Beer Bar & Epic Collaboration Beer

The info given on the whiskey barrel for the following beer is  wrong. It's my fault for not double checking my source. My apologies. Buffalo Trace is the maker of the whiskey and barrel. 

Bfeen to Bar X lately? If you have you may have noticed that they love whiskey - Bourbons in particular. Bar X's owners love Bourbons so much that they often travel to various noted distilleries around the country selecting specific barrels that they can call their own. 

Last year Bar X/Beer Bar co-owners  Duncan Burell and Richard Noel traveled to the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky where they make Bulleit Bourbon. There, the two sampled multiple barrels of the high rye content whiskey until they found some that "spoke to them". The distillery customized labels for Bar X packaged the bottles and sent the whiskey and the spent barrels to Salt Lake City. Those barrel are the heart of this story.

Spent Bourbon barrels are a hot commodity right now. A decade ago their best use was to become garden planters or artsy-fartsy coffee tables. Today they fetch top dollar so that breweries can age their barleywines, stouts or "whatever" in them. Rich and Duncan - who are also huge beer fans, did the math and searched out a local brewery to fill their empty barrels. Epic Brewing Co. was their final choice.

A local version of Epic's famed Big Bad Baptist was chosen to fill the Bulleit Barrels. Made with coffee from SLC's Blue Copper Coffee, the barrels created a special 1-off batch of Big Bad Baptist that will be exclusive to Beer Bar. Now comes the fun part.

This evening, Beer Bar will be having a release party from 6:00 - 8:00pm. Epic and Blue Copper will be there to talk about and answer any questions about the coffee/beer and there will be free samples of Blue Copper's cold brew that was used in the beer. Beer Bar will be selling 6 and 8oz. pours of the Baptist along with samples of the exclusive Bar-X Bulleit Bourbon.

Coffee, Bourbon and Beer? I think this will be a good day.

Cheers!

Bar X Closes

If your fond of glass tankards of 3.2 Bud & peanuts I have some very sad news for you. Bar X one of Salt lake City's most infamous dive bars will be closing it's doors tomorrow (7/9/10).

Building owner Gary Tedesco, whose grandfather Feno opened the bar near the end of prohibition has decided not renew the lease to current Bar X owner Charmayne Clingman and the bar is to be no more.

The influx of full service bars with microbrews and hard liquor make for a tough sell, when looking for other locations for a tavern that serves up bowls of peanuts and nothing stronger than 3.2 Budweiser

One of the things that made Bar X so infamous over it's long tenure downtown was it's "No Women Allowed Policy". In 1986, a judge ruled that anti-discrimination statutes applied to clubs. The owner at the time, Mayne Clingman, was so angry he refused to install a women’s restroom until forced by the state Health Department.

Charmayne, his daughter and namesake, contends the addition of a women’s room had more to do with the demolition of the kitchen, which provided enough room for a single stall and a wash basin.

Still, former longtime bartender Clyde Triptow, who worked into his 80s, often ignored women who happened in for a beer. That pugnacious stance didn’t get him into trouble with his boss. Mayne Clingman didn’t care much for women customers either, said current bartender Lynda Anderson.

He supposedly thought women would steal the Bar X’s thick tankards, one of its main measures of fame. Over the years, many a man downed icy cold beer poured into the thermos-like glasses.

If you'd like to say goodbye or visit a piece of local history one last time, Bar X is located at 155 E. 200 South in downtown SLC.

And a reminder that tonight is Erica Palmer's last night tending bar at the Bayou. Go in and send her off right.

Cheers!

Source: Salt Lake Tribune/ Photos courtesy Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune.