Danny Dines: Turtle Mountain Brewing Company

Turtle Mountain Brewing Company is a staple of the Rio Rancho community, and certainly holds a special place in my heart. I was at Turtle Mountain back in 2012 when Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos. Anyone else praying for a Chiefs loss this weekend?

Over the years, I’ve gotten countless submissions to check out Turtle Mountain; “nick3lbackforever2034” messaged me four separate times about Turtle Mountain. I love Nickelback, too, my guy!

“It’s a very fulfilling feeling, and it’s also nice to know that ... we are doing right because people keep coming back,” Turtle Mountain manager Josiah Mahboub said. “Turtle Mountain is a unique place.”

For those who don’t know, the name “Turtle Mountain” is the Tewa name for Sandia Peak and honors owner Nico Ortiz’ father, Alfonso Ortiz, whose Native American name was “Okú-Pín,” which translates to Turtle Mountain.

Awesome name, and a visit was long overdue. I hopped in my brother’s 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse and headed out to Rio Rancho’s favorite brewery. The Eclipse is a manual transmission, and my brother still hasn’t learned how to drive it. If you need lessons, reach out Rio Rancho.

I chose to go to the North location in Enchanted Hills because I wanted to read my favorite book at The HUB afterward, which is “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.”

Turtle Mountain’s menu consists of oak-fired pizzas, appetizers, salads, sandwiches, pub favorites, burgers and desserts. Most of their menu items even have cool New Mexican names like the Adam Bomb pizza, the Manzano calzone, the Mesilla Mac ‘n’ Cheese, and the Santa Fe Shrimp Tacos. By the way, all are delicious.

They also brew some amazing beers. My favorite beers, when I am not working, are the Widespread Haze East Coast IPA and Hopshell IPA. I’m currently in my IPA phase, which pairs nicely with my crocs, fanny pack and yearly rock climbing membership.

After consultation with my wonderful server, I decided to order the cheesy bread, the Ship Rock pizza and, for dessert, their Badlands Brownie Sundae.

“The staple though, if you ever come to Turtle Mountain, you should always start with a pizza. It’s a wood-fire oven pizza. It’s fantastic, crispy, dinner style, bar crust,” Mahboub said. “The more people come out, the more they want to try one of our 70 different menu items. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s really up there. The fish ‘n’ chips, and especially at this location, we have a Monte Cristo.”

Their Monte Cristo sandwich has turkey, ham and Swiss inside beer-battered sourdough bread. The sandwich is then dusted with powdered sugar and served with a side raspberry compote.

It took about three minutes before my cheesy bread came out, and it was garlicky, crunchy and buttery. It was woodfire-melted mozzarella on a Milano roll served with a side of marinara. By the way, have you noticed that food with butter tastes a million times better than food without butter? The more you know.

Next came the Ship Rock pizza, which has marinara, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, mozzarella and oregano. The pizza had a phenomenal undercarriage, balance of ingredients, and a cracker-like crunchy crust. It was smokey, savory and had a fantastic cheese pull.

Finally, came the Badlands Brownie Sundae, which is their signature warm chocolate chip brownie, three scoops of vanilla ice cream, pecan, and it is all drizzled with caramel and chocolate sauce. It was gooey, chocolatey, sweet and so decadent. This is arguably the best dessert in Rio Rancho, and I’d put it in the same conversation as the Banana Fried Ice Cream from Viet Rice and the Churro Donuts from Slice & Dice.

All my experiences at Turtle Mountain have been met with excellent service, delicious food and cold beer. If you have never been to Turtle Mountain, shoot me an email, and we’ll go.