Four Corners brewery wins big in prestigious international beer competition

FARMINGTON, N.M. – Just a lift of the handle, and you got yourself a beer – but coming up with the recipe takes a little more creativity.  

“Sometimes we’ll have a beer name idea that we just think is clever, and we’ll kind of backtrack it and try to work it from there,” said Patrick Liesmann, head brewer and distiller for Three Rivers Brewery.

Then factor in a two-week brewing process.

“Once you start the brewing process you kind of got to see it through in certain sets of times,” said Liesmann. 

But hard work pays off – three beers that were thought of and brewed got some recognition.

“The Best of Craft Beer Competition it’s one of the largest international competitions in the country, it’s held in Bend Oregon every year, and we walked away with three metals this year,” Liesmann said.

Two gold and one bronze medal.

“We got a gold medal for the Sky-High IPA and gold metal for our yuletide brunch,” said Liesmann. 

The bronze went to a Belgian mixed culture, fruited sour beer.

These awards are some of the biggest that Three Rivers have won in its 25 years.

“Right now, in this country, we are up to 9,000 craft breweries, competition is getting increasingly harder, especially winning a gold medal with an IPA in an international competition is considered to be one of the hardest metals to win in the county,” Liesmann said.

The hope is that this big score will put the Four Corners on the map for those that geek out on beer.

“We’re not a big brewery, we don’t distribute, we are all in house, so hopefully it does bring a little bit more eyeballs to us,” said Liesmann.