High Desert Brewing Co.: "worth the stop for food but skip the beer" Top 5 Page for this destination White Sands National Monument Restaurant Tip by richiecdisc

I seek out local beers wherever I go and New Mexico had proved a pretty good hunting ground thus far. High Desert Brewing in Las Cruces had gotten mixed reviews but there were just enough good ones to tweak my interest. Being on a budget, I was trying to be selective as to where we went but I'd nearly bypassed Second Street Brewing in Santa Fe for this reason and it had turned out to be the best of the lot so far. So, with Las Cruces very much on our path from White Sands National Monument to great Wild West, we decided to give it a chance. Hey, their motto is "None of our beers suck."

Favorite Dish: This was very much a local's place and quite busy when we arrived at lunchtime during the week. It was a simple bar with some side tables both inside and out but after three days of fighting the sun and camping, we opted for the air-conditioned indoors and the bar as we hadn't planned on eating, again due to financial constraints. They luckily had small sized beers as we had six hours of driving to do that day. We started off with and the Oktoberfest which was a malty amber concoction with an uncertain finish. The Pale Bock didn't fare much better. By then, we noticed that lots of people were just eating and drinking non-beer beverages. The smell of the food was amazing. Despite having eaten something prior to coming, we decided to split a mushroom Swiss burger. It came out with a mound of obviously homemade potato salad and they had considerately cut it in half to facilitate our sharing it. It was a very generous size and though tasty enough that we could have both eaten one, it did the trick for both of us. It's too bad the next two beers didn't fare any better. The Dark Bock was a darker and still sticky copy of the Pale Bock. We decided that maybe they just couldn't brew lagers and switched to an ale but the ESB was another malty affair that left us wondering if hops were available in the high desert. If passing this way, do stop in for a meal. The food's great and they have free wireless in a cool air-conditioned setting. None of their beers might suck but none of them are very good either.

Address: 1201 W. Hadley Ave.,Las Cruces, NM
Comparison: less expensive than average
Directions: Take Route 70 south from White Sands to Las Cruces. It's about an hour so mostly worth it if going southwest of the park, say to Chiricahua National Monument
Price: US$11-20
Rating: 3
Theme: Pub/Brewery
Website: http://www.highdesertbrewingco.com/