Rowley Farmhouse Ales is a small, independently owned brewery and farm-to-table gastropub in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that opened in September 2016 and specializes in farmhouse and sour ales. From a modest spot at 1405 Maclovia Street, about a block south of Cerrillos Road, it has collected medals at the Great American Beer Festival and was named Small Brewpub of the Year there in 2019. It turned ten this fall, and a bigger home is on the way.
For anyone curious about wild, tart and barrel-aged beer, this is one of the most rewarding stops on a Santa Fe brewery crawl. Here is how it came together, what it brews, and what is changing next year.
From a Garage Homebrewery to a Santa Fe Brewpub
The brewery’s story starts in John Rowley’s garage. Rowley, a chemist by training who works as a research chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, began homebrewing in Santa Fe in the late 2000s and turned his garage into a place where friends brewed every week, according to the brewery’s own history. He sharpened his skills at Santa Fe Brewing’s Small Batch Saturdays and served as president of the Sangre de Cristo Craft Brewers, the local homebrew club, from 2007 to 2016.
He also competed, and won. The brewery says Rowley has earned more than 80 national and regional awards since he started entering competitions in 2010. He has since served as a judge at the Great American Beer Festival.
The business partner who made a brewpub possible was chef Jeffrey Kaplan, who holds a culinary degree from the California Culinary Academy and has more than two decades in hospitality, including helping open six restaurants. Fellow homebrewer Tyler King, a best-of-show winner in local competition, rounds out the founding group. The plan took shape over bottle shares among friends.
Before it had a sign, the project went by the name Sub Rosa Cellars and was expected to become Santa Fe’s fifth brewery, as NM Dark Side Brew Crew reported when it opened. The name changed, the doors opened in early September 2016, and the first batches came off a one-barrel system while guest taps filled out the board.
What Does Rowley Farmhouse Ales Brew?
Rowley Farmhouse Ales brews rustic farmhouse ales and sour beers, most of them made with mixed-culture fermentation. That means the beer is fermented by a blend of brewer’s yeast, wild yeast such as Brettanomyces, and souring bacteria rather than a single clean yeast strain, which gives it tartness, depth and a dry, earthy edge. Many of the beers also spend time in oak barrels or in a foeder, a large wooden fermenting vat.
The house list on the brewery’s website rotates, but a few names show the range:
- Fields of Rye, a core rye saison fermented in the foeder, which the brewery describes as dry with peppery notes (6.0% ABV).
- Mountain of Light, a foeder-aged gose, a salty, lemony German wheat style, here released in a strawberry version (5.0%).
- Stalker, a honey sour inspired by the French bière de miel, made with orange blossom honey (7.0%).
- Petite Blanche, a light saison base that shows up refermented on fruit such as Palisade apricots (4.8% for the apricot release).
- Agent Scully and Agent Mulder, a pair of IPAs at 7.2% and 8.2% for drinkers who want hops instead of tartness.
Collaborations come through often, including barrel-aged saisons with other American sour specialists, and there is even a sparkling hop water for the designated driver. Alongside the house beer, Rowley’s keeps a deep draft and bottle list from New Mexico and beyond, so a group with mixed tastes can find a lager, a stout or a Belgian classic next to the house sours.
A Medal Record Built on Sour Beer
Rowley’s first Great American Beer Festival medal came in 2018, just after its second anniversary: a silver for Germophile in the Berliner-style Weisse category, a field of 115 entries, according to NM Dark Side Brew Crew. A Berliner weisse is a light, tart wheat beer, and the brewery’s team said at the time that the style rewards precise execution more than exotic ingredients.
The following year was the breakout. At GABF 2019 the brewery was named Small Brewpub of the Year and won three medals:
- Gold for Meier, a lemon gose, in German-Style Sour Ale.
- Silver for Agent Orange, a Flanders-style red aged in apple brandy barrels from Santa Fe Spirits, in Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer.
- Bronze for Côte d’Or Double Cerise, a pinot noir barrel-aged saison blended on Montmorency and Bing cherries, in Mixed-Culture Brett Beer.
In 2022 it added another gold, in the Belgian Fruit Beer category against 66 entries, for Grandissant Flor Montmorency Cherry, a kriek-style beer aged more than 40 months. That made five GABF medals in six years for a brewpub that started on a one-barrel system. The common thread is patience: several of these beers took two years or more to finish.
Farm-to-Table Food Built to Pair With the Beer
Rowley’s is as much a restaurant as a brewery. Kaplan’s kitchen cooks from scratch with meat and produce from local farms, and the menu is written to go with the beer. It includes vegetarian and gluten-free options.
The menu changes with the seasons. Past menus described by the food blog NM Gastronome have included Korean-style chicken wings, chicken and waffles with barrel-aged maple syrup, a made-to-order clam chowder, and a farmers market risotto. Recent Google reviewers return again and again to the same idea: the kitchen puts as much care and creativity into the plate as the brewers put into the glass. They also praise warm, genuine service, and fans of saisons and mixed-culture beer call it worth going out of the way for.
Ten Years In, and a Move to Old Pecos Trail
The Maclovia Street space is small. The Santa Fe Reporter put indoor seating at about 30 in August 2026, with a patio that carries much of the load in warm weather. That same report brought the brewery’s biggest news in years: Rowley Farmhouse Ales plans to move into the former Pecos Trail Café space at the Pecos Trail Inn, 2239 Old Pecos Trail.
The owners told the paper that the hotel approached them, and that the target is March 2027, with April possible. The new space is larger, with a bigger kitchen and a walk-in freezer, which should let Kaplan expand the menu. Rowley said he does not expect beer production to change much. Until the move, the Maclovia Street location stays open. If you are planning a visit after the first of the year, check the brewery’s website or the listing below for the current address.
Plan Your Visit to Rowley Farmhouse Ales
Start with a taster of something tart, like a gose or a Berliner weisse, then work toward the barrel-aged and fruited beers. If sours are new to you, Fields of Rye is a friendly bridge between a classic saison and the funkier end of the list. Order food, because the kitchen is half the reason people come. If you are visiting several Santa Fe breweries in one day, line up a designated driver or a rideshare.
You can find the address, phone, hours and a map on the Rowley Farmhouse Ales listing, and the current beer list on the brewery’s website. When you are ready to plan the rest of the trip, New Mexico Breweries keeps a statewide guide to New Mexico brewpubs where good beer and a real kitchen share the same roof.
