Tapped Life | Craft Beer Lifestyle Blog

January and February have proven themselves worthy beer fest months. What better way to fight off the winter blahs than WinterBrew in Santa Fe and the New Mexico Beer Cup in Albuquerque. New Mexico brewers stepped up to the challenge of pleasing thousands of beer lovers with imaginative, delicious craft beers at both events. New mexico beer shenanigans. Santa Fe WinterBrew highlights include: Cumulus, a wheat IPA from Bosque; Outlier Special Bitter from Second Street; and Rye IPA from High Desert Brewing Co.

The Brewers Association (BA), the non-profit trade group that represents small and independent craft brewers, announced March 12 that 2012 craft beer exports increased by 72% over 2011. Hallelujah! These are good times for craft breweries. Canada, our kindly neighbor to the north, is the biggest export market, and shipments there grew 140% last year. Perhaps we should set up a pipeline for beer? Big time brewing | craft beer exports up 140%. Other areas of growth included Brazil (150%) and Asia Pacific (162%). BA referred to Thailand, Japan, Australia and China as emerging markets for American craft breweries. I...