Support Your Local Brewers

When I discovered last year that our local beer fest was in danger of going away, I was curious about what would be required to take the helm and try to resurrect Brewers Festival. Well let me tell you, it takes a lot. They require a strong commitment and a lot of time. From high costs to staffing, security, permits, toilets, etc; it can be a huge undertaking.

That being said, I'm sooo glad that local beer champion Greg Reid had the time and desire to shoulder the burdens. So, to thank Greg for a thankless job, get you asses out to the Gallivan Center Oct 6th and support you local breweries; While helping out the Tracy Aviary.

The event features live entertainment, food as well as celebrating Utah's award winning craft beer industry. All of Utah’s micro-breweries are invited, each offering three of their finest beers. Participants are encouraged to ask the brewery’s questions and to experience the varied blends and creations. Something that has been missing in recent years is the return of the commemorative refillable mug for participants 21 and older. As usual each Brewers tent will only accept script tickets. These can be purchased near the food tents for a dollar per ticket(I assume).

Red Rock, Rocks

At our state and county fairs the are no competitions for beers and brewing. I get it. That's how the predominant culture wants it, and I expect no change anytime soon. However, many other states do allow home and commercial brewers to compete at state & county fairs. California is one of those states.

I was surprised to find that Red Rock Brewing Company entered some of their beers at the 2007 Los Angeles County Fair Commercial Beer Competition, the country’s largest annual county fair. Red Rock left Los Angeles with a gold medal for its Nut Brown Ale in the American Style Brown Ale category; a silver medal for Red Rock Organic Zwickel Bier (an organic pilsner); and a bronze medal in the Rye Ale competition for Red Rock Roggen Rock. Not bad considering some of the best breweries in the world are located in Cali. Hopefully they'll offer some of these at the Utah Brewers Fest and The Great American Beer festival next month. Congrats Red Rock crew!

Utah Brewers Festival

Last month someone asked me when the Utah Brewers Festival was going to be held, I embarrassingly said it was on indefinite hiatus. Well, apparently the hiatus is over. Jamie Burnham: Manager at the Beer Nut, kindly informed me that the elusive, somewhat annual, local beer soiree is on.

The Utah Brewers Festival will be held on Saturday Oct. 6th from 11am to 10pm featuring breweries from all over the state. Tickets are $8.00 in advance and $12.00 day of and can be purchased at participating breweries until October 5th.

Bad Taste

Any sane adult will agree that kids and alcohol don't mix. But sanity is a relative term on both sides of the alcohol argument. Is it sane to label a malt beverage so it looks like a typical energy drink? Probably not. Is it sane to regulate a product because of it's flavor content? Again, probably not. Well, if your from Utah or have ever spent any time here you know the sanity is a term that at best is controlled by the insane.

The argument here deals with the premise that the more palatable an alcoholic beverage is the more regulation it deserves. And should these "tasty" beverages be removed from the shelves of grocery and convenient stores and placed into the state's liquor agency to be taxed and sold as heavy beer (beer containing more that 4.0% abv). These restrictions would also make it illegal for taverns to sell them.

And how are these tea- totaling mensas going to differenciate between a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade and bottle of Wasatch's Raspberry Wheat Beer. The line is too God-Damn thin.

Utah's laws on beer, wine and liquor are beyond convoluted; and this attempt at fogging an already distorted landscape in a knee-jerk reaction to control a problem that may or may not exist, could easily be addressed by attentive store managers and 25 cent signs.

If the Attourney General has such a hard-on for helping the children, maybe he should start with alcohol education or involving himself with more serious teen related problems, like why 41% of high school student can't pass the state's math test.

The Great American Beer Festival

One of the best things about being a beer lover is the ability to enjoy a variety of flavors and styles that represent cultures and techniques from all over the world. In the coming weeks one of the best opportunities to sample some of the best and worst of America's Beers; as well as American interpretations on international styles makes it's annual return to Denver, Co.

If you've never been & truly love beer this is a must. For three days you can take-in what ever the American beer culture has to offer. From brewing techniques, to pairings, to cooking. The GABF has what your inner beer geek needs. Oh yeah and drinking beer.

The GABF runs from Thurs Oct 11th to the 13th. From Salt Lake, it's roughly a five to six hour drive with fairly cheap accommodations available. Tix start a t $45 per session.
GABF will serve over 1,600 beers (in one-ounce tasting portions) from 380 American breweries to the event's expected 40,000 attendees. The list of beers is the largest array of US beers ever gathered together in one setting.

Since our local beer fest has been nixed you really should take this opportunity to immerse yourself in beerdom. If you plan on attending drop us a line and let's try to hook up. Cheers!