Stoutmeister

Turtle Mountain’s new brewer prepares for some big changes

Back during the holiday hustle and bustle, I sat down with Turtle Mountain owner Nico Ortiz and talked about his plans for his soon-to-be-15-year-old brewery in 2014. One thing he mentioned was a desire to push the beer forward to a level that could compete with metro area heavyweights like La Cumbre, Il Vicino, and…

Nexus moves closer to selecting second location

While I was over at Nexus to talk to new head brewer Kaylynn McKnight (the full interview will be posted Friday), I also chatted with owner Ken Carson about Kaylynn’s hiring and another rumor that had been passed along to the Crew. We had been told that Nexus was close to settling on a location…

Chama River’s new brewer intends to make his own mark

The last few weeks have seen a slew of movement among brewers in the Albuquerque metro area. It has also seen a lot of high school basketball state tournament games, so yours truly was a tad busy when it came to tracking down all those brewer moves. Fear not, for now I have a week…

La Cumbre’s Project Dank ranked No. 1 IPA in all the land

The good folks over at Brewing News have been holding their own version of March Madness for the last seven years, pitting the best IPAs across the country against each other in a tournament that started with around 30 entrants and now has 128. As our headline states, the 2014 champion is La Cumbre’s wildly…

Irish Red Challenge: The champion still reigns

The Crew, well half of us, gathered last year a week after St. Patrick’s Day to select the best Irish Red Ale that was being poured in the ABQ metro area. There were three of us choosing among just four reds, so it worked as basically a scaled-down version of our annual Super Bowl Stout…

Beer Notes: Irish Red challenge, brewer shuffle, and more

Dear lord have I had my fill of high school basketball. It’s not over until Saturday, but I’m ready to be done. The good news is I’ve made money for beer! (and other expenses, but hey, priorities) Anyway, didn’t mean to neglect the site or the current wealth of news, but a man only has…

Spring into beer at Taos Ski Valley

The good folks up at the Taos Ski Valley know there is more to life than just skiing and snowboarding. There is beer, and it is good, and it brings people to the valley even after the snow melts. To celebrate the change of seasons, the Taos Ski Valley is playing host to the Spring…

Beer Notes: Local brewers play musical chairs

It has been a slow news week on the beer front, as you all have no doubt noticed from our lack of fresh content on the site. Now, part of this is due to the fact that there are a lot of rumors about brewers moving about that we have either not confirmed or we…

And now the rest of us indulged at The Stumbling Steer

For those who follow us on Facebook, you probably noticed we had a bit of a loopy little weekend. Brandon turns 30 today (Monday), so in advance there were many shenanigans. For me, personally, the highlight was the old-school “drinking in the parking lot” moment that mixed with our now high standards for beer (yup,…

Los Alamos’ quest for its own brewery needs support

Though there is always the possibility that one may exist elsewhere in America, the Los Alamos Beer Cooperative is the first of its kind in New Mexico. Quietly, this co-op effort is seeking to open the first brewery in Los Alamos, with a reported target date of this fall. Of course, hoping to open a…