New Beer Friday 3/6/26

Happy New Beer Friday, Friends! Well, our overlords' annual boot-on-the-neck, book-burning jamboree is ending this evening. Here are some of the things that may affect your adult beverage life. 

Lawmakers have introduced House Bill 597, an alcohol-amendments package that would adjust multiple aspects of Utah’s liquor laws:

• It would ease some proximity restrictions so that hotel bars/restaurants could be allowed closer to parks under local authority approval — a notable change from existing limits.

• It would increase penalties for those caught buying alcohol for minors (making this a class A misdemeanor even without knowing the minor’s age).

• It would relax some carding rules — potentially rolling back the strict requirement that restaurants card patrons over 35.

• It would give the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) more discretion on license decisions and update how food sales are calculated for restaurant liquor licenses.

• It also would remove certain restrictions on ID-scanning devices and adopt a cash-rounding policy for liquor purchases (to address the end of pennies).
  This bill has been introduced and referred to committee but hasn’t become law yet (as of this writing).

A bill titled HB601 was also introduced early in the session, described as “Flavored Alcohol Amendments.” Details aren’t widely publicized yet, but the title suggests it could address regulations around flavored alcohol products (e.g., definitions, labeling, or sale rules).

On the lighter, entertainment side of adult beverage life, Heber Valley Brewing is back in the Radio Pub. Owner/Head Brewer Clint Jones is stopping by to fill the Beer Nerd in on what's happening at the Wasatch County brewpub. Listen in at 2pm every Friday on 99.9fm KUAA. 

Kiitos - The Bliss: This new limited batch NZ IPA uses a product called Hop Kief. It's a highly concentrated, liquid product that was created using cryogenic technology to extract lupulin. It's used post-fermentation to provide a "juicy" profile, improve beer yield, and enhance shelf life. This uses Nelson Sauvin Hop Kief. It has a blast of strawberry/melon/ guava and grape. Holy shit! Such an enjoyable beer let alone IPA. Mikey Likey! 5.0% - on draft at Kiitos.

Uinta - Coffee Black Lager: Some heavy coffee roast, or so it seems. There’s also some green pepper which denotes a lighter roast. Nice coffee aroma. slight ashy taste, with a somewhat hoppy bitter finish. I wanna love it but its somewhat one dimensional. 5.0% - Only on draft at Uinta. 

Heber Valley - Kuma: This new Extra Stout features a wonderful blend of roasted malts bringing flavors of coffee, dark chocolate, toffee, along with fruity esters from fermentation. Hopped with noble hops to bring a balanced earthy/floral aroma. Less hoppy and bitter than American Stouts. 7.1% We will be doing live sensory on this stout this afternoon on Beer Nerd Radio.  

Prodigy - True Blue Scottish Ale: Aromas of roasted malt, toffee, and dark fruit lead into a smooth, full-bodied profile layered with caramel sweetness, raisin, and a subtly smokey roast. This beauty has a clean finish, low bitterness, and is endlessly drinkable. 5.0% - Only at Prodigy.

Saltfire - Codex Pils: Grainy malt bill with nice cracker-like toastiness. Hops take hold with a nice herbal zip that's tasty and crisp. 5.0% - Available at Saltfire.

Top Of Main - Dew Drop Hazy IPA: A juicy, full-bodied hazy IPA with bright notes of mango, pineapple, peach, and citrus. Soft and smooth with low bitterness, letting the tropical hop character shine while the higher 8.2% ABV stays surprisingly easy-drinking! 

 Returning Favorites  

Grid City - Extra Pale Ale: This one had t been around for a minute. So when the Bat, errr “Beer Signal”, went up. I had to come! This features Cryo-Citra and Cryo-Mosaic wtith some Lupomax. Ah, citrus nose. Same with the swig, but with some strawberry and pineapple. Great malt profile too. Mikey Likey! 6.6% - Available at Grid City.

Cheers!

New Beer Friday 2/27/26

Mom knows best! A glass of New Beer Friday has a full weekend supply of vitamin squee! It just what grow'd up boys and girls need. Cheers and have a great end of February.

Jimmy Brown of Fiddler's is in the Radio Pub this afternoon on KUAA. Fiddler's Elbow is an SLC institution! We'll get into the history and what's new at one of our favorite Sugar House haunts. Hit us up at 2pm today (Friday). KUAAfm.org/ 

Fisher - Nine Years of Nectar: Happy No. 9 to the Fisher team! To celebrate this milestone Fisher created this special Nectaron hopped IPA. It has a stone fruit nose with some herbal hops. Taste follows with nice round peach followed by zest and herbal/grass hops. Firm bitterness rounds it out. The finish is hoppy and lingering. Alcohol is well hidden. 6.5% - Available at Fisher now.

Fisher - Hopsicle: Light aroma, some citrus. From there all the swigs are tangerine forward. A nice brisk tasting pale ale. Finish has a bit of orange along with a pinch of that famous Citra onion flavor. 5.0% Available at Fisher.

RoHa - 222 Sunshine IPA: This Amarillo, Centennial & Citra hop IPA is full of what you’d expect: grapefruit, grass & a hint of pineapple. The malts are nice & toasty with light malt sweetness. The end is dry with a light amount of lingering bitterness. 7.2% - Available today at RoHa.: 

Offset -  So Out It's In: This version is referred to as "Wet Hop West Coast IPA". So, how is it possible to have a Wet Hop beer in February? Well the fine folks at Yakima Chief Hops figured out how to flash freeze wet hops just off the bine and then run them through their super cold Cryo pelletizing line. They store them frozen and sent them to Offset via overnight delivery on dry ice so they could be put into the brew as soon as they arrived.

This beer features a ton of Simcoe, Columbus, and Mosaic in the kettle and whirlpool in order to lay that resinous WC IPA backbone. Then it was heavily dry hopped with cryo-fresh Citra, Krush, and Mosaic. The result is a dry, bitter, WCIPA with explosive aromatics. Lots of sweet melon and berry notes abound with some citrus and plenty of sticky dankness from the Mosaic. Does it tastes exactly like the fresh hop beers offered during Hop Harvest every year? Not quite, but it's not far off. 7.0% Available at Offset now in cans to-go, and to enjoy onsite.

Home Range - Sobremesa: This oak-aged Botanical Saison has some locally grown botanicals: lemon balm, sage and juniper berries. Brewed with Home Range's unique Saison culture and aged in one of their two oak foeders. This lovely beer starts with light herbal notes on the nose, followed by earthy, herbal, sweet lemon flavors. Ends with a nice white pepper finish and warm gin-like character. 6.7% - Only available at Home Range.

Level Crossing - Broken Knee ESB: Missed this traditional English ESB. 5.0% Only on draft at Level Crossing at The Post. 

Shades - First Crush: This cranberry lime sour ale is bright with tart cranberry and lime zest. Lactose rounds it all out with creamy sweetness taking the edge off of the tartness from the cranberries and lime. This looks to be a contract brew and doesn't appear to be made with Shades' trusted Kveik yeast. 6.5% - Available only at DABS stores for now.

If you're curious about what's happening with Shades, here's what I know from my brief correspondence with Trent Fargher, Co-owner of Shades. Shades Brewing is on hold, until a judge rules in their case (which should be soon), construction on their new Evanston, WY brewery is on hold due to the litigation as well. Shades on State is still open, however you may also be aware that their former space on 300 w. in SLC is now the Engine Room Bar Pub and Bistro. It's unclear if Shades will reopen a Utah brewpub, even if the courts decide in their favor. Any thoughts?   

Here are this week's Small Batch beers from Hopkins Brewing.

Cheers!

New Beer Friday 2/20/26

Forget about what the competition is doing, focus on the task at hand! New Beer Friday is offering up some gold medal brews perfect for these wintry days. 

HomeBrewtah, Utah's newest Home-brew competition is in the Radio Pub this afternoon. Head Honcho, Kelsey Booth will be joining Steph and Mikey as we help to primed for the coming home-brew battle. 2pm today on 99.9fm KUAA. KUAAfm.org/  

Proper - White Out: This new white stout pours very clear, an almost roasty coffee aroma. Toasty at first. Coffee comes in next with some medium roast character. It’s pretty ambiguous, but if I had a blindfold on, I’d say this was an English brown ale. Which, is solid praise. The tough part of “white stouts”, is that they’re either just that, a white stout? or a cream ale with coffee. It’s up to you to decide on which one it is I guess. 5.0% - Available at Proper downtown.

Grid City - Sentence Series: Blueberry (Coffee, Madagascar Vanilla Infused Nitro Honey Cream Ale): This is not the beer they made a few years back. This version has coffee added. Mostly coffee/vanilla nose. Same flavorwise. More coffee with some blueberry. Finishes with coffee and vanilla. 5.0% - Available at Grid City.   

Top Of Main - TNT (Tangerine and Terpenes): Built on a crisp blonde ale base, this one is all about bright citrus and dialed in aroma. The brewers used tangerine juice and a Tropical Grapefruit-T1 terpene blend to push fresh orange oil, grapefruit zest, and light resin notes without cranking up the bitterness. At 4.0%, it stays light, clean, and seriously refreshing. Avaiable at Top of Main and Squatters Roadhouse Grill in Park City only.

Cheers!