Salt Lake City is not your usual location to find much “Beer Appreciation”. Considering that Salt Lake is about 50% Mormon – and Mormon’s don’t drink alcohol, and they dominate the state government and local leadership. On the other hand, Salt Lake and it’s surroundings have become a huge tourist attraction for outdoors enthusiasts from all over the country- particularly skiers.
Roha in the great Utah outdoors
The town is growing fast – Salt Lake City is currently growing at a rate of about 1.5% annually and its population has increased by about 7.5% since 2020 – becoming one of America’s fastest growing tech, business and banking hubs. So there are now flocks of young professionals with disposable income, and many are not refraining from alcohol. It’s an unusual mix of factors that support the more than 15 craft breweries within the city limits alone. In my five night visit in late February I was able to get to 10 of them, and it was a great, unique beer experience.
I learned that there are some very specific Utah brewery rules, and you do need to understand them. All breweries (that are not classified as “restaurants”) have an ID station at the door, and everyone that enters must first be carded and scanned before entry – as if you just walk in and sit down, they will send you back to the station to check you in (your ID is scanned). If the brewery is considered a “restaurant” (one example was “Desert Edge Brewery” located in the Trolley Square mall) you don’t get scanned at the door, but you cannot drink beer at the bar without ordering some food. There are convenient bar bites like chips and salsa made easily available to meet that requirement.
No Need to list the ABV
More over, all drafts must be 5% alcohol by volume (ABV) or less – such that in many breweries the ABV isn’t even shown on the beer lists. This means that IPA’s and other typically stronger beers are restricted down to 5%, and typically lower alcohol beer styles like Mexican Lagers and Kolsch’s are often “amped up” to 5% as well. But lovers of the more potent brews are usually OK – as the breweries can sell their canned beer of any strength at the bar, and the ABV content of these so called “High Point” beers is very noticeably advertised. (In grocery stores beer displays include signs that say “Notice Alcohol Content”. ) In most cases the 5% usual drafts and the high point cans are listed on separate signs in the breweries themselves.
As they say, “necessity is the mother of invention” and so SLC brewers are trying their darnedest to create interesting and varied 5% IPA’s along with other styles, with somewhat mixed results. I enjoyed most of them, but many of the hoppier styles tasted pretty similar – in particular the hazy ones, but for me the lagers were some of the cleanest and finest brews I’ve had. One brewery, with somewhat of a national reputation is “Epic” who specializes in barrel aged stouts called “Big Bad Baptist” that can get to near 15% ABV. They have no taps in their taproom at all.
Welcome to Hopkins Brewery
We started out at what I thought was “Wasatch Brewery” but it turned out that Wasatch and another very popular local brewery “Squatters” were sold to the beverage company “Monster” (known primarily for energy drinks) in 2022. Monster kept the brand and recipes, and the largest facility, and then sold off the smaller locations. The one I visited in the “Sugartown” area of town was in the process of rebranding itself as “Salt Lake City Brewing” – “We still have the brewers, we are going to be alright” the barkeep told me. (Monster later announced in April that they were shuttering the Wasatch/Squatters facilities in Salt Lake completely). Such as it is in today’s volatile world of craft beer consolidation and downsizing.
I talked to the bartenders about what it’s like to ply their trade in SLC and most shared a feeling of “big brother-like” scrutiny. Outside of the checking ID’s and the 5% limits, the bartenders themselves can’t even taste their own drinks – even the straw pull. They can’t give beers away, as they say they will get fired. One told me “They are watching” – and pointed to a camera on the wall. “The alcohol laws are are written by people that have never drank alcohol” they lamented.
Maybe it’s because of the underlying tension over alcohol, but craft beer in Utah seemed to me to be sort of “edgy” again, kind of like it
Come to the mountains at Fisher
used to be in the rest of the country in the 1980’s. In most of the country today drinking craft beer is considered to be sort of an old fashioned habit of boomers and older Gen-Xers, but in SLC it’s still a bit “special” today, and the scene is pretty competitive. As I visited the local breweries, I noticed that many of them had very different approaches and “vibes” from their locations to decor and the crowd.
Enjoy Big Foam at Templin Family
Wasatch/Salt Lake was a new clean and shiny business lunch spot, while Hopkins Brewing and Proper were smaller more pub-like tap rooms.Then there’s Fisher Brewing– reborn from an original Salt Lake brand from the late 1800’s (later absorbed by a larger brewery during the the 1960’s). Fisher’s offers the beer appreciator a spectacular view of the mountains from its rooftop, and serve beers at two separate bars inside their attractively rehabbed indoor/outdoor factory building site. They several diverse beer styles, and from what I tasted, it all was very good.
High West and German Lager
Also of note was the Templin Family Brewery, called “TF Brewing”, established in 2018 in what is now a glittering jewel of a tap room, with chrome, stone and wood – with a large and bright bar and copious seating at tables and couches. According to their website Templin describes themselves as: “We are deeply rooted in a reverence for the German way of making beer: brewing with fresh, high-quality ingredients; slow pours, and big foam”. You can bet I had a “milko” pour when I was there made from their fine Helles lager – big foam indeed. To my complete delight they also had some custom made High West blended whiskeys only available at their brewery (they explain that the High West people worked for Templin at one point, and so made special batches from hand picked barrels). While kind of expensive, a dram of “American Prairie” aged in brandy barrels at $25 was a tasty accompaniment to their crisp german lagers.
Where do those in Salt Lake who can’t drink alcohol go for a cold beverage? They go to high-end family-friendly soda fountains like “Swig” and “Rocket Fizz” where “soda mixologists” put together custom blends of soda’s, syrups, fruit and sometimes even cream, to make entertaining and pretty tasty fountain creations. For the those of the Latter Day Saints, alcohol and caffeine is off limits, but sugar definitely is not.
I highly recommend a visit to Salt Lake City, it’s a beautiful and interesting town, with a great and accessible craft beer scene. There certainly are contrasts – from the frontier small town feel to the shiny skyscrapers downtown, the mountains and the views, and the drinking restrictions. But that is part of what makes the SLC experience unique, and you might want to make a point of checking it out, as it’s growing fast and as they say times “they are a changin’”. They don’t call it the “Austin of Utah” for nothing.
There’s Proper Beer in Salt Lake City
