It grows as it goes 🍽

Paradox Beer Company's brewer/owners launch a kick-ass-legit New Mexican food menu to complement their "wayward" beers

Paradox brewer/owner and now chefs Brian Horton (left) and Jeff Aragon.

Crescit eundo. That’s New Mexico’s state motto, which means “it grows as it goes.”

I confess I didn’t know that off the top of my head, until stumbling upon it as I was pondering the above headline. But it’s perfect for this story, and even more apropos because I read how there’s a little controversy around the motto “for appearing strange or even nonsensical.”

What’s so fitting about that? Paradox Beer Company describe themselves in very similar terms, referring to their barrel-aged, bottle-conditioned beers as “wayward.” And owner/brewers Brian Horton and Jeff Aragon respectively site “deep roots” of New Mexican and Southern Colorado-area heritage dating back to the 1600s. That’s what they’re spotlighting with their newly launched New Mexican-style food menu — under the banner of a new house brand they’ve named Gallos Borrachos. (That translates to “drunk roosters” my gringo amigos).

Now in its 11th year, Paradox has indeed grown as it has gone along: out of its original Woodland Park location around eight years ago. And by volumes as a 10-barrel brewhouse with an array of fermentation, blending, aging and service vessels that account for large brewery and taproom footprint in Divide.

Johnny Cash's iconic image graces Paradox's hallway. And quantifying Paradox's brewery operation.

Before launching Paradox, Jeff and Brian started (now-defunct) Trinidad Brewing Company. They’d grown up in the same neighborhood as kids. Their parents had done the same thing a generation prior. Brian later married Jeff’s younger sister. “We’re family forever,” says Brian, as we sit chatting with him and Jeff over rounds of drinks and a partial menu sampling.

This has been arranged with the assistance of Ryan Hannigan at Side Dish-partner Focus on the Beer. He’s come for a sneak peek of some yet-to-be-released beers (thank you, yes, I would like to tag along). While I’ve come to buy us dinner and explore the new New Mexican eats — to find out about Jeff and Brian’s prowess outside the brewhouse and in the kitchen. We know full well they can make beer with the best of ‘em, but can they cook worth a damn?

We’re about to follow Johnny Cash’s finger in the mural image above and find out.

Birria beef ramen.

“We should have done this 25 years ago,” says Brian, “But we were into beer… We used to have common ground between us and Airman (Paradox’s former brewer/blender and widely beloved, Springs-area beer community member). We’d talk about foods, and come up with great beer recipes based on building flavor profiles. We’d talk acidity, umami and stuff like that. This is why this is so natural for us.”

“Our food sales are through the roof so far,” says Jeff. “And we’ve seen new faces coming in since January.” That’s when they first released Gallos Borrachos fares.

As Ryan explains in his Focus on the Beer post:

Since the pandemic, Paradox added a new brewer in Jeff Hanson, who previously brewed at Green Flash and Brickway Brewery in Nebraska, which has allowed Brian and Jeff (Aragon) to step away from the brewing production side of things almost entirely to focus on other aspects of the business, most notably their new in-house menu dubbed Gallos Borrachos. In my opinion, stepping into the kitchen seems to have reinvigorated their passion for Paradox, and it shows both in the food and beer offerings.

“We’re proud of our little kitchen,” says Brian, noting that food trucks had been increasingly unreliable, often no-showing at the last minute and leaving taproom patrons bereft of beer bites. (That said, they are still regularly hosting Holy Pizza on the weekends and the guys tell me the natural sourdough crust is phenomenal — I’m anxious to get back up to try it.)

Though little, the kitchen benefits from a smoker outside that can handle 500 pounds of meat at a time. (Brian hopes to introduce “ranch-to-table” offerings in 2024, as he’s raising his own cows on land in Teller County.) The partners smoke with hickory and cherry woods typically, staying away from anything like mesquite that would impart too much dominating flavor. “We want the smoke to be second place behind the chile flavors,” says Brian. “Each chile has its own note.”

If you’re new to living in this area — and didn’t dine at Mira Sol when it was around, or haven’t yet tried places like La Rosa or Salsa Latina — you may not yet understand the cultural importance of chile peppers to New Mexicans. I would believe it if someone told me they don’t use pacifiers on their infants, but the ends of Hatch chilies instead. Who needs baby toys when you have chile ristras to shake about?

New Mexican cuisine is chile focused, blending Spanish, Mexican and Native American traditions with modern Anglo influences to create a merry melting pot with a steady smolder.

So anyway, yes, there’s huge focus on chile flavors inherent to Gallos Borrachos’ menu. The primary player is the New Mexico red chile, but Guajillo chiles show up, as do ancho, chile de árbol and limited habanero when some brightness is needed to offset some of the beloved earthiness under all the spiciness. Things get plenty hot here; you’ve been warned. (Or lured…)

The brewer/chefs put New Mexico chiles in just about everything, from marinades to sauces to salsas — hell, there’s even a faint smolder of New Mexico red chiles baked into their house chocolate bread pudding, which also gets a red chile powder dusting for garnish. We’ll get to that.

Mitigate heat and pair perfectly with Paradox’s La Fiesta Mexican-style lager.

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Suffice to say, as we discuss over our tasting, New Mexican food has its own distinct style that differentiates it from broader Mexican food as most Americans know it. Again, it’s chile focused, but essentially blends Spanish, Mexican and Native American culinary traditions with more modern Anglo influences to create a merry melting pot with a steady smolder.

Gallos Borrachos’ menu probably best illustrates that with its selection of five tacos, which come three to an order on authentic and exceptional, Denver-made Raquelitas Tortillas for a very fair $9 to $10 in today’s economy, considering the quality.

For the carnitas, delicate and tender with charred edges as it should be, they rotisserie smoke pork shoulder for 18 hours after rubbing it with garlic and red chile. Those get a topping of cilantro, onion, crema with cool-toned avocado-tomatillo salsa verde and smokin’ salsa roja on the side with a lime wedge. Both sauces are excellent, pungent and well spiced with a fresh, piquant quality.

One way or the other, or both — quesabirria beef tacos or the birria beef ramen — you must get the guys’ birria. We can only compare it to some other stalwarts in town, like the Tepex and Moctezuma Mexican Grill food trucks (click those links for my past, recent reviews), and as we consume them both gleefully, we think they might just take top honors were they to battle it out in a professionally judged food fight.

From start to finish making the birria’s a two-day process. It begins with primal cut shoulder that they carve into three-inch-think segments — Brian shows me photos on his phone of loaded baking pans. Those brine for six hours in a salt-sugar-New Mexico red chile bath with a “secret seasoning blend” then see smoke for a couple hours before an 18-hour braising. Garlic, ancho and Guajillo chiles and onions swimming in La Fiesta Mexican Lager compose the braising liquid. Post-cook, they’ll pick out the seasonings and purée them and work that sauce back into the meat for comprehensive flavoring. The braising liquid of course contributes to the final consomé (served on the side of the taco for dipping, or as the ramen broth), which Jeff and Brian lace with big cinnamon and clove notes, not shy to show a heavy spice hand.

The tacos sear that meat into a layer of Monterey Jack cheese, which skirts on the grill around the tortilla edges as it caramelizes. The tacos’ crispness holds up through a quick consomé dunk and the cheese adds a round richness to the heartiness. The ramen sees industry-preferred Sun noodles, lots of the super-soft meat threads and a taco-type topping of cilantro and onion. Melted Monterey Jack Cheese awaits on the cup’s bottom for a reverse French onion soup effect, wherein final sips bring chewy treats.

Quesabirria and carnitas tacos.

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On the tortas portion of the menu, you can also find a Beer-ria Torta but we passed this over to try the Borracho Burger instead. It’s a half-pound of smoked beef with American cheese — perhaps the only thing I’d sub out because I’m seldom a fan; I’d probably lean Monterey Jack again, or something else. Then comes a “special Borracho sauce” made with beer, seasoned tomato paste and of course, chiles. Next a fantastic bacon-onion-green chile jam that’s sharp/sweet for flavor contrast. And all the tortas come on a toasted pub roll (more awkward to eat than a typical bun but they do cut it in two and serve it like a gyro, foil wrapped) with a side of tortilla chips, salsa roja and smoked jalapeño.

For wings aficionados, Gallos Borrachos offers a pound of smoked wings for $14.95. They’re beer and chile brined, brushed with garlic butter periodically as they smoke, and served naked with commercial dip options like ranch, blue cheese, buffalo or Thai chile. I enjoy them just as they are, without those overpowering sauces. Paradox’s Logic Bomb, a Saaz dry-hopped Foeder farmhouse ale (described more in-depth by Ryan here), makes for a nice palate reset between the earlier spicy eats and these more subtle chicken pieces. And in a way, with its dry, semi sour tartness, the beer’s like a sauce pairing of its own.

Our whole spread, a medley of meaty spice, smoke and smooth sipping beers.

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You might think with such a dedicated production around the savory menu that Brian and Jeff would phone-in some pre-made desserts off a food supplier’s truck. But no, they don’t fumble at the finish line to break their magic spell. Instead, they benefit from the longterm friendship of longtime employee Carol White. She’s a lovely Manitoid who once owned the Manitou Bakery, and she's a fabulous dessert maker who once helped stock Adam’s Mountain Cafe’s kitchen with fine sweets. Adam’s owner Farley McDonough tells me people still ask for White’s jalapeño cheese bread, and that she’s “a baking legend in Manitou with the old guard.”

Taste and ye shall believe.

For Paradox, White has made a beyond-damn-impressive coconut-lime cheesecake with a walnut-graham cracker crust and coconut cream garnish that gets plated over a bed of shredded, toasted coconut. The brewers tell me the whole place smells like a slice of heaven each time she bakes off the coconut in the oven. (I’d drive for that, and a beer.) I eat past a sense of fullness just because I have no restraint to not do so. The coconut commands it.

Then comes her bread pudding with chocolate, Mexican cinnamon and New Mexican red chile plus a caramel sauce and whipped cream dusted with more cinnamon, cocoa and red chile powder. With the spice element, tasteful in its moderation, plus the cinnamon infusion, it totally evokes eating a churro, but with a brownie undertone due to the chocolate. It’s lavish, and leagues above typical bread pudding which I usually eschew because paying for reconstituted and overly sweetened stale bread makes me feel like ChumpSauce McGhee. But not here.

I’m gonna post both dessert photos here, full size, so you can see how pretty they are. (Credit here to Ryan for bringing along his SLR and rightfully scolding me that I should have brought mine instead of being lazy with my damn phone camera.)

Before we wrap up our evening, I ask Brian and Jeff about what’s next, as they mentioned to me they’ll keep tweaking and maybe adding to the menu. They said they’re thinking of creating taco flights as an option, i.e. mixed styles instead of committing to three of each protein. And they’re pondering printing suggested beer pairings for each food item.

So, you know, it grows as it goes. Crescit eundo.

But for now, it’s plenty badass, with high-caliber eats joining the creative, celebrated drinks. Like Ryan, I’ve long been a fan of Paradox’s work. But now I have a new reason to remember to make time to get up Ute pass, to relax and imbibe — and now, eat.