Embudo Station
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Mike Hall
 
Around Mother's Day I ventured up to Embudo Station to sample the wares
of Preston and Sandy Cox. I was with a couple of other families with small
children, so of course skipping stones across the Rio Grande was the main
event. My son Nathaniel discovered a positive correlation between stone size
and splash distance.

When we sat down to sup, it was decided that the quality of the food had
improved from previous years. Sitting beneath the trees beside the river
with a light breeze wafting by was reminiscent of the beer gardens beneath
chestnut trees in Munich. Very relaxing. Speaking of beer, they had five
of their own on tap, as the Embudo Gold was unavailable for the evening. At
Embudo Station they don't feel confined by style guidelines, with a Vienna
Style Lager that is a golden pale color and a May Bock that is dark brown. 
I wondered whether these two were really lagers, but the May Bock seemed to
whisper yes with a clean palate. The Hale Bop Brown Ale was indistinguishable
from the May Bock, causing me to question the identity of all of the samplers.

After having free but small samplers of these beers, I decided to get full
pints of the beers that Embudo is famous for: its chile beers. The Rio Grande
Ristra, a red chile beer, was dark and malty with a slow building burn, and
it was my favorite of the bunch. I must have gotten a bad batch of the Rio
Grande Green, a pale golden beer with a reasonable burn and an unfortunate
phenolic character. I've had it in years past when it was my favorite.