When the pandemic pushed people toward new hobbies, Greg Ohlsen returned to an ambition he had shelved decades earlier: brewing beer.
Ohlsen said he first explored the idea about 35 years ago, when he lived in a house on Cerro Gordo in Santa Fe. The plan was to launch the Cerro Gordo Brewery, and the effort advanced far enough to produce a label before he abandoned it. "I gave that up. It was just too much of a big deal at the time, and the laws were more stringent," he recalled.
With social distancing in place, Ohlsen ordered a nano brewing system from Spike, a company based in New Jersey, and got to work. The early results were mixed at best. "The first batch we all made was sort of OK, and the second batch went into the sewer," he said. He described feeling overwhelmed at first by the sheer number of choices involved, from dozens of yeast and hop varieties to hundreds of grains and roast levels.
Through instinct, experience and some help from AI software, Ohlsen eventually found his footing with recipes. He then opened a taproom inside Travel Bug, the Santa Fe bookstore he has owned since 1998. The brewery's one-barrel system sits in the store's back room, and he said remodeling the space took only a couple of months once he committed to the idea.
The bookstore has been selling beer for roughly three to four years. It typically keeps two of its own creations on tap alongside a few guest taps from La Cumbre Brewing Co. Ohlsen cautioned that the menu on the store's website, mapsofnewmexico.com, is not always current.
His tastes have shifted over time. He began with darker amber beers, heavy hops and the standard IPA approach, but said he has since moved toward a much cleaner style, including moderately hoppy pale ales and a blonde ale built from similar recipes with different roasts, grains and lighter hopping.
Early on, Ohlsen said he picked up useful guidance from nearby operations such as Second Street Brewing and Rowley Farmhouse Ales, though he described himself as a "bit of a loner" for the most part.
Brewing remains a modest slice of the business. Travel Bug is first and foremost a bookstore specializing in travel literature, and it hosts regular presentations, often on travel topics, nearly every Saturday. Those events drive beer sales far more than casual drop-ins do. "We sell a lot of beer when we have a crowd. The Sierra Club comes in there, and we sell a lot," Ohlsen said, adding that coffee still outsells beer among customers who come in to linger.
Even so, the shop has drawn curiosity as what is believed to be the state's only bookstore brewery and one of just a handful in the United States, a country where bookstore cafes are the norm. "People are responsive because they're very curious, and they also want to kind of support somebody on this micro-scale," Ohlsen said. "It's very small. It's a mom-and-pop operation. It is solidly New Mexico."
