Turtle Mountain turns biggest challenge into major accomplishment

We figured there would be some interesting answers to our three questions for the current edition of the Look Back/Look Ahead Series. We did not figure that the first two questions about a brewery’s biggest challenge and biggest accomplishment would produce the same answer. Leave it to Turtle Mountain Brewing owner Nico Ortiz to pull…

The Week Ahead in Beer: TMBC strikes with Thunderbolt

A little while back, myself and Franz Solo went over to Turtle Mountain North on a brew day for a Belgian-style tripel. He had helped in the recipe construction along with members of the Worthogs homebrew club. The TMBC brew team handled the hard work, and it all went smoothly. Well, now they are releasing…

Turtle Mountain finishes brewery move and prepares to fire it up

The move is complete, the construction dust is out the door, and now only a few finishing touches remain before Turtle Mountain can fire up the brewhouse again and start churning out Hopshell IPA and Wooden Teeth lager again. I caught up with owner Nico Ortiz and head brewer David Pacheco last week to tour…

Fate of the Fests: Brewery staff members discuss future of off-site events

The times, they are a changing, particularly when it comes to off-site beer festivals. We picked up on it pretty easily just by attending events around Albuquerque this year. The 2022 enthusiasm for the return of festivals was pretty obviously tilted towards the beer drinkers, and not the beer producers. It was an aberration, right?…

Bear Fest roars again at Boxing Bear’s Firestone location

While one big beer festival did not return for this Memorial Day weekend, another is back in full force as Bear Fest will once again take over the back parking lot at Boxing Bear’s Firestone taproom and brewery. The event runs from noon to 6 p.m. this Saturday, featuring five guest breweries and one distillery,…