beer.
Hanson’s approach to craft beer is a bit unique as well. Differential, he says, is “all about light beers. I don’t believe in IPAs. I don’t do high alcohol. We are in the cream-like middle ground, but not light lagers. We pride ourselves in light beers, but we try to make them unique within the category. ”
Working with blue corn, Hanson says, gives the beer “a roasted flavor that you don’t get from other roasted corn or from other roasted grains. It imparts a deep purple and a slight opalescence on the head foam.”
Differential sources their blue corn locally in New Mexico where the supply never runs short. Their miller works with a variety of heritage grains. In fact, Differential has experimented with other grains, making one-offs like Red Corn Cream Ale which Hanson describes as “dry and crisp, none of the roasted flavor, tasting like rye.”
And Differential is using blue corn in a slightly different way. Rather than using the milled corn as part of the fermentation, Hanson prefers to treat it as an flavor. “We found out that it has to be roasted and it has to be in big chunks, otherwise it’s a pain in the ass in the brewing process.” He says, “We use it as an actual adjunct and it is not necessarily a fermentable.” The result is a beer that is hyper focused on imparting the flavor of blue corn into the beer, not just incorporating blue corn into the brewing process.
Other New Mexico breweries have also worked with the local heritage grain. La Cumbre Brewing has brewed a Blue Corn Mexican Lager and Casa Vieja in Corrales has brewed a Blue X2 Blue Corn Lager and a Blue Maize Cream Ale.
Reflecting on the regional push into blue corn beer, Steel Bender’s Chant says, “These kinds of ingredient trends ebb and flow. Before that, there was a one-off or a seasonal. Now, blue corn has become a sort of staple.” At Differential, Hanson comments, “I imagine blue corn will be in some form or function here to stay. It is more expensive as an adjunct, so for the big boys, it may not be work.”
As the craft scene rediscovers blue corn and begins to brew year-round with the heritage grain, there is a sense that New Mexican breweries are interested in being part of a local tradition. By using blue corn, these businesses are buying local. By experimenting with the crop–its taste, its consistency, its color–these brewers are building on thousands of years of gastronomy. While the corn has never left the native diet of New Mexico, and atole predates craft beer as a beverage by orders of magnitude, it is exciting to see a diversity of new brews turning to New Mexico blue.
Stott, Jon C. New Mexico Beer : a History of Brewing in the Land of Enchantment. American Palate, a division of The History Press, 2014.
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