Imbibe 75 Person to Watch: Averie Swanson

Averie Swanson is one of the most respected brewers of mixed-fermentation beer in the country, yet she’s never had a brick-and-mortar location to call her own. That’s about to change later this year when her brewery, Keeping Together, opens a taproom on the south side of Santa Fe. It’s the next phase in a professional arc for Swanson, whose star began to rise when she became head brewer at Austin’s Jester King Brewery in 2016, and continued when she launched Keeping Together in 2019 from borrowed space inside Chicago’s Half Acre Beer Co. Fans have been able to find Swanson’s creations in Chicago and at various festivals and events, but Keeping Together beers demand a dedicated place.

Swanson is a conjurer of worlds: Her beers invite drinkers into her memories and associations, incorporating ingredients like pears, chaat masala, wine grapes, peach leaves, and roasted chestnuts to evoke particular moments and draw associations. Not being able to present those beers to guests in an intentional space that she’s designed, Swanson says, has felt incomplete. “My brewing is about trying to synthesize my memories to communicate that to another person,” Swanson says. “So if this space could create dialogue, that’s the hope.”

Swanson is working with Denver-based architect Kaci Taylor to convert the greenhouse of a former plant nursery into an indoor-outdoor, four-season beer garden. She promises lots of light, air, and mirrors to help create “introspective and reflective moments” for guests. “I want the space to be comfortable and inclusive and open. I want people to be able to really see themselves in the space,” Swanson says. Keeping Together makes beers under the tagline: “Thoughtful beers for an ecstatic reality.” Finally, Swanson will be able to share her vision of reality with the people who love her beer, face to face, over a bottle, as she’s always intended.