Alien Brewpub — Restaurant in Albuquerque

Excellent brew pub with an impressive selection on draught. My boyfriend and I love craft beer and can be quite picky when it comes to our beers, but we found each one that we tried at Alien Brew Pub to be crafted perfectly.

I tried the Black Hole IPA which is a dry hopped black IPA. Black IPAs are usually hard to come by, especially in bars/pubs, but man it was great! However, given the intensity of the dry hops and the bitterness combination, this beer may not be for everyone. Being an avid pale ale drinker, I had to try the Sun Chaser Pale Ale, which was also great. I really loved that they combined four different types of hops, which really accentuated the earthy tones. My boyfriend decided to give the Nut Brown a try, even though most NM breweries we've tried tend to have subpar Nut Browns. Thankfully, Sierra Blanca brewery knows how to do it right, the Nut Brown was super tasty!! The Nut Brown was followed by the MILKY WAY STOUT and, holy cow, this stout is delicious! Before you even drink it, you can smell the sweetness just emanating off this brew. It is a wonderful mix of chocolate and vanilla, but my favorite part about it was the caramel aftertaste. YUM! Personally, it's the best stout that I've ever tried.

Aside from the wonderfully crafted brews, the bartender, whose name I didn't catch was super attentive, helpful, and funny. We were happy to leave her a great tip. We were surprised to only be charged $3 a beer, with the $2 late night discount our total came to $12 for four beers. What a steal! Living in NYC, we are lucky to even get two draught beers at bars for that price!

I would HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend visiting this brew pub if you appreciate high quality craft beers and good service. However, if your go to beer is Budweiser, Coors, Dos Equis, Corona, Miller, etc. you may not find the beers offered at this fine establishment to suit your fancy as an elevated palette is required in order to enjoy...

Place was not busy by any means. Nobody to greet you at the door, we just guessed that we sat ourselves. No biggie, right? Found a table and waited a good 10 minutes before anyone greeted us or acknowledged us. Server finally approached and delivered menus. A good 10 minutes past that she came back around and asked for our drink order. Since we waited so long we were ready to order food and drinks at the same time. I ordered the imperial stout and my wife ordered a water. Her water came, then about 10 minutes later, our food came. No beer yet. I asked the person who delivered our food about my beer and she said she'd ask. Then, finally the server brought my beer. From the time I ordered my beer and the time I received it was definitely longer than 20 minutes. Long story short, our server was not very good. We watched her walk around and she was never overwhelmed, she just didn't seem to care. We only ordered appetizers and thank goodness because I feel we would have waited the rest of the night. The food wasn't bad but the service was definitely substandard. Can't say I've experienced service this poor in a long time. To sum it all up there are plenty of other brew pubs that are better, if you have nowhere else to go then by all means stop by. If you have choices then definitely choose...

I started out with the whiskey stout, which was excellent, then ordered the green chile chicken alfredo. I'd never had a chile pepper alfredo before, but I'm glad I fixed that--this was the best alfredo of my life.

Next I ordered a flight, and first up was the Poncho Verde Green Chile. I've always loved the idea of a chile pepper beer, but never had one that really worked. This one, on the other hand... I could drink this all day. Extremely refreshing, crisp, and light, without much heat, but undertones of the chile. Without a doubt the best peppered beer I've ever had.

The Bone Chiller Nut Brown Ale is a solid Brown, very easy to drink and without the bitterness that creeps up after a while with some others.

The Milky Way Stout is yet again a new favorite for me. Milk stouts are good, but even the biggest names out there seem to have too much bite to really let you taste what's going on behind the scenes. This one lacks the bite and the flavors really shine through.

Finally, the imperial stout is another solid offering which manages to avoid the cloying aura that ends up overshadowing many imperial stouts as you continue to drink them.

My greatest regret in this visit is that I am only in town for another day at best. Next time I'm here, I will be...