Southern Comfort Foods (and Beer)

A brown ale, Imperial Cream and more are on tap

By Rozanna M. MartinezOf the Journal

Nexus Brewery is one of the places you find yourself going back to time and time again. The Southern-style foods, particularly the gumbo, are regular favorites. And then, there are the Nexus craft beers, especially the Imperial Cream, a corn-based, lighter beer with a punch.

Hurry in for the Brown ale, which has been selling well at the brewery. It will be around only through the first part of September and then it will be gone. The Brown is a Northern English-style beer, according to Nexus Brewery owner Ken Carson Jr. Northern English beers have a tendency to be dryer than Southern beers, he said.

“Our beer is not sweet or dry,” Carson explained. “It’s more in the middle. We brew our Brown with a good variety of malts. There are six to seven malts used to make this beer.” Nexus also is gearing up to bring back its Beam Me Up Scottie, an Imperial Scottish Ale that is traditionally called a Wee Heavy, Carson said. It will be on tap in mid-September, somewhere between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20.

“Wee Heavies are usually very sweet and very malty,” Carson explained. “(Beam Me Up Scottie) is made with six malts, but much more grain is used in the brewing process than with the Brown. The beer is very sweet and a little smoky. And of course, very malty.”

Craft beer is not for everyone, so Nexus has joined forces with a New Mexico favorite, Black Mesa Winery.

“We’ve got everything from our dry wines to our sweeter wines,” Carson said. “The sweeter ones seem to sell the most. We have our whites and our rosés, everything from a chardonnay to a dry rosé to white zinfandel and a La Bajada.”

La Bajada, red table wine, is “pretty popular and very sweet,” Carson said. “We also have Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and a dessert wine called Black Beauty,” Carson added. “It’s a powerful, little, sweet wine.”

Owner, Ken Carson at Nexus Brewery and Restarant

This is a fondly remembered song from my childhood that my dad used to let me play on the jukebox (stocked with 45s) as we whiled away the time at the Soo Line bar in Shawano, WI. Was it an appropriate song for a young impressionable girl to sing really loud in a bar?  Was it appropriate that she was even spending time in a bar?  It was the 70′s, what can I tell you? And for those of you who are too young to know what a 45 is, Google it, whippersnappers!

Anyway, the song is “I Like Beer” by Tom T. Hall.  Memorize the lyrics and come down to Nexus and start up a sing-a-long Extra credit if you learn “In Heaven There Is No Beer”.  For that one, you are on your own.

Woman: Do you drink beer?

Man: Yes

Woman: How many beers a day?

Man: Usually about 3

Woman: How much do you pay per beer?

Man: $5.00 which includes a tip

(This is where it gets scary !)

Woman: And how long have you been drinking?

Man: About 20 years, I suppose

Woman: So a beer costs $5 and you have 3 beers a day which puts your spending each month at $450. In one year, it would be approximately $5400 …correct?

Man: Correct

Woman:
If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past
20 years puts your spending at $108,000, correct?

Man: Correct

Woman: Do you know that if you didn’t drink so much beer, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari?

Man: Do you drink beer?

Woman: No

Man: Where’s your Ferrari?

When starting a brewery, you need a few things to get your crazy idea off the ground:  someone who’s done this before and can make sure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, equipment, and somebody to take over the brewing process once everything is set up.  This, at least, is how our beloved Captain Carson went about it.

The i-Dotter and t-Crosser  

Paul Farnsworth was brought in as consultant and brewery brainstormer to make sure the brewery had everything it needed and formulate some start-up recipes.  His contributions are abbreviated here as I wasn’t around during the set up and I didn’t get to pick his brain, but be sure his part in the creation of Nexus was no small one

The Equipment

The brewing equipment (tanks and such) is actually the system from the old Assets brewery.  For those of you who don’t remember, it was on Montgomery in the same parking lot as the Spin Cycle laundry.  For those of you who do remember, wasn’t it great to be able to put your laundry in the washer, go grab a beer, throw the laundry in the dryer, then go have another beer?  Sure made laundry a heck of a lot more enjoyable.  But I digress…

The Brewer

Manuel Mussen grew up in the small town of Julian, CA outside of San Diego. The son of German parents, he began brewing at a younger age than some might feel was appropriate or lawful.  The brewing bug had bit him so, after high school, he started working as a grunt in the brewery of Rock Bottom – La Jolla, thus solidifying his career path and leading him to seek (and eventually attain) a B.S. in Food Science with an emphasis in Fermentation Chemistry from UC-Davis (They HAVE that?  That’s what I said, too).  During a summer break from school, he interned at a Rock Bottom in Chicago (Woot to the ‘Hawks on their glorious Stanley Cup win!) and after graduation, he interned at St. Austell brewery in Cornwall, England.  Ken had put out ads for a brewer in various publications, one to which Manuel responded.  After a Skype interview while still across the pond, Manuel was hired to helm the brewery at Nexus.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Stay tuned for more Star Trek references, walks down memory lane, and the answers to questions you may not have even thought to ask!

Definition of NEXUS

1 : connection ,  link ;  also : a causal link
2 : a connected group or series
3 : center ,  focus

What Webster forgot to include was a fourth entry that should read: 4 :  A craft brewery/New Mexican soul food restaurant opened in May of 2011 by Ken and Teresa Carson

Welcome to the inaugural Nexus blog and stay tuned for info on what’s up with chicken and waffles?  And what’s the Star Trek link?  And beer? What makes it so great?